ABSTRACT
This chapter refines the relationships between moral propositions, making explicit what is barely implicit in everyday moral judgements. The method of doing this is the one common to all systematization, the seeking out of general principles, and the rendering of these principles consistent both with each other and with the particular facts which they claim to cover. Coherence of the general propositions is tested in two ways, one negative, the other positive. The first gives a weaker form of coherence, compatibility. The second gives a tighter form, implication. The positive method of testing coherence is, of course, more satisfying than the negative. For the positive test is not only foolproof against possible incompatibilities that might be found in the future. Accordance of principles with the facts is likewise subject to both a positive and a negative test, the tests of a hypothesis.
