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Emile comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm always a little suspicious of this line of thinking. Partly because the terminal/instrumental value division isn't very clean in humans -- since more deeply ingrained values are harder to break regardless of their centrality, and we don't have very good introspective access to value relationships, it's remarkably difficult to unambiguously nail down any terminal values in real people. Never mind figuring out where they differ. But more importantly, it's just too convenient: if you and your political enemies have different fundamental values, you've just managed to absolve yourself of any responsibility for argument. That's not connotationally the same as saying the people you disagree with are all evil mutants or hapless dupes, but it's functionally pretty damn close.
That doesn't prove it wrong, of course, but I do think it's grounds for caution.
How about different factions (landowners, truck drivers, soldiers, immigrants, etc.) all advocating their own interests? Doesn't that count as "different values"?
Or, more simply, I value myself and my family, you value yourself and your family, so we have dufferent values. Ideologies are just a more general and complicated form.
Well, it depends what you mean by values. I was mainly discussing Randy_M's comment that rationalism doesn't dictate terminal values; while different perspectives probably mean the evolution of different value systems even given identical hardwiring, that doesn't necessarily reflect different terminal values. Those don't reflect preferences but rather the algorithm by which preferences evolve; and self-interest is one module of that, not seven billion.