A terminal desire means something that you desire for its own sake, as opposed to an instrumental desire, which you only want because you believe it will help you achieve your terminal desires. For example, most people desire money only instrumentally, but desire pleasure terminally. A good test of whether a desire is terminal or instrumental is whether you would still want it even if it didn't help you achieve any other goals.
It is commonly believed that terminal desires can't be rational or irrational, and that rational decisions are just the ones that are most likely to achieve your goals. (Instrumental desires can of course be irrational if they don't actually help achieve terminal desires, which is why this question only asks about the latter). Is this correct, or is there such a thing as an irrational terminal desire?
1,000@ClubmasterTransparent I don't think any of those things contradict the fact that there's a distinction between terminal and instrumental desires though. And no, this isn't something I made up, it's a common way of thinking about goals.
@PlasmaBallin Could be I’m just missing something. Where does unrequited love fit into this? Addiction? What if you thirst for vengeance or you’re filled with resentment? Even maintaining a healthy weight is difficult for many people.
If you’re experiencing any of these it’s almost always. little use to will yourself to do what you think is the right thing to meet your long-term goal.
A malleable, impossible to achieve terminal desire would seem irrational to me e.g. wanting to travel faster than light speed for its own sake
@TheAllMemeingEye Is it really irrational though? It could be argued that it's bad to have a goal that's impossible to achieve because then you'll never achieve it, but that doesn't necessarily make it irrational.
@PlasmaBallin ultimately that comes down to the semantics of the word I guess, so under descriptive linguistics it would be empirically settled by the majority gut feeling of humanity