I took your essay as trying to make a meta-ethical point about "terminal values" and how using the term with an incoherent definition causes confusion in the debate. Parallel to when you said if we interact with an unshielded utility, it's over, we've committed a type error. If that was not your intent, then I've misunderstood the essay.

Oops, it wasn't really about how we use terms or anything. I'm trying to communicate that we are not as morally wise as we sometimes pretend to be, or think we are. That Moral Philosophy is an unsolved problem, and we don't even have a good idea how to solve it (unlike, say physics, where it's unsolved, but the problem is understood).

This is in preparation for some other posts on the subject, the next of which will be posted tonight or soon.