No, I think people can be persuaded on terminal values, although to an extent that modifies my response above; rationality will tell you that certain values are more likely to conflict, and noticing internal contradictions—pitting two vales against each other—is one way to convince someone to alter—or just adjust the relative worth of—their terminal values.
Due to the complexity of social reality I don’t think you are going to find too many with beliefs that are perfectly consistent; that is, any mainstream political affiliations is unlikely to be a shinning paragon of coherance and logical progression built upon core principles relative to its competitors.
But demonstrate with examples if I’m wrong.
If you can persuade someone to alter (not merely ignore) a value they believe to have been terminal, that’s good evidence that it wasn’t a terminal value.
This is only true if you think humans actually hold coherent values that are internally designated as “terminal” or “instrumental”. Humans only ever even designate statements as terminal values once you introduce them to the concept.
To clarify, I suspect most neurotypical humans may possess features of ethical development which map reasonably well to the notion of terminal values, although we don’t know their details (if we did, we’d be most of the way to solving ethics) or the extent to which they’re shared. I also believe that almost everyone who professes some particular terminal (fundamental, immutable) value is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that these not infrequently change.
No, I think people can be persuaded on terminal values, although to an extent that modifies my response above; rationality will tell you that certain values are more likely to conflict, and noticing internal contradictions—pitting two vales against each other—is one way to convince someone to alter—or just adjust the relative worth of—their terminal values. Due to the complexity of social reality I don’t think you are going to find too many with beliefs that are perfectly consistent; that is, any mainstream political affiliations is unlikely to be a shinning paragon of coherance and logical progression built upon core principles relative to its competitors. But demonstrate with examples if I’m wrong.
If you can persuade someone to alter (not merely ignore) a value they believe to have been terminal, that’s good evidence that it wasn’t a terminal value.
This is only true if you think humans actually hold coherent values that are internally designated as “terminal” or “instrumental”. Humans only ever even designate statements as terminal values once you introduce them to the concept.
I don’t think we disagree.
To clarify, I suspect most neurotypical humans may possess features of ethical development which map reasonably well to the notion of terminal values, although we don’t know their details (if we did, we’d be most of the way to solving ethics) or the extent to which they’re shared. I also believe that almost everyone who professes some particular terminal (fundamental, immutable) value is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that these not infrequently change.
If terminal values are definitionally immutable, than I used the wrong term.