But I believe it involves specific human beings and not abstract principles.

I reprobate no form of government merely upon abstract principles.

Instead of trying to follow abstract principles, people should try to be "authentic."

Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly, as an abstract principle.

But how to put that abstract principle to work in a politically charged environment is far from clear.

It offers not the abstract principle, but the mess of common practice.

Look, I'm not trying to make pronouncements about abstract political principles.

But morality in combat is not just an abstract principle.

Yet the debate matters because nations and civilizations, like individuals, do not live by abstract principles.

They do not want a Commission to interfere in this for the sake of an abstract principle.