Political arguments usually involve falsifiable factual claims which may or may not be wrong.
It’s possible that political differences are, at their core, really about values, but political debates are often more about fact rather than values, possibly because people might be embarrassed to publicly state their actual values and/or want to convince people with other values.
For instance, if you are in the upper class and don’t particularly care about the welfare of strangers, then it is probably in your best interest to advocate for tax cuts funded by cuts of public expenses on things you are unlikely to benefit from, such as public healthcare. But of course very few people are going to openly claim that they want public healthcare cuts for their personal interest. They will argue that the taxation level is so high that it stifles economy, that public healthcare is inefficient, that it creates “death panels”, etc. Factual claims are made to justify a policy as serving the public interest.
Political arguments usually involve falsifiable factual claims which may or may not be wrong.
It’s possible that political differences are, at their core, really about values, but political debates are often more about fact rather than values, possibly because people might be embarrassed to publicly state their actual values and/or want to convince people with other values.
For instance, if you are in the upper class and don’t particularly care about the welfare of strangers, then it is probably in your best interest to advocate for tax cuts funded by cuts of public expenses on things you are unlikely to benefit from, such as public healthcare.
But of course very few people are going to openly claim that they want public healthcare cuts for their personal interest. They will argue that the taxation level is so high that it stifles economy, that public healthcare is inefficient, that it creates “death panels”, etc.
Factual claims are made to justify a policy as serving the public interest.