Abstract
Two phenomenological false moves try to open space for instrumental reason and action. One factors action into means and ends. The other separates action from normative features of the social world, as if action took place in a society-in-general. Since there is none, instrumental reason and action are pseudo-concepts. There is nothing for them to be concepts of. Instrumental reason and action depend on generic efficiency as their measure. Contextualized judgments of efficiency make sense; generic efficiency does not. The purist split between means and ends distorts action. Goals shape actions from the start and throughout. Considering what pursuing an end would involve figures into setting my goals. Action is a unity, not a composite of goal and means. Instrumentalism assumes affect and action nominalism: actions stripped of social form and purpose are animalistic. Labor in capitalism is not instrumental action; it produces surplus-value; it bears normative significance.