Abstract
For some, the problem with the domination of instrumental rationality is the tendency towards anomie. However, this fails to recognise the instrumental use of norms by elite groups to manipulate public opinion. Such manipulation can then allow elite groups to treat the citizenry as a means for the pursuit of their self-interest. Horkheimer was one of the first to recognise the problem in this form, but was unable to offer any solution because he conceptualised the citizenry as passive. By contrast, Dewey argued for an active citizenry to value participation in public life as good in, and of, itself. This is associated with his conception of democracy as an ethical way of life offering the possibility for the domination of instrumental rationality to be transcended. In this article Dewey’s resolution of the problem is addressed in the light of the weaknesses attributed here to Horkheimer and to later developments by Bellah, Bernstein, Gellner, Habermas and Honneth.
Highlights
Instrumental rationality is a mode of rationality that is exclusively concerned with the search for efficient means and which, is not concerned with assessing the goals—or ends—pursued
Many authors writing about the domination of instrumental rationality, including Bellah, Durkheim and Gellner, focus on anomie
We live in a condition where emotive and transient norms-as-means can be used by elites to manipulate public opinion
Summary
Instrumental rationality is a mode of rationality that is exclusively concerned with the search for efficient means and which, is not concerned with assessing the goals—or ends—. Individuals needed freedom from interference by the state to pursue their self-interest and the provision of rules for competition to reduce the risk of losing private property though theft, force or fraud. Freedom and the provision of “rules of the game” to regulate competition were the most efficient means for individuals to pursue rational self-interest. There would be no concern about trying to create the good society by imposing a set of norms on individuals which were deemed, by a political elite, as being good in themselves as ends that needed to be realised. The “thin” liberal approach to politics is an expression of instrumental rationality because the focus is only on the provision of efficient means for individuals to realise self-interest. As will be argued, with the development of representative democracy within a “thin” liberal framework, it is possible for the political elite, that is, competing political parties, to act in an instrumentally rational way, using emotive norms-as-means to sway public opinion and get electoral support and support for policies
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