Instrumental Rationality

According to Killingsworth and Palmer (1992), Mark Poster said about Habermas' instrumental rationality, "Instrumental rationality characterizes practices in what he calls 'the system,' that is in institions like the bureaucratic state and the econom, which achieve social solidarty through 'steering mechanism'" (Poster23). Docmuents motivated by intrumental rationality have as their sole putpose the control of the document's readers. These writings may take on the appearance of traditional scientific papers, whose purpose is to persuade readers to accept an interpretation, usually amounting to a change of direction in a research program. But instrumental documents are not really interested in interpretation or in persuasion; they attempt to create, for the purpose of maintaining the system, a narrow path of action that has been chosen or created in advance of the document's production by hierarchically arranged powers. And though they may draw upon the contentions of a democratic discourse that is open to information from diverse sources, the aim of instrumental documents is never to treat deviant discourses with respect but always merely to take not of them, to record them, and ultimately to treat them as "noise" in the system, which needs to be ignored or expunged" (p. 166). Communicative rationality is the opposite.

References:

Killingsworth, M. J & Palmer, J.S. (1992). Ecospeak: Rhetoric and environmental politics in america. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.