I don’t see how it makes sense to reference nationalism or internationalism as terminal values. They are instrumental values, and their effects on a population’s happiness/fun/quality of life should be studied and discussed. There are other valid perspectives besides economics for evaluating the issue, such as the sense of community a system promotes, but when people state simply that they value a certain system as a terminal value, their only contribution is the anecdotal data about their own preference.
I think the analogy breaks down in that the utility of economic systems can be reduced to the utility of properties about people (the actual entities with values that could be represented by utility functions), which makes more sense than reducing the utility of reflected colors to the utility of the molecular structures that reflect those colors, rather than the utility of the effect of people perceiving those colors. (Of course, even the rock example can have problems, if the molecular structures have bigger impacts on people than perception of color, for example, if green rocks are toxic.)
I don’t exactly disagree but you’re upping the subtlety a bit. You’re arguing that people should not regard certain things as terminal values when making political decisions, things which I think in fact they do regard that way. But if I get to dress my sockpuppets up a bit I can have them say, “Fine, I agree that I’ll be a good utilitarian and try to maximize population happiness over time—but I think the long-term benefits of nationalism/integrationism clearly outweigh the marginal effects of short-term economic developments.” Then someone could argue against that point—and we would almost certainly have improved the political discourse. But the people with the original elaborate analyses of short-term economic effects would still have been just as wrong in their claimed superiority.
In any case, the general point I wanted to make can certainly be made in a formally correct way as long as you don’t insist that every rational intelligent being must have the same utility function.
In any case, the general point I wanted to make can certainly be made in a formally correct way as long as you don’t insist that every rational intelligent being must have the same utility function.
Certainly, when there is a genuine disagreement in utility functions, it is not reasonable to claim one’s own terminal values as privileged (in debate, that is; it is reasonable to personally act on one’s own values), but this does not apply when one’s stated values are not their terminal values. And it is reasonable to question whether this is so, to try to distinguish the two cases.
I don’t see how it makes sense to reference nationalism or internationalism as terminal values. They are instrumental values, and their effects on a population’s happiness/fun/quality of life should be studied and discussed. There are other valid perspectives besides economics for evaluating the issue, such as the sense of community a system promotes, but when people state simply that they value a certain system as a terminal value, their only contribution is the anecdotal data about their own preference.
I think the analogy breaks down in that the utility of economic systems can be reduced to the utility of properties about people (the actual entities with values that could be represented by utility functions), which makes more sense than reducing the utility of reflected colors to the utility of the molecular structures that reflect those colors, rather than the utility of the effect of people perceiving those colors. (Of course, even the rock example can have problems, if the molecular structures have bigger impacts on people than perception of color, for example, if green rocks are toxic.)
I don’t exactly disagree but you’re upping the subtlety a bit. You’re arguing that people should not regard certain things as terminal values when making political decisions, things which I think in fact they do regard that way. But if I get to dress my sockpuppets up a bit I can have them say, “Fine, I agree that I’ll be a good utilitarian and try to maximize population happiness over time—but I think the long-term benefits of nationalism/integrationism clearly outweigh the marginal effects of short-term economic developments.” Then someone could argue against that point—and we would almost certainly have improved the political discourse. But the people with the original elaborate analyses of short-term economic effects would still have been just as wrong in their claimed superiority.
In any case, the general point I wanted to make can certainly be made in a formally correct way as long as you don’t insist that every rational intelligent being must have the same utility function.
Certainly, when there is a genuine disagreement in utility functions, it is not reasonable to claim one’s own terminal values as privileged (in debate, that is; it is reasonable to personally act on one’s own values), but this does not apply when one’s stated values are not their terminal values. And it is reasonable to question whether this is so, to try to distinguish the two cases.