I agree. I didn't mean to imply that principles aren't important - surely there must be some metric to judge progress against. Principles should hold in a gen

I agree. I didn't mean to imply that principles aren't important - surely there must be some metric to judge progress against. Principles should hold in a generalized, zoomed-out view of a society. But in practice, there are numerous exceptions and edge cases. Like, "maximize freedom" is generally a good rule but not always. I feel like the principles we come up with are just rough approximations of what we intuitively know but can't elegantly express. The true moral principle for society is probably a monstrous concatenation of if-else statements. If the zoom-out view of society still follows the principles, then I think that ought to be sufficient for its citizens' concerns about the society's effectiveness and direction.