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Instrumental Value
Word Count 821
Instrumental value, or value as a means, is a sort of extrinsic (non-intrinsic) value ( see INTRINSIC VALUE). Instrumental and extrinsic value are sometimes identified (e.g. see Frankena 1963: 65), but instrumental value is only one sort of extrinsic value; something might be valuable as a part, or as a sign, rather than as a means (Bradley 1998). Although intrinsic value has the more central place in moral theory, and has generated much more philosophical discussion, most of the things to which we normally attribute value are instrumentally valuable – e.g. money, food, consumer goods, education, health, and friendship. Some of those things might also be intrinsically good, but in most cases this is a matter of controversy; for example, some say that knowledge is intrinsically good, while others say it is merely instrumentally good, in virtue of helping us achieve other goods.
Instrumental value is of interest in a number of areas of ethics. Virtue is frequently explained by appeal to instrumental value; it is often said to be a necessary condition on a character trait’s being a virtue that it be beneficial or instrumentally good ( see VIRTUE). Philosophical discussion about the evil of death has largely concerned the question of whether, and how, death can be instrumentally bad for its victim, since it does not appear to be intrinsically bad to die or to be dead ( see DEATH). A central concept in deontological moral theories is the concept of harm, which is natural to construe in terms of instrumental badness; a harmful event or action might be thought to be one that is instrumentally bad for someone ( see DEONTOLOGY; HARM). And evaluation of proposed legislation must largely concern
whether the legislation would be instrumentally good or bad. So it behooves us to have a good understanding of what instrumental value is.
There appear to be at least two distinct senses of “instrumentally valuable.” In one sense, it means “good as an instrument” or “useful.” We might say that a hammer is instrumentally valuable in virtue of its ability to pound nails into something; it is good for pounding nails, no matter whether it is good that the nails be pounded into the thing or not. This sense does not seem particularly relevant to moral philosophy.
In its other sense, “instrumentally valuable” means something like “productive of value.” It is often said that to be instrumentally good is to lead to something else that is good (Baylis 1958: 488; Rønnow-Rasmussen 2002: 25). But this can be only part of the story. Some things are instrumentally good not because they lead to something good, but because they prevent something bad – e.g., vaccinations. In determining the overall instrumental value of something, we must take into account both what it brings about and what it prevents (Conee 1982). One way to flesh out this idea is counterfactually: something is instrumentally good if and only if it causes things to go better than they would have otherwise gone (for the world or for an individual); something is instrumentally bad if and only if it causes things to go worse than otherwise (Bradley 1998).
There is a further distinction between overall instrumental value and what we may call “ pro tanto ” instrumental value ( see PRIMA FACIE/PRO TANTO “OUGHT”). Suppose someone eats some delicious poisoned food. Eating the food is, in a way, instrumentally good, for it leads to some good taste sensations. But all things considered, it is instrumentally bad. We may say eating the food is pro tanto instrumentally good (and also pro tanto instrumentally bad) but
Bradley, Ben 1998. “Extrinsic Value.” Philosophical Studies, 91: pp. 109-126.
Conee, Earl 1982. “Instrumental Value Without Intrinsic Value?” Philosophia, 11: pp. 345-59.
Dorsey, Dale (forthcoming). “Can Instrumental Value be Extrinsic?” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.
Frankena, William 1963. Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kagan, Shelly 1998. “Rethinking Intrinsic Value.” The Journal of Ethics , 2: pp. 277-97.
Korsgaard, Christine 1983. “Two Distinctions in Goodness.” The Philosophical Review , 92: pp. 169-95.
Rønnow-Rasmussen 2002, “Instrumental Values – Strong and Weak.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice , 5: pp. 23-43.
Suggested Readings
Moore, G.E. 1903. Principia Ethica. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Zimmerman, Michael J. 2001. The Nature of Intrinsic Value. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Zimmerman, Michael J. 2008. “Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition) , Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic/.
