You're appealing to an emotion that I have already conceded to share. And it can't be more than an emotion, unless you are one of the very select few who have seen this forest.
However, my emotions occasionally tell me something that intellectually, I know not to be in my best long-term interest (or even far from it).
Edit: Try to think of my argument another way: I feel a certain way about this, and I would like to rationalize that feeling.
> Try to think of my argument another way: I feel a certain way about this, and I would like to rationalize that feeling.
Don't. This is fundamentally a "type error". Rationality can tell you how to achieve what you consider important, but ultimately it can't tell you what to want.
(Notice that mainstream economics has already abdicated this; it talks of "rational" actors with "preferences", but the preferences are assumed to exist a priori and not to evolve in response to information)
>Don't. This is fundamentally a "type error". Rationality can tell you how to achieve what you consider important, but ultimately it can't tell you what to want.
This.
This is such good advice. Really good advice to be exact. This exact piece of advice has been a multi-decade learning experience in my case.
However, I share GP's desire to be the fool that tries and offer them the closest thing I have to reconciliation.
"We made the problem, we need to fix it. Triage is a function of irreplaceability
and capability to remedy."
But feelings are often rational. To dismiss ethics as irrational is to dismiss social cohesion, a necessary need in human psychology.
To allow a rare thing to be destroyed is a loss to our collective human potential, because we can no longer study or understand it as it shifts through time.
However, my emotions occasionally tell me something that intellectually, I know not to be in my best long-term interest (or even far from it).
Edit: Try to think of my argument another way: I feel a certain way about this, and I would like to rationalize that feeling.