Two Conceptions of Instrumental Thought.

The article critically examines the dominant "Theoretical Conception" of instrumental thought, which holds that the truth of means-end reasoning is independent of an agent's normative conception of their ends. It argues that this view fails to explain how agents correctly identify means to their ends, as it ignores the role of agents' reasons for acting in shaping what counts as a means. Instead, the author proposes the "Practical Conception," according to which the content of instrumental thoughts is directly determined by the agent's practically normative conception of their ends, including an understanding of their final ends as intrinsically good. This account emphasizes that instrumental reasoning cannot be separated from the agent's reasons and values, challenging standard Humean and decision-theoretic models that treat desires or preferences as sufficient for explaining action.