This is the difference between simple epistemic rationality (having good arguments) and the virtue of actuzlly being a good negotiator (and ‘good’ encompasses both a narrowly instrumental and an ethical viewpoint, as you’ve learned. Norms of all sorts and at all scales tend to align incentives—who would’ve thought!). But to the extent that good negotiation skills lead to good consequences for oneself, being a good negotiator is rational in an instrumental sense. Politics is really just the real-world art of negotiation writ large, so this sort of instrumental rationality (what some people would perhaps call ‘the art of the deal’) is nearly as important there.
This is the difference between simple epistemic rationality (having good arguments) and the virtue of actuzlly being a good negotiator (and ‘good’ encompasses both a narrowly instrumental and an ethical viewpoint, as you’ve learned. Norms of all sorts and at all scales tend to align incentives—who would’ve thought!). But to the extent that good negotiation skills lead to good consequences for oneself, being a good negotiator is rational in an instrumental sense. Politics is really just the real-world art of negotiation writ large, so this sort of instrumental rationality (what some people would perhaps call ‘the art of the deal’) is nearly as important there.