Aren’t those kind of the same thing, though? In that before you can ask yourself whether your thing is bad, you need to understand the criticism in question, and that requires verifying that your interpretation of the criticism is correct before you proceed.
It’s true that these sometimes come apart: e.g. maybe I have an irrational fear of AI, but that irrational motive can still drive me to formulate correct arguments for AI risk. But in that case there exists a clean separation between the motive and the object-level argument. Whereas in this case, Bunthut seemed to be articulating reasons behind their emotional discomfort.
If you are trying to check that you correctly understood what someone is saying about their emotional discomfort, then that doesn’t seem like a case where you can isolate an object-level argument that would be separate from “why the person said that”. They are trying to express discomfort about something, and the specific reason why the thing is making them uncomfortable is the object-level issue.
Aren’t those kind of the same thing, though? In that before you can ask yourself whether your thing is bad, you need to understand the criticism in question, and that requires verifying that your interpretation of the criticism is correct before you proceed.
It’s true that these sometimes come apart: e.g. maybe I have an irrational fear of AI, but that irrational motive can still drive me to formulate correct arguments for AI risk. But in that case there exists a clean separation between the motive and the object-level argument. Whereas in this case, Bunthut seemed to be articulating reasons behind their emotional discomfort.
If you are trying to check that you correctly understood what someone is saying about their emotional discomfort, then that doesn’t seem like a case where you can isolate an object-level argument that would be separate from “why the person said that”. They are trying to express discomfort about something, and the specific reason why the thing is making them uncomfortable is the object-level issue.