You don’t know your terminal goals in detail, whatever that should be. Instead, there is merely a powerful technique of working towards goals, which are not terminal goals, but guesses at what’s valuable, compared to alternative goals, alternative plans and outcomes implicit in them. Choosing among goals allows achieving more difficult outcomes than merely choosing among simpler actions where you can see the whole plan before it starts (you can’t plan a whole chess game in advance, can’t win it by an explicit plan that enumerates the moves, but you can win it by taking on the winning of a game as a goal). Attainment of some virtue is one possible goal, although there is no reason to privilege virtues above goals that are not about virtues.
Even for such goals, that are not terminal goals but something much simpler, playing the role of implicit plans, you won’t actually single-mindedly work towards them, not being an agent. Still, to the extent they are estimated to be valuable, you should; and to the extent that you are an agent, you can. This makes the virtue of being more like an agent, of being more strategic, a valuable goal.
You don’t know your terminal goals in detail, whatever that should be. Instead, there is merely a powerful technique of working towards goals, which are not terminal goals, but guesses at what’s valuable, compared to alternative goals, alternative plans and outcomes implicit in them. Choosing among goals allows achieving more difficult outcomes than merely choosing among simpler actions where you can see the whole plan before it starts (you can’t plan a whole chess game in advance, can’t win it by an explicit plan that enumerates the moves, but you can win it by taking on the winning of a game as a goal). Attainment of some virtue is one possible goal, although there is no reason to privilege virtues above goals that are not about virtues.
Even for such goals, that are not terminal goals but something much simpler, playing the role of implicit plans, you won’t actually single-mindedly work towards them, not being an agent. Still, to the extent they are estimated to be valuable, you should; and to the extent that you are an agent, you can. This makes the virtue of being more like an agent, of being more strategic, a valuable goal.