I don't exactly disagree but you're upping the subtlety a bit. You're arguing that people should not regard certain things as terminal values when making political decisions, things which I think in fact they do regard that way. But if I get to dress my sockpuppets up a bit I can have them say, "Fine, I agree that I'll be a good utilitarian and try to maximize population happiness over time - but I think the long-term benefits of nationalism/integrationism clearly outweigh the marginal effects of short-term economic developments." Then someone could argue against that point - and we would almost certainly have improved the political discourse. But the people with the original elaborate analyses of short-term economic effects would still have been just as wrong in their claimed superiority.
In any case, the general point I wanted to make can certainly be made in a formally correct way as long as you don't insist that every rational intelligent being must have the same utility function.
In any case, the general point I wanted to make can certainly be made in a formally correct way as long as you don't insist that every rational intelligent being must have the same utility function.
Certainly, when there is a genuine disagreement in utility functions, it is not reasonable to claim one's own terminal values as privileged (in debate, that is; it is reasonable to personally act on one's own values), but this does not apply when one's stated values are not their terminal values. And it is reasonable to question whether this is so, to try to distinguish the two cases.
A currently existing social norm basically says that everyone has the right to an opinion on anything, no matter how little they happen to know about the subject.
But what if we had a social norm saying that by default, people do not have the right to an opinion on anything? To earn such a right, they ought to have familiarized themselves on the topic. The familiarization wouldn't necessarily have to be anything very deep, but on the topic of e.g. controversial political issues, they'd have to have read at least a few books' worth of material discussing the question (preferrably material from both sides of the political fence). In scientific questions where one needed more advanced knowledge, you ought to at least have studied the field somewhat. Extensive personal experience on a subject would also be a way to become qualified, even if you hadn't studied the issue academically.
The purpose of this would be to enforce epistemic hygiene. Conversations on things such as public policy are frequently overwhelmed by loud declarations of opinion from people who, quite honestly, don't know anything on the subject they have a strong opinion on. If we had in place a social norm demanding an adequate amount of background knowledge on the topic before anyone voiced an opinion they expected to be taken seriously, the signal/noise ratio might be somewhat improved. This kind of a social norm does seem to already be somewhat in place in many scientific communities, but it'd do good to spread it to the general public.
At the same time, there are several caveats. As I am myself a strong advocate on freedom of speech, I find it important to note that this must remain a *social* norm, not a government-advocated one or anything that is in any way codified into law. Also, the standards must not be set *too* high - even amateurs should be able to engage in the conversation, provided that they know at least the basics. Likewise, one must be careful that the principle isn't abused, with "you don't have a right to have an opinion on this" being a generic argument used to dismiss any opposing claims.