These words are comparable when they indicate a point of view or conviction about a practical matter, usually one expressed in words. Stand and position both refer to definite, expressed convictions about single issues that are the focal points of disagreement, debate or controversy. Stand often implies an emotional commitment, although it does not exclude intellectual or rational grounds for one’s feeling: to take a strong stand in favour of amending the abortion law. Position implies a more dispassionate and restrained attitude, often one decided upon after lengthy deliberation.

• My position on civil liberties is sell known; He took the position that salvation depended upon good deeds as well as piety.

Policy implies a definite structure of decisions and programme for action based on an assessment of one’s needs, interests, goals or principles: The United States government follows a policy of containing Communism in South-East Asia. In less formal contexts policy may mean any general rule of conduct: It’s a bad policy to lend money to friends. Posture in recent years has come to mean policy in a formal sense: the defence posture of ANZUS. But posture may indicate also the actual disposition of forces: a military posture that embraced the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles at key places on the periphery of the Soviet Union. In its several implications, posture may include also the sense of attitude . Attitude is a more general term than the others here considered, and indicates a personal or institutional feeling, often unexpressed and vague in nature. In this it is at the other pole from policy , which represents a clearly formulated and precise enunciation of one’s view: The sympathetic attitude of the Cuban government to rebels in South and Central America has evolved, it is charged, into a policy of abetting and possibly fomenting insurrection in Latin American countries. Posture is therefore useful in suggesting a hardening of attitude without going so far as to imply a firm policy : the neutral posture of Britain in the Vietnam war; the belligerent posture of India towards the Chinese resulting from violent and unresolved border disputes.