In teaching, teaching the wrong thing is not merely suboptimal but actively evil. So therefore while it is best to be both right and helpful, if one must give way, then helpfulness must give way. Otherwise you are just being successful at being evil.
In comforting someone in a time of crisis, say, then obviously truth can sometimes give way (but that's not always the solution!). But one can try to organize one's life so that opportunities for teaching (say) come far more often, and then the super-rational approach can be beneficial.
This got me thinking about teaching as well. But I actually think it is a good counter-example to the idea that the truth is somehow sufficient.
The truth is obviously necessary, but not sufficient. When lecturing, sure a collection of facts is nice, but most people don’t do well with a bunch of facts. Our brains can only handle a couple things at a time. If the facts aren’t combined into a single cohesive narrative that can be considered “a thing,” they are much harder to keep hold of. And building a narrative is a much a thing of subjective tastes, as objective truth.
When talking to students one-on-one, if they make a wrong statement, it is usually not enough to just tell them the alternative correct thing. A wrong statement is a symptom. It is the start of a journey. You may have to travel with them down some fairly winding paths, to get to the nexus of misunderstanding.
In teaching, teaching the wrong thing is not merely suboptimal but actively evil. So therefore while it is best to be both right and helpful, if one must give way, then helpfulness must give way. Otherwise you are just being successful at being evil.
In comforting someone in a time of crisis, say, then obviously truth can sometimes give way (but that's not always the solution!). But one can try to organize one's life so that opportunities for teaching (say) come far more often, and then the super-rational approach can be beneficial.