Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2026 number 3

The article deals with the problem of the normativity of the instrumental principle. Contemporary philosophers consider the coherence of means and ends to be one of the most minimal requirements of rationality and most of them accept it as a self-evident analytical truth. However, in her article “The Normativity of Instrumental Reason,” Christine Korsgaard demonstrated that the normativity of the instrumental principle is not unproblematic and requires justification. Drawing on Kant’s practical philosophy, Korsgaard proposed a constitutivist justification strategy, according to which the normativity of means-ends coherence is rooted in the very structure of the will. The author of this article rejects this strategy because of the excessive metaphysical burden it carries, in the form of Kant’s idea of practical reason. An alternative approach is found in the philosophy of science, where the problem of the justification of the instrumental principle is just as acute as in practical philosophy Following Larry Laudan’s normative naturalism and Jean Hampton’s postnaturalism, the author proposes understanding instrumental rationality as a constitutive element of rational practice