Cognition

Principle Theory

Human beings are infinitely complex creatures. Beliefs, emotions, identities, behaviors, and moral positions branch outward in seemingly uncountable ways. Yet beneath this complexity lies a simpler architecture. Human mindsets are not random, nor are they constructed from endless emotions. They are often guided by a small number of foundational orientations that determine what matters, what is worth preserving, and what justifies action.

Principle Theory, a theory I have created, proposes that every stable mindset is guided by a limited set of primary motivational principles, expressed through a set of capacities, and constrained by circumstance. Differences in worldview, personality, morality, and behavior emerge not from entirely different motivations, but from different combinations, priorities, and intensities of these same underlying elements.

The theory offers a way to understand why people act as they do, what sustains their actions, and where psychological stability or instability tend to arise.

Overview

At its core, Principle Theory rests on three layers:

1. Principles: These define what an individual is oriented towards. They generate direction, value, and justification.

2. Capacities: These define how effectively principles are expressed. They amplify, constrain, or distort action without providing direction on their own.

3. Circumstances: External conditions that shape outcomes independent of oneself.

This entry discusses the first two layers.

Principles

Primary principles are enduring orientations that determine what feels meaningful, what feels wrong, and what feels worth sustaining over time. A mindset may be governed by one dominant principle or by several in tension, but it is rarely governed by none.

Authenticity

Authenticity is faithfulness to internal identity.

It is the orientation towards internal coherence: alignment between belief, value, perception, and action. Authenticity is concerned with self consistency and can often justify selfish action. When dominant, it produces a strong concern for sincerity, autonomy, and personal truth. Actions feel justified when they accurately reflect who one believes oneself to be.

When Authenticity is frustrated, individuals experience alienation, fragmentation, or impostorhood. When overemphasized, it can become rigidity, egocentricity, or rejection of external reality in favor of selfishness alone. Authenticity governs identity maintenance. It is concerned less with outcomes and more with integrity.

In practice, Authenticity is a continuous internal recalibration process. Individuals guided strongly by Authenticity continually compare their actions, affiliations, and expressed beliefs against an internal model of who they believe they are. Discomfort arises less from external failure and more from perceived self betrayal. This is why Authenticity driven individuals often tolerate failure, social friction, or isolation more readily than hypocrisy.

Externally, Authenticity often appears as nonconformity, bluntness, or principled resistance. Such individuals may be misinterpreted as uncompromisingly selfish or inflexible, particularly when their internal identity conflicts with social expectation. However, this same orientation is responsible for long term consistency of character and the ability to maintain and grow identity across changing contexts.

Authenticity is indispensable because identity coherence is psychologically stabilizing. Without it, individuals become fragmented, adopting roles, values, and behaviors opportunistically, which may increase short term adaptability, but erodes long term self trust and satisfaction. Authenticity provides the internal anchor against which all other principles are negotiated.

Empathy

Empathy is attunement to others’ inner states.

It is the orientation towards understanding and resonating with the emotional and psychological experiences of others. Empathy generates morality, sensitivity to harm, unfairness, and suffering by making those states internally important. Actions feel justified when they reduce distress or acknowledge another’s perspective.

When Empathy is blocked or overwhelmed, individuals may disengage emotionally or adopt abstraction as a defense. When overextended, it can lead to emotional exhaustion, boundary erosion, or paralysis in the face of competing needs. Empathy governs perception of others as subjects rather than objects.

Empathy functions as an internal simulation generator. By reconstructing the emotional and psychological states of others, it allows an individual to anticipate reactions, recognize harm before it occurs, and regulate behavior in social systems. Internally, this manifests as emotional resonance: another’s distress becomes important even when it carries no direct consequence.

Externally, Empathy is the foundation of cooperation, trust, and social repair. It allows individuals to de-escalate conflict, negotiate expectations, and maintain group cohesion. However, because Empathy imports external states into the self, it is psychologically and emotionally costly. Prolonged empathic engagement without boundaries often leads to burnout rather than virtue.

Empathy is critical because human beings are interdependent. Without Empathy, others become abstract entities, and moral consideration collapses into calculation. With it, moral systems arise naturally, but only if balanced by other principles that preserve the self.

Love

Love is valuation of others as intrinsically meaningful.

Where Empathy is attunement, Love is commitment. It assigns inherent worth to specific people or beings, independent of utility, agreement, or reciprocity. Love generates loyalty, sacrifice, and protection. Actions feel justified when they preserve or honor what is loved.

Love can exist without Empathy, and Empathy can exist without Love, but together they form the foundation of most prosocial moral systems. When Love is obstructed, individuals may become guarded or transactional. When it becomes exclusive or absolute, it can justify harm to outsiders in the name of preservation. Love governs moral attachment.

Love introduces selectivity into moral valuation. Where Empathy generalizes, Love focuses. It allows individuals to prioritize specific people, ideals, or entities above abstract fairness or personal consistency. This is why Love is capable of motivating extreme sacrifice where Empathy alone cannot.

Internally, Love stabilizes attachment and provides emotional grounding. Externally, it produces loyalty, protection, and persistence even under adverse conditions. Love is what sustains families, long term partnerships, and cause-based commitments when circumstances degrade.

Love is important because it creates moral continuity across time and adversity. However, its selectivity is also its danger: when Love overrides Empathy and Peace entirely, it narrows moral concern and can justify exclusion or violence. Love must therefore coexist with other principles to remain constructive.

Peace

Peace is the desire for equilibrium and/or absence of disturbance.

It is the orientation toward stability, calm, and continuity. Peace resists disruption, conflict, and volatility. Actions feel justified when they reduce tension, restore balance, or maintain order.

Peace is often mistaken for passivity, but it is better understood as conservatism of state. It preserves what already exists and resists forces that threaten current equilibrium. This makes Peace compatible with harmony, but also capable of opposing growth, justice, or change when those require disruption.

When Peace is blocked, individuals experience continuous agitation or caution. When overemphasized, Peace becomes avoidance, rigidity, suppression, or stagnation. Peace governs tolerance for disruption.

Peace also governs an individual’s relationship to change. Internally, it manifests as a preference for predictability and emotional steadiness. Peace oriented individuals experience disruption not merely as an inconvenience, but as a threat to psychological stability.

Externally, Peace expresses itself in conflict avoidance, compromise, rule following, and maintenance of order. Peace oriented systems excel at stability and longevity, but often struggle with necessary reform. This is why Peace frequently comes into tension with Purpose and Authenticity when growth demands change.

Peace is essential because constant disruption is unsustainable. Without Peace, individuals and systems burn resources reacting to volatility. With too much Peace, stagnation reigns. Peace defines the acceptable rate of change.

Purpose

Purpose is sustained orientation towards a meaningful aim.

Purpose is complex and much more subjective than the other principles, but in general, it provides continuity. It links present action to future significance and justifies endurance, effort, and sacrifice across time. Actions feel justified when they serve or advance the aim towards which one is oriented.

Purpose is not synonymous with motivation. It can sustain individuals through suffering, but its absence or fracture is one of the primary sources of psychological distress. Apathy, insecurity, anxiety, bitterness, and depression, among many other negative states, frequently emerge when Purpose is void, conflicted, or repeatedly denied.

When Purpose is imposed externally, individuals may comply while internally disengaging. When Purpose becomes absolute and uncontrolled, it can absorb other principles entirely. Purpose is what justifies the journey even when it is tough. Purpose governs endurance and meaning.

Purpose operates across time in a way no other principle does. Internally, it organizes effort by providing a reason to endure difficulty now for significance later. It converts suffering from meaningless pain into investment.

Externally, Purpose shapes life structure: careers, disciplines, commitments, and long term strategies are all expressions of Purpose. Individuals with clear Purpose often appear resilient not because they suffer less, but because suffering is contextualized and, well, serves a purpose.

Purpose is vital because human cognition is future oriented. When Purpose collapses, effort becomes unjustifiable and the capacity for long term endurance erodes. Conversely, when Purpose becomes absolute and uncontrolled, it can consume identity, override empathy, and rationalize harm. Purpose gives direction, but requires constraint.

Capacities

Capacities do not generate motivation. They determine whether, how, and to what extent principles can be and are expressed. A capacity can amplify any principle, regardless of its content.

Agency

Agency is the perceived capacity to initiate action and influence outcomes. It is the choice to act.

Agency is not power, nor is it freedom. It is the subjective belief that one’s actions matter, that circumstances possess the ability to be changed through one’s actions. Agency determines whether principles activate behavior at all.

Low Agency produces paralysis, resignation, and learned helplessness even in the presence of strong principles. High Agency produces control seeking behaviors and intolerance of limitations. Distorted Agency incorrectly attributes causality, either inward or outward. Agency governs initiation.

Agency determines whether psychological energy translates into action. Internally, it is the felt permission to act: the belief that one is not merely reacting to forces, but participating with said forces and choosing to act in advance because of them. It is the belief that one gets a say and has some control over how things unfold. This makes Agency uniquely essential, as even strong principles and capacities remain inert without Agency.

Externally, Agency appears as initiative, decisiveness, and resistance to passivity. Societies, institutions, and relationships that undermine Agency tend to produce compliance without engagement. Over time, this erodes Purpose and Authenticity simultaneously.

Agency is indispensable because belief without action is psychologically destabilizing. Humans require evidence that intention combined with action can alter reality. When that evidence ceases to exist, motivation collapses regardless of principle.

Intelligence

Intelligence is optimization through understanding. It determines how exactly one decides to act.

It governs pattern recognition, abstraction, prediction, and strategic adjustment. Intelligence refines how principles are pursued but does not define why they are pursued. It can serve any principle equally well.

Low Intelligence produces blunt or reactive pursual of principles. High Intelligence leads to overanalysis, justification without commitment, or treating principles as variables rather than obligations. Intelligence without guiding principles becomes optimization without actual value. Intelligence without Agency remains unused. Intelligence governs efficiency and precision.

Intelligence also governs adaptation. Internally, it manifests as modeling, prediction, and revision. Intelligent individuals adjust strategies when feedback contradicts expectation. This allows principles to be pursued more efficiently and with fewer unintended consequences. As a result, it also indirectly demands humility.

Externally, Intelligence is visible in planning, innovation, and problem solving. However, because Intelligence optimizes rather than directs, it can just as easily serve destructive aims as constructive ones. Intelligence exclusively amplifies potential impact, regardless of intention, morality, or purpose.

Intelligence is essential because reality is complex. Without it, principles are enacted recklessly and often counterproductively. With it, principles become scalable as long as other principles constrain its application.

Strength

Strength is the capacity to impose will. It is the action.

Strength may be physical, social, psychological, institutional, or many other things. It determines how forcefully an individual can and will act upon themselves, others, or the environment. Like Intelligence, it is morally neutral in isolation.

Low Strength constrains aspiration to intention without effective action. High Strength amplifies impulse, ego, and/or fear, becomes coercive and destabilizing, and overwhelms agency. Strength without constraint becomes domination. Strength without direction becomes volatility. Strength without Agency remains unused. Strength governs impact.

Strength defines the boundary between intention and effect. Internally, it includes discipline, emotional resilience, and the ability to override impulse. Externally, it includes authority, resources, influence, and force.

Strength is often mistaken for dominance alone, but its internal form is equally as important. An individual may lack external power yet possess strong internal Strength, enabling consistent action despite adversity. Conversely, external Strength without internal control leads to volatility.

Strength matters because intent without force is easily nullified, if it is ever produced to begin with. However, force without direction becomes destructive. Strength multiplies consequence, for better or for worse.

Courage

Courage is the willingness to endure cost. It determines how much consequence one is willing to endure after action.

Courage defines how much risk, discomfort, or suffering an individual will tolerate in pursuit of a principle. It does not determine which costs are worth paying, only whether the cost itself is a deterrent.

Without Courage, principles remain aspirational. With excessive or untempered Courage, individuals may pursue principles recklessly, ignoring consequence or proportionality. Courage governs endurance under pressure.

Courage determines the price ceiling of action. Internally, it governs fear tolerance and risk assessment. Courageous individuals do not lack fear, but they accept it as a cost rather than quitting because of it.

Externally, Courage appears in boundary setting, confrontation, and persistence under pressure. It allows principles to survive opposition and enables action in uncertain situations.

Courage is necessary because meaningful action almost always generates a cost. Without Courage, principles collapse amid resistance and pressure. With unchecked Courage, cost becomes irrelevant, and harm becomes normalized. Courage sustains action but must be guided.

Principle Conflicts

Primary principles often do not exist in isolation. In practice, most psychologically meaningful states arise not from a single dominant principle, but from the tension between two or more principles that cannot be simultaneously satisfied. These conflicts are the normal operating condition of human psychology.

What follows is not an exhaustive list of all possible conflicts, but a broad description illustrating how principles tend to oppose, undermine, or constrain one another, regardless of capacity.

Authenticity vs Empathy

Identity vs consideration

This conflict arises when faithfulness to internal identity contradicts responsiveness to others’ emotional states. Authenticity driven action may feel necessary for self respect, while Empathy driven restraint may feel necessary to avoid harm.

Internally, this conflict often manifests as guilt, resentment, or self doubt. Externally, it appears as blunt honesty, boundary setting, or withdrawal that others experience as cold or selfish. This tension is common in situations involving truth telling, personal boundaries, drama, or moral dissent. Resolving it requires prioritization rather than synthesis: one cannot fully satisfy both simultaneously.

Authenticity vs Love

Integrity vs commitment

Love demands sacrifice for the sake of what is valued. Authenticity demands faithfulness to self. When these come into conflict, individuals feel torn between who they are and who they are expected to be for someone else.

Internally, this produces identity strain and fear of self erasure. Externally, it appears in relationship breakdowns, renegotiation of roles, or quiet resignation. This conflict is especially prevalent in long term relationships, caregiving, and familial obligations. It is one of the primary sources of moral exhaustion.

Authenticity vs Peace

Integrity vs stability

Authenticity often requires disruption: naming uncomfortable truths, rejecting norms, or altering life trajectory. Peace resists disruption in favor of equilibrium.

Internally, this conflict manifests as chronic discomfort: the sense that remaining stable requires living falsely, or that living truthfully will destabilize life. Externally, it appears as delayed change, suppressed dissent, or sudden fracture after long restraint. This tension defines many midlife crises and moral awakenings.

Authenticity vs Purpose

Identity vs trajectory

Purpose pulls the individual towards a future oriented aim. Authenticity anchors them to their present sense of self. When Purpose demands transformation, Authenticity resists sacrificing the self to do so.

Internally, this produces fear of self loss or impostorhood. Externally, it appears as hesitation, stalled progress, or rejection of opportunities that feel misaligned. This conflict often arises during major transitions: career changes, ideological shifts, or long term commitments.

Empathy vs Love

Fairness vs honor

Empathy broadens moral attention while Love narrows it. Empathy asks one to care about many. Love asks one to prioritize a few.

Internally, this conflict produces guilt, especially when protecting or favoring loved ones harms or neglects others. Externally, it appears in nepotism, favoritism, or moral justification of partiality. This tension is unavoidable in social systems and is not resolvable without loss.

Empathy vs Peace

Consideration vs stability

Empathy sensitizes individuals to suffering, which often demands intervention or change. Peace resists disruption even when harm persists.

Internally, this conflict manifests as discomfort with complicity or rationalization of inaction. Externally, it appears in bystander behavior, institutional inertia, or conflict avoidance in the face of injustice. This tension explains why awareness does not always lead to action.

Empathy vs Purpose

Consideration vs ambition

Purpose often requires delay, sacrifice, or temporary harm for future benefit. Empathy resists causing suffering in the present.

Internally, this conflict appears as moral hesitation or emotional overload. Externally, it manifests in leadership decisions, rationing, or necessary cruelty framed as “for the greater good.” This is a central tension in governance, medicine, and strategy.

Love vs Peace

Protection vs harmony

Love motivates defense and confrontation when what is valued is threatened. Peace prefers compromise or withdrawal to maintain equilibrium.

Internally, this conflict produces an impossible choice: to allow harm in order to preserve stability, or to disrupt stability in order to prevent harm. Externally, it appears in avoidance of confrontation until thresholds are crossed, often resulting in disproportionate reactions. This tension governs many cycles of suppression followed by eruption.

Love vs Purpose

Honor vs progress

Purpose may require leaving behind people, roles, or identities that Love seeks to preserve. Love resists becoming secondary to an abstract aim.

Internally, this conflict generates grief, guilt, or divided loyalty. Externally, it appears in abandonment, long distance separation, or chronic compromise. This tension often determines whether individuals choose meaning through ambition or meaning through attachment. This is one of the most significant decisions one can make, and I have an entire entry written about it. See Between Passions in Interpersonal Tensions for more details.

Peace vs Purpose

Stability vs progress

Peace preserves the present, Purpose demands movement towards the future. When Purpose requires upheaval, Peace becomes an obstacle.

Internally, this conflict manifests as fear of change or rationalization of stagnation. Externally, it appears in resistance to reform, innovation fatigue, or moral appeals to “keep things as they are,” or that things will “all work out for the best.” This is one of the most structurally powerful conflicts in the theory. If you’re curious, I’ve already written an entire entry on it, focused on the internal tension. See Peace Versus Potential in Intrapersonal Tensions for more details.

Inevitability

These conflicts are not flaws in the system, they are the system working as intended. Psychological tension indicates competing values attempting to coexist within finite constraints.

No principle is sufficient in isolation. Each corrects the blind spots of the others. Authenticity without Empathy becomes selfishness. Empathy without Purpose becomes exhaustion. Love without Peace becomes perpetual conflict. Peace without Love becomes indifference. Purpose without Authenticity becomes hollow compliance.

However, as you just witnessed, multiple present principles will compete for expression because they address different desires under limited time, energy, and information. A well balanced psyche is therefore not one without conflict, but one in which conflict is structured and understood.

Because principles address fundamentally incompatible demands, conflict is inevitable. Principle Theory does not aim to resolve these tensions permanently. It aims to make them visible, so that individuals and systems can understand which principles are in conflict, which are dominant, and which are being suppressed.

Clarity does not eliminate conflict. But it does prevent confusion from masquerading as fate.

Closing Perspective

Principle Theory does not claim that human psychology is simple. It claims that complexity emerges from combination. Mindsets differ because principles conflict, capacities vary, and circumstances constrain, but the underlying components still remain few.

Understanding these components does not remove uncertainty, suffering, or ambiguity. It does, however, clarify where those tensions arise and why they persist.

The aim of the theory is not to reduce humanity, but to make it legible.