If you say being a "principled" defender of X only commits you to having some principle Y which causes you to defend X, then how could someone even be a non-principled defender of X? All defenders of X either defend X because of the principle X, or because of a different principle or set of principles Y. Clearly, if you defend X because …
If you say being a "principled" defender of X only commits you to having some principle Y which causes you to defend X, then how could someone even be a non-principled defender of X? All defenders of X either defend X because of the principle X, or because of a different principle or set of principles Y. Clearly, if you defend X because of the principle X, you are said to defend X "in principle," while if you defend X because of an alternative principle Y, you are said to defend X "not in principle."
An objection to this would be that someone might defend X because of Y where Y is self-interest or flipping a coin. So a "principled" defender of X commits you to having some non-random moral principle, X or Y, on which you defend X. But I think my description above better matches common usage.
For example, I think it is totally fair to say utilitarians have "no principled objection" to slavery. I suppose they do have *a* principled objection, but the principle on which they object is not slavery itself, which is obviously what the statement, "you have no principled objection to slavery," is actually supposed to convey.
Maybe the semantics are boring or irrelevant, but the implications are not. When you say "there’s little reason for non-theorists to care about this further, purely theoretical matter," I think this is incorrect. Using the given example of free speech, most people on earth do not, in fact, think that free speech norms are "more conducive to moral progress and overall well-being than any realistic alternative." So whether you support free speech on utilitarian or deontological grounds will alter your support of free speech, should you become convinced of the majority-held view.
In general, I think saying it doesn't matter whether you support X on instrumental or non-instrumental grounds is incorrect when the instrumental value of X is controversial.
It's very common for people to make unprincipled appeals to free speech, i.e. just when it is advantageous to "their side". That they are "unprincipled" about it is revealed by the fact that they won't defend the free speech of people they disagree with.
On the further implications: it's true that the grounds of one's support for X will influence *what you'd have to change your mind about* in order to cease supporting X. But I don't know that there's any particular reason to expect instrumentally-based support to be noticeably less robust (or more likely to be subsequently abandoned) than non-instrumentally-based support.
Compare: most people on earth do not, in fact, think that there are non-instrumental reasons to support free speech. So whether you support free speech on instrumental or non-instrumental grounds will alter your support of free speech, should you become convinced of the majority-held view *about the lack of an adequate non-instrumental basis*.
I guess if you thought it was normatively overdetermined -- that there were *both* instrumental and non-instrumental reasons -- that would be the *most* robust position, least susceptible to being overturned by later changes of mind. But I still don't think there's *much* reason for most people to care about any of this, because I expect *either* basis is sufficiently robust in practice. It seems very rare (as far as I can tell) for people to change their minds about these sorts of things.
If you say being a "principled" defender of X only commits you to having some principle Y which causes you to defend X, then how could someone even be a non-principled defender of X? All defenders of X either defend X because of the principle X, or because of a different principle or set of principles Y. Clearly, if you defend X because of the principle X, you are said to defend X "in principle," while if you defend X because of an alternative principle Y, you are said to defend X "not in principle."
An objection to this would be that someone might defend X because of Y where Y is self-interest or flipping a coin. So a "principled" defender of X commits you to having some non-random moral principle, X or Y, on which you defend X. But I think my description above better matches common usage.
For example, I think it is totally fair to say utilitarians have "no principled objection" to slavery. I suppose they do have *a* principled objection, but the principle on which they object is not slavery itself, which is obviously what the statement, "you have no principled objection to slavery," is actually supposed to convey.
Maybe the semantics are boring or irrelevant, but the implications are not. When you say "there’s little reason for non-theorists to care about this further, purely theoretical matter," I think this is incorrect. Using the given example of free speech, most people on earth do not, in fact, think that free speech norms are "more conducive to moral progress and overall well-being than any realistic alternative." So whether you support free speech on utilitarian or deontological grounds will alter your support of free speech, should you become convinced of the majority-held view.
In general, I think saying it doesn't matter whether you support X on instrumental or non-instrumental grounds is incorrect when the instrumental value of X is controversial.
It's very common for people to make unprincipled appeals to free speech, i.e. just when it is advantageous to "their side". That they are "unprincipled" about it is revealed by the fact that they won't defend the free speech of people they disagree with.
On the further implications: it's true that the grounds of one's support for X will influence *what you'd have to change your mind about* in order to cease supporting X. But I don't know that there's any particular reason to expect instrumentally-based support to be noticeably less robust (or more likely to be subsequently abandoned) than non-instrumentally-based support.
Compare: most people on earth do not, in fact, think that there are non-instrumental reasons to support free speech. So whether you support free speech on instrumental or non-instrumental grounds will alter your support of free speech, should you become convinced of the majority-held view *about the lack of an adequate non-instrumental basis*.
I guess if you thought it was normatively overdetermined -- that there were *both* instrumental and non-instrumental reasons -- that would be the *most* robust position, least susceptible to being overturned by later changes of mind. But I still don't think there's *much* reason for most people to care about any of this, because I expect *either* basis is sufficiently robust in practice. It seems very rare (as far as I can tell) for people to change their minds about these sorts of things.