ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 rejects a standard instrumental conception of rationality on the grounds that it implies that all our goal-directed actions are only instrumentally valuable. The conception thereby instrumentalises persons. The necessary remedy is to distinguish between, on the one hand, means and ends, and on the other, what is instrumentally and non-instrumentally valuable. This distinction is vital for understanding well-being in three ways. First, self-instrumentalising is a serious form of ill-being. Second, the distinction transforms our relationship to goals: we show that goals as such are instrumentally valuable to the processes of living. Third, it supports the principle that the primary bearers of non-derivative prudential (non-moral) value are persons (and other conscious beings), as opposed to ends. The activities that comprise a person’s life have value because the person does. This idea is required to avoid the instrumentalism of goal-based conceptions of rationality. Understanding instrumentalisation reminds us that ill-being can be a direct result of dehumanisation which applies to each of the four structural dimensions of our well-being: activities, awareness, relationships and self-consciousness.
