In moral philosophy, instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a means to an end and what is as an end in itself. Things are deemed to have instrumental value (or extrinsic value) if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic values, by contrast, are understood to be desirable in and of themselves. A tool or appliance, such as a hammer or washing machine, has instrumental value because it helps one pound in a nail or clean clothes, respectively. Happiness and pleasure are typically considered to have intrinsic value insofar as asking why someone would want them makes little sense: they are desirable for their own sake irrespective of their possible instrumental value. The classic names instrumental and intrinsic were coined by sociologist Max Weber, who spent years studying good meanings people assigned to their actions and beliefs.

The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory provides three modern definitions of intrinsic and instrumental value:

  1. They are "the distinction between what is good 'in itself' and what is good 'as a means'." To reduce ambiguity, throughout this article the noun value names a criterion of judgment, as opposed to valuation which is an object that is judged valuable. The plural values identifies collections of valuations, without identifying the criterion applied.

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant is famously quoted as saying:<blockquote>So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only. </blockquote>Here, Kant considers both instrumental and intrinsic value, although not calling them by those names.

The names instrumental and intrinsic were coined by sociologist Max Weber, who spent years studying good meanings people assigned to their actions and beliefs. According to Weber, "[s]ocial action, like all action, may be" judged as:

  1. Instrumental rational (zweckrational): action "determined by expectations as to the behavior of objects in the environment 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): action "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."

Weber's original definitions also include a comment showing his doubt that conditionally efficient means can achieve unconditionally legitimate ends:

For Dewey, "restoring integration and cooperation between man's beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about the values [valuations] and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem of modern life." Moreover, a "culture which permits science to destroy traditional values [valuations] but which distrusts its power to create new ones is a culture which is destroying itself."

Dewey agreed with Max Weber that people talk as if they apply instrumental and intrinsic criteria. He also agreed with Weber's observation that intrinsic value is problematic in that it ignores the relationship between context and consequences of beliefs and behaviors. Both men questioned how anything valued intrinsically "for its own sake" can have operationally efficient consequences. However, Dewey rejects the common belief—shared by Weber—that supernatural intrinsic value is necessary to show humans what is permanently "right." He argues that both efficient and legitimate qualities must be discovered in daily life:<blockquote>Man who lives in a world of hazards…has sought to attain [security] in two ways. One of them began with an attempt to propitiate the [intrinsic] powers which environ him and determine his destiny. It expressed itself in supplication, sacrifice, ceremonial rite and magical cult.… The other course is to invent [instrumental] arts and by their means turn the powers of nature to account.…</blockquote>Philosophers label a "fixed reference point outside of conduct' a "natural kind," and presume it to have eternal existence knowable in itself without being experienced. Natural kinds are intrinsic valuations presumed to be "mind-independent" and "theory-independent."

Dewey grants the existence of "reality" apart from human experience, but denied that it is structured as intrinsically real natural kinds.

People reason daily about what they ought to do and how they ought to do it. Inductively, they discover sequences of efficient means that achieve consequences. Once an end is reached—a problem solved—reasoning turns to new conditions of means-end relations. Valuations that ignore consequence-determining conditions cannot coordinate behavior to solve real problems; they contaminate rationality.<blockquote>Value judgments have the form: if one acted in a particular way (or valued this object), then certain consequences would ensue, which would be valued. The difference between an apparent and a real good [means or end], between an unreflectively and a reflectively valued good, is captured by its value [valuation of goodness] not just as immediately experienced in isolation, but in view of its wider consequences and how they are valued.… So viewed, value judgments are tools for discovering how to live a better life, just as scientific hypotheses are tools for uncovering new information about the world.

J. Fagg Foster

John Fagg Foster made John Dewey's rejection of intrinsic value more operational by showing that its competent use rejects the legitimacy of utilitarian ends—satisfaction of whatever ends individuals adopt. It requires recognizing developmental sequences of means and ends.

Utilitarians hold that individual wants cannot be rationally justified; they are intrinsically worthy subjective valuations and cannot be judged instrumentally. This belief supports philosophers who hold that facts ("what is") can serve as instrumental means for achieving ends, but cannot authorize ends ("what ought to be"). This fact-value distinction creates what philosophers label the is-ought problem: wants are intrinsically fact-free, good in themselves; whereas efficient tools are valuation-free, usable for good or bad ends.

Foster finds that the is-ought problem is a useful place to attack the irrational separation of good means from good ends. He argues that want-satisfaction ("what ought to be") cannot serve as an intrinsic moral compass because 'wants' are themselves consequences of transient conditions.

Since 'wants' are shaped by social conditions, they must be judged instrumentally; they arise in problematic situations when habitual patterns of behavior fail to maintain instrumental correlations.

Revised definition of 'instrumental value'

To guard against contamination of instrumental value by judging means and ends independently, Foster revised his definition to embrace both.

Instrumental value is the criterion of judgment which seeks instrumentally-efficient means that "work" to achieve developmentally-continuous ends. This definition stresses the condition that instrumental success is never short term; it must not lead down a dead-end street. The same point is made by the currently popular concern for sustainability—a synonym for instrumental value.

Dewey's and Foster's argument that there is no intrinsic alternative to instrumental value continues to be ignored rather than refuted. Scholars continue to accept the possibility and necessity of knowing "what ought to be" independently of transient conditions that determine actual consequences of every action. Jacques Ellul and Anjan Chakravartty were prominent exponents of the truth and reality of intrinsic value as constraint on relativistic instrumental value.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul made scholarly contributions to many fields, but his American reputation grew out of his criticism of the autonomous authority of instrumental value, the criterion that John Dewey and J. Fagg Foster found to be the core of human rationality. He specifically criticized the valuations central to Dewey's and Foster's thesis: evolving instrumental technology.

His principal work, published in 1954, bore the French title La technique and tackles the problem that Dewey addressed in 1929: a culture in which the authority of evolving technology destroys traditional valuations without creating legitimate new ones. Both men agree that conditionally-efficient valuations ("what is") become irrational when viewed as unconditionally efficient in themselves ("what ought to be"). However, while Dewey argues that contaminated instrumental valuations can be self-correcting, Ellul concludes that technology has become intrinsically destructive. The only escape from this evil is to restore authority to unconditional sacred valuations:

The English edition of La technique was published in 1964, titled The Technological Society, and quickly entered ongoing disputes in the United States over the responsibility of instrumental value for destructive social consequences. The translator of Technological Society summarizes Ellul's thesis:

Ellul opens The Technological Society by asserting that instrumental efficiency is no longer a conditional criterion. It has become autonomous and absolute: He dates its domination to the 1800s, when centuries-old handicraft techniques were massively eliminated by inhuman industry.<blockquote>When, in the 19th century, society began to elaborate an exclusively rational technique which acknowledged only considerations of efficiency, it was felt that not only the traditions but the deepest instincts of humankind had been violated. Well-confirmed theories—"what ought to be" as the end of reasoning—are more than tools; they are maps of intrinsic properties of an unobservable and unconditional territory—"what is" as natural-but-metaphysical real kinds.