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> principles are important not because they help you defeat your enemies. They matter in and of themselves.

No idea matters exclusively 'for its own sake'. To think like that is to abandon utility and reason for dogma.

> If you want to say that you don't care about principles at all, and are willing to do anything and everything that is the most effective to defeat your enemies no matter what it is, just say that instead of talking about principles or morals or values.

When were you at all confused? I asked a specific leading question and gave a specific reason why the answer was what I lead it to be. Please let me know how I could have been more clear without being patronizing.



> No idea matters exclusively 'for its own sake'. To think like that is to abandon utility and reason for dogma.

“Utility” is an idea, too, and now we know which idea you value for its own sake.


Let's break this down.

Utility: The quality or condition of being useful; usefulness. [0]

for its own sake: if something is done for its own sake, it is done for the value of the experience itself, not for any advantage it will bring [1]

If something is useful, it exists because of the advantage it will bring. The two things are antonyms.

Think a bit more next time you try and dismiss someone offhand with a clever sounding quip. Just because a quip sounds clever does not make it so.

[0] https://www.wordnik.com/words/utility

[1] https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/for-its-own-sake




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