Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Edited by Craig Calhoun, Oxford
University Press
Refers (especially following Max Weber) to action conceived as a
means to a separate and distinct end, as opposed to action conceived as an end
in itself. The difference between instrumental and noninstrumental action has
been a recurring subject of philosophical interest and debate since Aristotle,
who recognized it as fundamental to considerations of human action. It has
consequently been defined and redefined in a number of ways, and enlisted in a
variety of competing and sometimes incompatible contexts. In the twentieth
century, the term itself is strongly associated with the pragmatism of John
Dewey, who argued that ideas should be judged not on the basis of truth and
falsehood, but rather in terms of the ends they serve. Even where Dewey is
concerned, however, certain kinds of ideas escape instrumental
reasoning—quintessentially art, the noninstrumental object par excellence of
the Western philosophical tradition since Immanuel Kant. Certain activities
straddle the instrumental–noninstrumental divide; Hannah Arendt's defense of
the intrinsic value of democratic action over the various specific ends that it
serves is a prominent example.
As an approach to science, instrumentalism contrasts with theories
of knowledge that regard objects as possessing a true or intrinsic nature that
science can qualify and categorize. Other users of the term, however, strongly
associate it with the scientific and technical mastery of the world rooted in
subject–object relations. Instrumentalism, in this context, is deeply embedded
in the Western idea of self. The dominance of instrumental reason has
consequently been a subject of profound concern for the critical theorists of
the Frankfurt school and other critics of Western modernity, such as Martin
Heidegger. Here, instrumental reason appears not as a liberatory alternative to
static or metaphysical conceptions of truth, but as a pervasive logic of
existence, linked to capitalism, the marketplace, and technology, which
destroys other sources and forms of value.
Instrumentalism
A Dictionary of Human Geography, Noel Castree, Rob Kitchin, and
Alisdair Rogers, Oxford University Press
An approach to any relationship, practice, or object that
prioritizes ends over means. Instrumentalists will use whatever methods or
resources are expedient in order to realize their goals. At best, they are
pragmatists able to adapt to the opportunities and constraints of a situation.
At worst, however, they can act immorally or with impunity to achieve their
ends—hence the critics’ motto ‘The ends can never justify the means’. In human
geography and many other social sciences, for example, modern capitalist
society has been criticized for using nature as a mere means to the end of
amassing more wealth and improving standards of living. The result has been
both a failure to treat the non-human world as an end in itself and to respect
its needs or rights.
