To what extent would you abandon your principles?

It all depends on the job. I’ve been doing a job for 10 years that I don’t exactly want to do.. but sometimes its just about paying the bills.

Money?

Principles? What principles?

These sound more like serious preferences then principles. Principles are more associated with character, and integrity then favorites or least likes. For instance, I hate ludifisk but my best friend’s fiance is serving it for thanksgiving, what do I do when I’m there for dinner? Or I want to work with people that are actively engaged with community service. Which is a principle and which is a preference. Community service is part of some one’s honor system, integrity and or principles. The matter is more based on the why then the what. Why do you dislike MSNBC or Liverpool football? Because they sport the color yellow (for instance, I’m sure it’s something else) or because of what the team supports such as hunting the near endangered synoptic nerve (again, for example).

So you’re saying that a huge pharmaceutical company is the reason I get a salary and I hate big pharma? Yah, that’s what I’m doing right now. I balance it against the fact that I am able to help hundreds of cancer patients get treatment. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do it.

@Kato Preferences and principles, I think I am referring to.
The Liverpool example qualifies more as a preference, @Kato, I think you are right about that.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I am not saying anything, I am merely asking something.
The question formed in my head after I was thinking what I would do if I was a journalist with liberal views and I was offered a job at the Evangalical Broadcast Company in Holland.
I think I would decline the job, although I am not sure because I haven’t been in the situation before and not a journalist.

I don’t consider the examples that you used principles. I would just consider them preferences.

It would depend on other circumstances for me. How long has I been out of work. How desperate for money was I. As for the soccer team example, I would play for them if it was my only offer.

Never. All you have is your integrity in this world, lose that and you’re nothing, no matter the material gain.

It would depend on the circumstances. I will forever have the image of the old hookers someone posted in a story recently about a prositution ring bust at an Elks Club or somewhere or other. I would hope and pray to God that I’m never that desperate. On any side of the story, police officers, hookers or people using the hookers.

But in the instance of the MSNBC job, I would like to think I would still keep my integrity and be able to look myself in the mirror in the mornings…while I waited for my driver.

@bkcunningham
Old hookers at the Elks Club? OMG! hahaha

The OP is more about rationalizing not getting a preference.
Abandoning a principle is much more serious.
For example, if I had an affair, it would be breaking my marriage vows, but really just rationalizing a preference to stay true. Natalie Portman has that effect on me.
If my wife had an affair, well obviously she abandoned her principles.

I kind of feel like I’m in this position right now. I’ve been looking for a steady job for a while now, and I finally have a promising offer. But the issue is that I’d be doing work for a very large pharmaceutical company. Anyone who knows me knows that I despise what the pharmaceutical industry has become, along with most prescription medication in general. Although I wouldn’t normally abandon my principles and essentially support something I’m against, I need the income and will be accepting the job if it’s offered.
So, I guess I could say that I’d only abandon my principles if I absolutely needed to.

I have to ask why you bothered to apply to at Exxon Mobile if you hate the oil industry? Methinks thou doth protest too much. If your “principles” were serious, you’d never be in this situation.

I once applied for some jobs in the oil industry even though part of my past life had been working for citizens organizations that sought to make the oil industry’s behavior a little more citizen-friendly. The common argument is that you can make more change from the inside.

I never told anyone about my past, but not a single one offered me a job. My feeling was that they could see right through me and they knew who I really was.