Normativity, Commitment, and Instrumental Reason

R. Jay Wallace There are two tendencies in our thinking about instrumental rationality that do not seem to cohere very well. On the one hand, the instrumental principle—enjoining us to take the means that are necessary relative to our ends—does not seem to apply indifferently to any end that we might be motivated to pursue. There is, for instance, no genuine requirement to take the means that are necessary for realizing ends that one merely happens to desire. This encourages what we might call a moralizing tendency in reflection about instrumental reason: the supposition that instrumental requirements come on the scene only in relation to ends that have themselves been endorsed in some way by the agent, as ends that it would be good or desirable to achieve. On the other hand, it seems undeniable that agents can display a kind of instrumental rationality in the pursuit of ends that they do not themselves endorse, when for instance they are in the grip of akrasia. People sometimes exhibit great intelligence and skill in executing plans that they view as dubious or questionable—think, for instance, of the extraordinary talent many of us display at procrastinating when it comes to tasks that we regard as worthy but difficult. It seems plausible to regard this kind of intelligence—cleverness, as we might call it—as a form of instrumental rationality, relative to the ends that we are in fact pursuing. This verdict, however, conflicts with the moralizing tendency in our reflection about the instrumental principle, since the cases at issue are precisely ones in which