your position on the divisive issues is not exactly identical to mine, but I very much doubt that I could sway your position or you could sway mine. Therefore, I’m pretty confident that at least one of us fails at rationality when thinking about these issues. On the other hand, if we were talking about math or computing, I’d be pretty confident that a correct argument would actually be recognized as correct and there would be no room for different “positions”. There is only one truth.
But there are many different values. If we can’t sway each other’s positions, that points to a value difference.
“Value difference” is often used as a cop-out. How did our terminal values come to be so different, anyway? If I’m extremely selfish and you’re extremely selfish, we will likely have very different values, but if we are both altruistic, our values are combinations of values of all the other people in the world, so they should be pretty similar. For example, if I think society should be organized like an anthill and you think it should be organized like a pool of sharks (to borrow Ken Binmore’s example), this is a factual disagreement about what would make everyone better off, not a value disagreement.
But there are many different values. If we can’t sway each other’s positions, that points to a value difference.
If only it was always so. Value is hard to see, so easy to rationalize.
“Value difference” is often used as a cop-out. How did our terminal values come to be so different, anyway? If I’m extremely selfish and you’re extremely selfish, we will likely have very different values, but if we are both altruistic, our values are combinations of values of all the other people in the world, so they should be pretty similar. For example, if I think society should be organized like an anthill and you think it should be organized like a pool of sharks (to borrow Ken Binmore’s example), this is a factual disagreement about what would make everyone better off, not a value disagreement.