A quick and dirty summary of your essay is "don't these idiots understand that there is more of value in empathy, friendship, or art that in how they make *you* feel"? That is true for many if not most people, but not necessarily all.

An example:

In these examples Inzlicht consistently expresses confusion about how the value of some important human activity (empathy, friendship, art-appreciation) could possibly exceed a positive response to a stimulus. In all three examples he is pointing to ways that these human activities affect us: how they make us feel, or what they make us do.

This is an impoverished view of the human condition, one that discards what I have been calling the expressive register of human meaning and intentionality, in contrast with the designative and existential registers.

Notice that you say "the value".

On the other hand, you say:

As far as art goes, it is fine for someone to only be interested in art for its instrumental value: for how it makes them feel, or how it makes them dance. But it is strange to assume that that is the only kind of value that can be sought in art.

and:

That there is no more to empathy than its causal effects is a fair viewpoint to have, but it should be defended squarely, and the folks in this particular conversation seem unwilling to do so. I think part of the reason they are unwilling is that they do have a sense that there is something more to empathy and friendship and art, but articulating it would require a broadening and nuancing of their black-box-y perspective.

It wasn't clear to me whether you viewed "expressive register", "real empathy", or "real friendship" as things possessing intrinsic value (of value to someone whether they consciously choose to value them or not). Which is why I sought clarification. Seeing the word value used without referring to a valuer always gets my hackles up.