Most of us, if we found that some of our values rested on confusions, would say those values had never been our true values. This is true not just of confusions about means-ends relationships but also of other confusions. So it’s unsafe to assume, the way people here often do, that if a disagreement seems on the surface to be about terminal values, it’s not up for rational debate.
Also, what one cares about is a different question from what one is concerned about; to me, “concern” about some value implies a claim that the degree of caring, combined with the practical details of the situation, makes it worth sometimes choosing the value over values that one would otherwise have pursued.
I agree and did not mean to suggest otherwise. I meant to suggest that if you remove the ‘rationalist’ from the question, it stays the same. If rationalists ‘should’ be concerned so ‘should’ non-rationalists.
Most of us, if we found that some of our values rested on confusions, would say those values had never been our true values. This is true not just of confusions about means-ends relationships but also of other confusions. So it’s unsafe to assume, the way people here often do, that if a disagreement seems on the surface to be about terminal values, it’s not up for rational debate.
Also, what one cares about is a different question from what one is concerned about; to me, “concern” about some value implies a claim that the degree of caring, combined with the practical details of the situation, makes it worth sometimes choosing the value over values that one would otherwise have pursued.
I agree and did not mean to suggest otherwise. I meant to suggest that if you remove the ‘rationalist’ from the question, it stays the same. If rationalists ‘should’ be concerned so ‘should’ non-rationalists.
I agree with that point.