I see it as exactly the other way around: the only good reason to care about epistemic rationality is because it helps you be instrumentally rational. Obtaining accurate beliefs and then doing nothing with them is intellectual masturbation.
This too, is entirely compatible with my point. What rationality is, and why we care about it, are distinct questions.
Today's post, What Do We Mean By "Rationality"? was originally published on 16 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was 3 Levels of Rationality Verification, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.