Via Negativa – Omission/Removal/Avoidance of Harm

In many systems, improvement is at best, or at times only, a result of removing bad elements rather than of adding good elements. This is a credo built into the modern medical profession: First, do no harm. Similarly, if one has a group of children behaving badly, removal of the instigator is often much more effective than any form of punishment meted out to the whole group.

Shane Parrish's Farnam Street Mental Model Guide