A claim: humans are interested in truth because it’s useful. If I understand physics, I can build a phone and call my parents in another country. If I understand how minds function, I can cure people with mental ailments, which makes me happy and fulfilled.

At some point, I can forget that the reason for pursuing truth is it’s usefulness, and start believing that it is good in itself. I can start having emontions about it: being angry at sloppy reasoning, guilty when accidentally misleading people, happy when learning about the true state of the world. Still, the original reason is truth’s usefulness: in the same way we feel happy when eating food, because food is conducive to survival, not because food is good in itself.

Some humans are less interested in truth and are interested in other things, like convincing other people that all their problems are caused by an influx of immigrants. They are interested in that because it’s useful to them. It can give them money, status, power, attention. It can allow them to manipulate the world according to their wishes - in the same way as truth allows us to manipulate the world.

In the long term, truth is a better tool for achieving goals. However, for a particular human being it can be not the best tool - or at least not in all circumstances. Therefore, forgetting about truth and focusing on other tools can be a completely rational decision for some people in some circumstances.

We can moralise and say that these people are bad, because they lead us away from the truth. However, truth is not an absolute good: it’s a tool. Tools are needed to acheive goals. What are our goals? That’s a difficult question, but my goals don’t include transferring power to people who blame migrants for everything. I can say that these people are bad, because their goals are bad; but I think I cannot label them as bad because they choose to use tools (lies) that are conducive to their goals.

It’s difficult to accept this because, intuitively, I see truth as an absolute good, and lies as (almost) absolute bad. It’s a very strong heuristic, it’s almost always correct, especially in the long run. But it’s not true: truth is just a useful tool, used to get to a desirable outcome.

Critique by Opus 4.5:

Self-undermining argument. Text claims truth = just useful tool. But author presents this as true, not merely useful to
author. If truth merely instrumental, why trust this analysis? Performative contradiction.

Genetic fallacy. Origin ≠ justification. That we evolved to value truth for survival says nothing about whether truth
has intrinsic value. Same logic: "pain evolved to prevent damage, therefore pain not really bad." Non sequitur.

Food analogy weak. Food consumed, gone. Truth shareable without diminishing. Truth enables coordination, builds on
itself, creates public goods. Disanalogous in important ways.

Kantian objection missing. Lying treats persons as mere means. Deception bypasses rational agency of deceived. Not just
"bad goals" - the act structure itself problematic. Categorical imperative: universalized lying destroys possibility of
communication.

Virtue ethics angle. Habitual deception corrupts character. Aristotle: we become what we repeatedly do. Liar damages own
  capacity for genuine connection, self-knowledge.

Consequentialist response. Author assumes lying works for individual. But: systemic lying erodes social trust (public
good). Tragedy of commons. Individual "rationality" destroys collective preconditions for cooperation.

Missing distinction: epistemic vs practical rationality. Believing falsehoods for practical benefit = self-deception,
which has cognitive costs. Hard to compartmentalize. Lies leak.

Strongest point: Author right that truth-worship can become dogmatic, that we should examine why we value honesty.
Legitimate Nietzschean suspicion. But conclusion overshoots. From "truth not absolutely good" doesn't follow "truth
merely instrumental."

Middle path: truth has both intrinsic and instrumental value. These not mutually exclusive.