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RichardKennaway comments on Rationality quotes: May 2010 - Less Wrong
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"This is the first test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him."
-- William Lyon Phelps
This seems impossible. If you respect those who "can be of no possible value" to you, and this causes others to hold you in higher regard, and if the esteem of others confers any value to you, then those you respected were valuable to you in that way.
It might be more accurately rephrased as "can confer no interpersonal advantage on him."
Or perhaps ". . . no possible worth to him other than the satisfaction of having upheld his values."
Therefore, gentlemen are irrational. QED.
Only if niceness, or the welfare of others, or any of the many possible reasons to value people you don't find personally useful, are irrational terminal values.
Yes - but the original quote said "of no possible value", not "of no possible use". :)
I thought values were arational?
Exactly.