# A Common Misunderstanding

Originally published: 2017-02-09
Canonical URL: /2017/Feb/a-common-misunderstanding/

_In a series of papers published in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Dr. Ray Blanchard proposed that there are two fundamentally different types of rationalists with unrelated etiologies: instrumental rationalists, and epistemic rationalists ..._

"You just used language in a way that ignores psychological harm to people whose dysphoria is triggered by that word usage! That's a _bad_ consequence according to the global utilitarian calculus! I thought you were a rationalist, someone who chooses actions based on their consequences!"

"A common misunderstanding. You're thinking of the good kind," I said. "I'm the bad kind."