Instrumental Value

Abstract 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., 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 – for example, 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.