Monday, April 24, 2023

Instrumental and non-instrumental goods

Aristotle writes at times as if the fact that something is non-instrumentally good for one makes it a greater good than merely instrumental goods. That’s surely false. Among the non-instrumental goods are many quite trivial goods: knowing how many blades of grass there are on one’s front lawn, enjoying a quick game of Space Invaders, etc.

2 comments:

fan said...

Can you possibly elaborate more? Instrumental goods are only good via their relation to some non instrumental good right? If that's the case then I don't see how an instrumental good in itself wouldn't be of lesser value than the good which the instrumental good is directed toward.

Alexander R Pruss said...

I think you may be looking for something deeper than I was saying. An instrumental good could be instrumental to a great final good, and hence would be greater than a small final good.