Axioms and Principles Reinforced by Impression Management

 WHAT AXIOMS AND PRINCIPLES DOES THE IMPRESSION MANAGMENT REINFORCE?

Claude:

# Axioms and Principles Reinforced by Impression Management

## Core Axioms Reinforced

### Happiness and Control

- **Everyone wants happiness** - The system aims at removing unhappiness and creating positive feelings

- **Complete happiness is possible** - Achieved through correct impression management

- **Only beliefs and will are in our control** - Impressions fall under belief/judgment, making them controllable

### Source of Unhappiness

- **All unhappiness comes from desiring something and not getting it** - Refusing false value impressions eliminates inappropriate desires

- **Desiring externals leads to unhappiness** - Steps (a) and (c) directly address this by refusing external value claims

### Nature of Good and Evil

- **Only virtue is good, only vice is evil** - Steps (d) and (e) focus entirely on virtuous action and recognizing virtue achievement

- **Externals are neither good nor bad** - Steps (a) and (c) systematically reinforce this through refusal and reformulation

### Psychology of Desire and Action

- **Desires come from judgments about good and evil** - The system works by correcting these judgments at the impression level

- **Virtue consists of rational acts of will** - Step (d) formulates rational action propositions

- **Appropriate aims exist that aren't genuinely good** - Step (d) allows pursuing health, justice, truth-telling without calling them good

## Fundamental Principles Reinforced

### Discipline of Desire

- **Don't desire what you can't control** - Steps (a) and (c) systematically eliminate desires for externals

- **Value only virtue** - Steps (d) and (e) focus desire entirely on virtuous action

### Discipline of Action  

- **Act appropriately toward preferred indifferents** - Step (d) allows rational pursuit of health, knowledge, justice

- **The manner of pursuit matters, not the outcome** - Virtue lies in how you pursue appropriate aims, not whether you achieve them

### Discipline of Assent

- **Examine every impression before assenting** - The entire system is built on conscious evaluation of impressions

- **Refuse assent to false impressions** - Steps (a) and (b) are explicit refusal practices

- **Assent only to what is true** - Steps (c), (d), and (e) involve conscious assent to accurate impressions

## Meta-Principles

### Character Development

- **Repeated correct choices change character** - Step (f) shows how impression work transforms what naturally arises

- **Virtue becomes habitual through practice** - The system makes virtuous responses automatic over time

### Rational Agency

- **Humans are rational beings capable of evaluating impressions** - The entire method depends on this capacity

- **Freedom lies in the power of assent/refusal** - This is the only real choice the system recognizes

**The impression management system is essentially a practical method for living out these theoretical axioms moment by moment.**