Instrumental and value rationality

The terms "Instrumental rationality" and "value rationality" refer to two types of action identified by sociologist Max Weber.

Instrumental rationality is a type of social action where the means are rationally chosen to efficiently achieve a specific end. Value rationality is social action driven by a conscious, unconditional belief in the value of the action itself, independent of its success or consequences.

The terms were introduced by sociologist Max Weber, who observed people attaching subjective meanings to their actions. Acts people treated as conditional means he labeled "instrumentally rational." Acts people treated as unconditional ends he labeled "value-rational."

Definitions and concepts

Weber defined instrumental and value rationality in Economy and Society.

Social action, like all action, may be...: (1) instrumentally rational (zweckrational), that is, determined by expectations as to the behavior of objects in the environment and of other human beings; these expectations are used as "conditions" or "means" for the attainment of the actor's own rationally pursued and calculated ends;

(2) value-rational (wertrational), that is, determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behavior, independently of its prospects of success; ...

... the more the value to which action is oriented is elevated to the status of an absolute value, the more "irrational" in this [instrumental] sense the corresponding action is. For the more unconditionally the actor devotes himself to this value for its own sake, ... the less he is influenced by considerations of the [conditional] consequences of his action^[1]

Weber sometimes called instrumental means "calculation of material interests" or "everyday purposive conduct." He also called value-rational ends "ideal motives enjoined by religion or magic.^{[2]: 212, 13, 400, 242–44} Weber's distinction survives as the core of modern explanations of rational social action: instrumental means are often considered value-free conditionally-efficient tools, and value-rational ends are often considered fact-free unconditionally-legitimate rules.^{[3]: II:301}

Disenchantment

Weber observed that the distinction between instrumental and value rationality can blur. He noted a tendency for conditional means to be converted into unconditional ends. For example, a means (e.g., a ritual like a rain-dance) initially intended to be instrumentally effecient may become a value-rational end-in-itself, regardless of its effectiveness.^{[2]: 25, 33, 401–2, 422–4, 576–7 [3]: 48}

Weber described the rejection of supernatural rules of behavior in European societies since the Age of Enlightenment as "disenchantment."^[4] The process involves a shift from ultimate moral ends to practical conditional ends. ^{[2]: 65 [3]: I:159, 195, 244 [5]: 11–17}

Wherever rational, empirical knowledge has consistently brought about the disenchantment of the world and its transformation into a causal mechanism, a definitive pressure arises against the claims of the ethical postulate that the world is a divinely ordered, ... somehow ethically meaningful cosmos.^[3]: I:160

Despite his observation of this trend, Weber argued that instrumental means are neither legitimate nor workable without value-rational ends. He suggested that even scientific inquiry depends on intrinsic value-rational beliefs.^{[5]: 43–6}

Political philosophy

John Rawls

Philosopher John Rawls utilized a distinction similar to Weber's two rationality in A Theory of Justice (1971) and Justice as Fairness (2002). Rawls did not use Weber's labels but instead referred to the rational aspects of social action as “institutions." He relabeled instrumental rationality as "the rational” to identify institutions that are effective means, and he relabeled value rationality as "the reasonable” to identify institutions considered unconditionally legitimate.^{[6]: 30–36, 83} Rawls' theory posits a hypothetical "original position," where individuals, stripped of personal interests and conditions, would choose intrinsically just institutions, which are worthy of voluntary obedience.

Let us assume that each person beyond a certain age and possessed of the requisite intellectual capacity develops a [value rational] sense of justice under normal circumstances. We acquire skill in judging things to be just and unjust, and in supporting these judgments by [instrumental] reasons.^{[6]: 8, 41}

Robert Nozick

Further information: Desert (philosophy)

Philosopher Robert Nozick engaged with Weber's distinction, most notably in his response to Rawls, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, (1974), and in his later work, "The Nature of Rationality" (1993).

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick presented a value-rational principle of justice centered on individual rights and the entitlement to just deserts.^{[7]: 150–155}

He argued that the utilitarian right to satisfy individual ends acts as a "moral side restraint,” prohibiting social rules that require individuals to serve the interests of others.^{[7]: 32–33, 333} It entitles every person to be treated as a value-rational end rather than another's means to an end.^{[citation needed]}

In "The Nature of Rationality," Nozick further refined his discussion of instrumental and value rationality. Nozick was proposing to explain how principles—universal propositions connecting unconditional ends to conditional means—work instrumentally to identify conditionally-efficient-but-unconditionally-want-satisfying means.^{[clarification needed]} He relabeled Weber's criteria "[instrumental] rationality of decision" and "[value] rationality of belief".^[8]: xiv

He gave instrumental rationality prominence as "the means–ends connection" and "the efficient and effective achieving of goals".^{[8]: 180  [8]: 133} At the same time, he accepted the traditional proposition that instrumental rationality is incomplete because it only concerns the effective pursuit of the given goals, not the value of the goals themselves.^[8]: 133

Something is instrumentally rational with respect to given goals, ends, desires, and utilities when it is causally effective in realizing or satisfying these. But the notion of instrumental rationality gives us no way to evaluate the rationality of these goals, ends, and desires themselves, except as instrumentally effective in achieving further goals taken as given. Even for cognitive goals such as believing the truth, we seem to have only an instrumental justification. At present we have no adequate theory of the substantive [instrumental] rationality of goals and desires,...^[8]: 139

Criticisms

Of capitalism

Philosopher Max Horkheimer argued that instrumental rationality plays a key role in the oppressive industrial culture of capitalism.^[9] His arguments are presented in "On the Critique of Instrumental Reason" and "Means and Ends."

Of value rationality

Philosopher James Gouinlock critiques Weber's two kinds of rationality in relation to John Dewey's description of human intelligence. Gouinlock and Dewey opposed the idea of rationality based on dualisms, particularly the notion that a value could be good "for its own sake."

Gouinlock criticized the modern practice of value rationality as represented by Rawls and Nozick in his introduction to volume two of Dewey's collected works, John Dewey The Later Works 1925–53 (1984). He further developed the criticism in his 1993 study, Rediscovering the Moral Life.

Gouinlock's 1984 introduction distinguished Dewey's explanation of rationality—itself sometimes labeled "instrumentalism" and identified with "pragmatism"—from two traditional schools of philosophy: rationalism and classical empiricism, which assumed divided rationality.

The rationalist supposes that knowledge is the direct intuition of essences [value rational ends]; the empiricist supposes that it is a summary of antecedently given sense data [instrumental means].^[10]: xii

Gouinlock explained Dewey's reasons for rejecting both poles of this traditional division. He quoted from a Dewey article on pragmatism to show how Dewey replaced value rational objects, labeled by Rawls “institutions” and by Nozick “principles” with “general ideas”—an intellectual tool relating means to conditional ends serially and inter-independently.

Value [ends proposed] implies a movement from one condition to another [which] implies an ideational function. If the object [end] is to be deliberately sought, there has to be at least a rudimentary conception of [instrumental] means, some plan in accordance with which the movement towards the object will proceed.^[10]: xx

Dewey wrote of "intelligence" rather than “rationality" because he considered reasoning to be a two-step way of thinking, not two distinct structural capacities. It involves endless linking of available means to proposed ends. Gouinlock wrote: "Realization of the good life [a contextual end for Dewey, not Nozick’s universal want satisfaction] depends … on the exercise of intelligence. Indeed, his instrumentalism ... is a theory concerning the nature of intelligent conduct."^[10]: ix

Gouinlock criticized Rawls and Nozick for contaminating conditional instrumental reasoning by isolating value rational principles of truth and justice from experienced conditions.[9]:xxx, xxxv–vi

Dewey, of course, was the sworn foe of all forms of rationalistic and absolutistic philosophizing … just [as] these traits are reappearing in contemporary moral thought. The most conspicuous example is A Theory of Justice by Rawls. This text aspires to a rational deduction of eternally valid principles of justice. The book called forth another, Anarchy, State and Utopia by his colleague, Robert Nozick, who provided his own deduction.^[10]: xxxv

Dewey's “general ideas” were not pre-known legitimate ends actors intended to achieve. They were hypothetical visions of ways of acting that might solve existing problems developmentally, restoring coordinated behavior in conditions that obstruct it. They visualize where a situation should go; what “from here to there” looks like.

In Rediscovering the Moral Life, Gouinlock again criticized Rawls and Nozick for imagining value rational principles in their heads, while ignoring facts of human nature and real-life moral conditions.^{[11]: 248–268} He listed traditional forms of value-rationality, all of which he found incompetent to serve humans as moral compass.

Yet philosophers have typically thought of justification as an appeal to such things as a Platonic form, a rational principle, a divine command, a self-evident truth, the characterization of a rational agent, the delineation of an ultimate good [all identified by value rationality] ...

...

If the conflicts between moral positions were all reducible to cognitive claims [of what it right], then we could settle such matters by appeal to familiar [deductive] procedures. They are not reducible, so additional [inductive] considerations must be deployed.^[11]: 323

Gouinlock's "additional considerations" ignored claims that legitimate ends work by maximizing utility. His virtues must solve problems developmentally. Instead of trying to identify eternally legitimate institutions, he searched for continuity in virtuous ways of behaving.

While there are neither axiomatic nor unexceptionable principles, there are virtues—enduring dispositions to behave in certain sorts of ways—that are appropriate to the moral condition and are defensible in just that capacity.

...

Virtues are not philosophic constructs. They are born of the [instrumental] demands and opportunities of associated life in varying environments. Courage, truthfulness, constancy, reliability, cooperativeness, adaptability, charity, sensitivity, rationality, and the like are distinguished because of their great [instrumental] efficacies in the life of a people.^[11]: 292

We are tailoring these virtues to the moral condition, not to abstract [value-rational] reason or to moral sentiment. We look for behavior that will address our problems, not compound them. One of the keys to this aim is to think of [instrumental] dispositions suitable to beginning and sustaining moral discourse and action, not bringing indisputable finality to them. They should be effective in the processes of the moral life, not in determining an inflexible outcome to them."^[11]: 296

By treating rationality as a criterion for judging means–ends working to produce developmental consequences, Gouinlock gave practical meaning to Dewey's instrumentally reasoning: "For the virtue of rationality I ask no more than a sincere attempt to seek the truth relevant to a given situation."^[11]: 296

What is finally at stake ... is not the elaboration of a system of moral principles, but a way of life—a life with a certain [institutional] character and quality."^[11]: 324

Amartya Sen

Early in the 21st century, economist Amartya Sen expressed doubts about the separation of instrumental from value rationality, similar to doubts Max Weber expressed early in the 20th century. In 2002, he published a collection of his papers under the title Rationality and Freedom to explain how these two normative conceptions are conditional and interrelated. In 2009, he published The Idea of Justice, questioning whether unconditional value rationality used inconclusively by Harvard colleagues Rawls and Nozick is legitimate at all. He recognized that the alternative to human rationality is rarely insanity. It is more often conceptions that contaminate reasoning.

... prejudices typically ride on the back of some kind of reasoning—weak and arbitrary though it might be. Indeed, even very dogmatic persons tend to have some kinds of reasons, possibly very crude ones, in support of their dogmas ... Unreason is mostly not the practice of doing without reasoning altogether, but of relying on very primitive and very defective reasoning.^{[12]: xviii}

In Rationality and Freedom, Sen defined rationality as a discipline "subjecting one's choices—of [instrumental] actions as well as of [value rational] objectives, values and priorities—to reasoned scrutiny".^[13]: 4 More forcefully than Weber, he questioned the rationality of believing that unconditionally legitimate ends can be coordinated with conditionally efficient means. He essentially made both instrumental and value rationality conditional, eliminating the paradox of reason contaminating reason. To scrutinize choices seems to mean treating them as hypotheses to be tested, not as knowledge already acquired. All knowledge is conditional, subject to revision.

Sen relabeled instrumental and value rationality by naming their traditional defects. Weber's value-rationality became "process-independent" reasoning. It ignores instrumental means as it judges intended consequences: "the goodness of outcomes" always valuable in themselves. Its use produces fact-free intrinsically good knowledge. Weber's instrumental rationality became "consequence-independent" theory, because its practitioners develop "right procedures”—instrumental means for reasoning—without evaluating ends. Its use produces value-free facts.^{[13]: 278–281} His message was that rationality requires using "both the [instrumental] 'dueness' of processes and the [value-rational] 'goodness of narrowly defined 'outcomes.'"^[13]: 314

Reason has its use not only in the pursuit of a given set of objectives and values, but also in scrutinizing the objectives and values themselves. ... Rationality cannot be just an instrumental requirement for the pursuit of some given—and unscrutinised—set of objectives and values.^[13]: 39

Sen showed the paradox of believing in fact-free ends and value-free means. Economists have developed a model of "rational action" that creates "rational fools” of both social scientists and the people they study. Sen called the scientist an "instrumental rationalist."

Imagine a scientist observing a man happily cutting off his toes with a blunt knife. Does the scholar judge the man rational or not? Forbidden by the axiom that want satisfaction is good in itself, the scientist can only judge means.

An "instrumental rationalist" is a decision expert whose response to seeing a man engaged in slicing his toes [the man’s value rational fact-free end] with a blunt knife [the man’s instrumental value-free means] is to rush to advise him that he should use a sharper knife to better serve [instrumentally] his evident [value rational] objective.^{[13]: 2, 6–7, 39, 286–287}

Regarding his colleagues Rawls and Nozick, Sen was little critical of their practice of instrumental rationality, but quite critical of their practice of value rationality. Their theories were largely “consequence-independent”—fact-free, correct regardless of actual consequences. "Justice as fairness" and "Entitlement theory" are "not only non-consequentialist but they also seem to leave little room for taking substantive note of consequences in modifying or qualifying the rights covered by these principles."^{[13]: 637, 165 [12]: 89–91}

He proposed new terms for Weber's two kinds of rationality, relating them to specific flaws he found in the reasoning of Rawls and Nozick. He labeled their instrumental rationality "transcendental institutionalism" and "arrangement-focused" analysis, prescribing fact-free patterns of coordinated behavior assumed to be instrumentally efficient without conditions.^{[12]: 5–8}

... Rawls's (1971) "first principle" of "justice as fairness" and Nozick's (1974) "entitlement theory" ... are not only non-consequentialist, but they also seem to leave little room for taking substantive note of consequences in modifying or qualifying the rights covered by these principles.^[13]: 637

For Rawls, there are eternally and universally just rules of fairness: "comprehensive goals,... deliberately chosen ... through an ethical examination of how one 'should' act [value-rationally].^[13]: 163 For Nozick there are eternally and universally right rules that cover personal liberties as well as rights of holding, using, exchanging, and bequeathing legitimately owned property."^[13]: 279

In Idea of Justice, Sen asked “What is the role of [instrumental] rationality and of [value-rational] reasonableness in understanding the demands of justice?”^[12]: viii He rejected the search for a theory of perfect justice in favor of a search for practical means to reduce injustice.

Arbitrary reduction of multiple and potentially conflicting [value rational] principles to one solitary survivor, guillotining all the other evaluative criteria, is not, in fact, a prerequisite for getting useful and robust conclusions on what should be done.^[12]: 4

Sen's analysis was complex, but not his message. He concluded that both instrumental rationality and value-rationality are capable of error. Neither premises nor conclusions about means or ends are ever beyond criticism. Nothing can be taken as relevant or valid in itself. All valuations must be constantly reaffirmed in the continuity of rational inquiry. "We have to get on with the basic task of obtaining workable rules [means] that satisfy reasonable requirements [conditional ends]."^[13]: 75

There is a strong case ... for replacing what I have been calling transcendental institutionalism—that underlies most of the mainstream approaches to justice in contemporary political philosophy, including John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness—by focusing questions of justice, first, on assessments of social realizations, that is, on what actually happens (rather than merely on the appraisal of institutions and arrangements); and second, on comparative issues of enhancement of justice (rather than trying to identify perfectly just arrangements).^[12]: 410 Gouinlock's and Sen's criticisms of Weber's dichotomy between instrumental rationality and value-rationality have had little impact on conventional inquiry. The value-rationality practiced by Rawls and Nozick continues to dominate philosophical and scientific inquiry. Confirmation came in 2018 as the British journal The Economist, founded in 1843 on the utilitarian and libertarian principle of value-rational human rights, celebrated its 175th birthday. It praised Rawls and Nozick for the very beliefs Gunlock and Sen identified as dogmatic: “those rights that are essential for humans to exercise their unique power of moral reasoning. ... Both Rawls and Nozick practised ‘ideal theory’—hypothesising about what a perfect society looks like ..."^[14]

The first [value rational principle of liberals] is freedom: that it is "not only just and wise but also profitable ... to let people do what they want." The second is the common interest: that "human society … can be an association for the welfare of all.”^[15]

Belief in value rationality—unconditionally true and just knowledge—continues to contaminate conditional instrumental rationality.

Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons used Weber's classic terms for society-wide patterns of rational action. In his 1938 work, The Structure of Social Action, he quoted Weber's definitions and integrated them into the theory he called "social harmonized action systems.^{[16]: II:642–3} He called his theoretical framework a "means-end schema" in which individuals coordinate their instrumental actions by an "efficiency-norm and their value-rational actions by a "legitimacy-norm".^{[16]: II:76, 652} His prime example of instrumental action was the same as Weber's: widespread use of utilitarian means to satisfy individual ends.^{[16]: 51–5, 698} His prime example of value-rational action was institutionalised rituals found in all societies: culturally prescribed but eternally legitimate ends.^{[16]: 467, 675–9, 717 [17]}

Rational humans pursue socially legitimate value-rational ends by using operationally efficient instrumental means.

The central fact—a fact beyond all question—is that in certain aspects and to certain degrees, ... human action is rational. That is, men adapt themselves to the conditions in which they are placed and adapt means to their ends in such a way as to approach the most efficient manner of achieving these ends.^[16]: I:19

The starting point ... is the conception of intrinsic rationality of action. This involves the fundamental elements of "ends" "means," and "conditions" of rational action and the norm of the intrinsic means-end relationship.^{[16]: II:698–9}

Parsons thus placed Weber' rational actions in a "patterned normative order" of "cultural value patterns". Rational social action seeks to maintain a culture-bound value-rational order, legitimate in itself. The system maintains itself by means of four instrumental functions: pattern maintenance, goal attainment, adaptation, and integration.^[18] Weber's instrumental and value-rational action survives in Parson's system of culturally correlated means and ends.

Jürgen Habermas

Despite coining new names, Jürgen Habermas followed Parsons in using Weber's classic kinds of rational action to explain human behavior. In his 1981 work, The Theory of Communicative Action, he sometimes called instrumental action "teleological" action or simply "work". Value-rational action appeared as "normatively regulated".^{[3]: II:168–74 [19][20]: 63–4} In later works he distinguished the two kinds of action by motives. Instrumental action has "nonpublic and actor-relative reasons," and value-rational action "publicly defensible and actor-independent reasons".^[21]

In addition, he proposed a new kind of social action—communicative—necessary to explain how individual instrumental action becomes prescribed in legitimate patterns of social interaction, thus eliminating their separation.^[22] James Gouinlock expressed Habermas's proposal as follows:

Human action predicated on individual reason yields no universally valid [value-rational] norms. To attain the latter, we must appeal to communicative action; that is, we must arrive at norms and action by means of free and equal rational discourse.^[23]: 269

Habermas argued that language communities share a background of value-rational symbols that constitutes "a normative context recognized as legitimate".^[3]: 15 It establishes an "intersubjectively shared lifeworld of knowledge that plays the role of correlating moral actions that Weber assigned to value rationality and Parsons assigned to institutions—a trans-empirical realm of shared beliefs.^{[3]: 11–13} Shared understanding produced by direct communication creates a collective consciousness of instrumental knowledge—technological reality—and of moral rules—value reality—capable of generating prescribed patterns of correlated behavior.^{[3]: II:313}

We call an action oriented to success instrumental when we consider it under the aspect of following rules of rational choice and assess the efficiency of influencing the decisions of a rational opponent. ... By contrast, I shall speak of communicative action whenever the actions of the agents involved are coordinated not through egocentric [instrumental] calculations of success but through [value-rational] acts of reaching understanding. In communicative action participants are not primarily oriented to their own individual successes; they pursue their individual goals under the condition that they can harmonize their plans of action on the basis of common situation definitions. In this respect the negotiation of definitions of the situation is an essential element of the interpretive accomplishments required for communicative action.^{[3]: I:285–6}

Habermas reasoned that mutual understanding produced by communicative action provides socially legitimate value-rational norms. But power structures, such as Weber's religions, bureaucracies, and markets, prescribe contaminated patterns of behavior resulting in "cultural impoverishment" similar to Weber's disenchantment. He shared Weber's fear of the domination of instrumental over value-rational action: "... instrumental rationality (as functionalist reason) has expanded from its appropriate realm of system organization into the lifeworld, and has thereby begun to erode the communicative competences of the members of that lifeworld". Instrumental motives for conformity to amoral institutional norms replace voluntarily shared norms of communicative action.^{[3]: II:236, 310 [20]: 235–8}

To the extent that methodological-rational conduct of life gets uprooted, purposive-rational action orientations become self-sufficient; technically intelligent [instrumental] adaptation to the objectified milieu of large organizations is combined with a utilitarian calculation of the actor's own interests. ... Ethical [value-rational] obligations to one'e calling give way to instrumental attitudes toward an occupational role ...^{[3]: II:323}

Habermas replaced Weber's unconditional value-rational ends and Parsons' unconditional maintenance of patterned normative ends by communicative action to explain observed action correlating instrumental means and value-rational ends.

If we assume that the human species maintains itself through the socially coordinated activities of its members and that this coordination has to be established through communication ... then the reproduction of the species also requires satisfying the conditions of a rationality that is inherent in communicative action.^[3]: 397

John Dewey

John Dewey could agree with Weber's observation that people act as if they judge and act separately on instrumental means and value-rational ends. But he denied that the practice creates two separate kinds of rational behavior. When judged independently, means cannot work and ends are not legitimate.^{[24]: 12, 66}

Through examination of the relations which exist between means (methods) employed and conclusions attained as their consequence, [instrumental] reasons are discovered why some methods succeed and other methods fail. ... rationality is an affair of the relation of means and consequences, not of fixed [value-rational] first principles as ultimate premises ...^[25]: 9

Dewey argued that singular human actions cannot be explained by isolated motives, as Weber sought to do. For humans in society, the bulk of individual actions are habitual "ways of acting," like driving a car. Every action is embedded in biological and cultural environments, which humans continuously reshape instrumentally to promote developmental patterns of behavior: efficient driving adapts constantly to road conditions.

As a general term, "instrumental" stands for the relation of means-consequence, as the basic category for interpretation of logical forms, while "operational" stands for the conditions by which subject-matter is 1) rendered fit to serve as means and 2) actually functions as such means in effecting the objective transformation which is the [conditional] end of inquiry.^{[25]: 14 note 5}

Dewey had argued before Habermas that correlated action depends on communication. But communication is not a separate form of action preceding and enabling instrumental action. Rather, according to James Gouinlock, Dewey held that communication inheres in all correlated behavior.

Effective social action, Dewey argued, requires deliberation that is public and social, which has communication as its indispensable constituent. Social deliberation is a process of sharing concerns; exchanging proposals for concerted activity; considering, modifying, uniting them ..., and trying to achieve as much consensus as possible regarding which one finally to act upon.^[26]

Once correlated patterns of behavior become institutionalised habits, they require little thought, as Weber recognized. "... life is impossible without ways of action sufficiently general to be properly named habits".^[25]: 12 But habits arise only after instrumental actions successfully achieve each valued end. They are neither non-rational, as Weber classified them, nor immediately-known value-rational actions, as other philosophers classify them, undertaken without regard to existing means.

Reasonableness or rationality is, according to the position here taken, ... an affair of the relation of means and consequences. In framing ends-in-view, it is unreasonable to set up those which have no connection with available means and without reference to the obstacles standing in the way for attaining the end. It is reasonable to search for and select the means that will, with the maximum probability, yield the consequences which are intended."^{[25]: 9–10}

Where Parsons and Habermas concluded that culturally accredited institutions legitimize value-rational ends, Dewey concluded that they are often contaminated instrumental valuations—flawed inductive generalizations—that should be reconstructed rather than treated as moral affirmations of rational action.

See also

• Categorical imperative
• Communicative rationality
• Fact–value distinction
• Instrumental and intrinsic value
• Instrumental convergence § Paperclip maximizer
• Instrumentalism
• Objectivity (philosophy)
• Rationalisation (social process)