IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/ecnphi/v11y1995i01p57-83_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Critique of Instrumental Reason in Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Stewart, Hamish

Abstract

There are, broadly speaking, two ways to think about rationality, as defined in the following passage: ‘Reason’ for a long time meant the activity of understanding and assimilating the eternal ideas which were to function as goals for men. Today, on the contrary, it is not only the business but the essential work of reason to find means for the goals one adopts at any given time. (Horkheimer, 1974, p. vii) To use what Horkheimer called objective reason, and what others have called expressive or non–instrumental reason, is to reflect on one's goals, to attempt to determine what preferences one ought to hold. On the other hand, to use what Horkheimer called subjective reason is to ‘be concerned with means and ends, with the adequacy of procedures for purposes more or less taken for granted’ (1947, p. 3), that is, to be instrumentally rational. This contrast between non-instrumental and instrumental reason is at the heart of many contemporary social and philosophical disputes.1

Suggested Citation

  • Stewart, Hamish, 1995. "A Critique of Instrumental Reason in Economics," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 57-83, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:11:y:1995:i:01:p:57-83_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0266267100003229/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Knox, Trevor M., 1999. "The volunteer's folly and socio-economic man: some thoughts on altruism, rationality, and community," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 475-492.
    2. Lynne, Gary D. & Casey, C. Franklin, 1998. "Regulation of technology adoption when individuals pursue multiple utility," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 701-719.
    3. William A. Jackson, 2013. "The desocialising of economic theory," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(9), pages 809-825, July.
    4. Tomer, John, 2008. "Beyond the rationality of economic man, toward the true rationality of human man," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1703-1712, October.
    5. Elias L. Khalil, 1997. "Chaos Theory Versus Heisenberg's Uncertainty: Risk, Uncertainty and Economic Theory," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 41(2), pages 27-40, October.
    6. Jagoda Komusińska, 2015. "Economics as a Discipline of Instrumental Reason. Looking at Economics as a Science from the Perspective of the Frankfurt School of Philosophy," Annales. Ethics in Economic Life, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, vol. 18(4), pages 73-83, December.
    7. Ricardo Crespo, 2008. "Reciprocity and practical comparability," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 55(1), pages 13-28, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:11:y:1995:i:01:p:57-83_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/eap .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.