[Revised entry by Niko Kolodny and John Brunero on February 5, 2023.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, supplement.html]
Someone displays instrumental rationality insofar as she adopts suitable means to her ends. Instrumental rationality, by virtually any reckoning, is an important, and presumably indispensable, part of practical rationality. However, philosophers have been interested in it for further reasons. To take one example, it has been suggested that instrumental rationality, or some tendency toward it, is partly constitutive of intention, desire, or action. To take another, more important, example, it has been argued that instrumental rationality…
Originally appeared on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Read More
