  Crummell's notion depends on the existence of a set of fundamental principles. Deeply unsettled moral situations, in which competing considerations press on the choices actual individuals make, demand that the principled individual discern the moral signal in all the noise. His central idea is that reason cuts through to the principles themselves, even if moral and mental effort is required to get clarity about those principles. He takes providence to make that clarity and progress possible. Hence his view is less dependent on the unsettled nature of situations in producing the moral dialectic, and instead derives from the tracking of a fundamental principle.