He’s not implying that theft is intrinsically wrong, but rather that some people really might have something like “all theft is bad, period” as a terminal value. In this case it may not help to point out the differences between taxation and archetypal theft. Probably your best bet in trying to get such a person to support taxation would be argue to them that the benefits of taxation should outweigh the negative utility they assign all instances theft.
I didn’t understand his message like that. What you’re saying is exactly the core problematic that makes this the Worst Argument In The World. People will assign terminally bad value to something, simply because it is part of X and in their model all X is bad, despite that something only having part of X’s “badness”.
I have a strong urge to reject the “all theft is bad” terminal value as being stupid, incomplete, unworthy, etc., but this urge is Type 1 and I have no idea where the intuition comes from. I don’t have enough information, but I’m confident that, in some way, assigning terminal value to such a virtual concept and social norm is either detached from reality, a “floating node” so to speak, or otherwise generates net negative utility somehow, including for the person holding this value. I’ll have to think and learn more on this.
He’s not implying that theft is intrinsically wrong, but rather that some people really might have something like “all theft is bad, period” as a terminal value. In this case it may not help to point out the differences between taxation and archetypal theft. Probably your best bet in trying to get such a person to support taxation would be argue to them that the benefits of taxation should outweigh the negative utility they assign all instances theft.
I didn’t understand his message like that. What you’re saying is exactly the core problematic that makes this the Worst Argument In The World. People will assign terminally bad value to something, simply because it is part of X and in their model all X is bad, despite that something only having part of X’s “badness”.
I have a strong urge to reject the “all theft is bad” terminal value as being stupid, incomplete, unworthy, etc., but this urge is Type 1 and I have no idea where the intuition comes from. I don’t have enough information, but I’m confident that, in some way, assigning terminal value to such a virtual concept and social norm is either detached from reality, a “floating node” so to speak, or otherwise generates net negative utility somehow, including for the person holding this value. I’ll have to think and learn more on this.