We can characterize goals as either “instrumental” or “terminal.” We care about instrumental goals in support of others, and about terminal goals in themselves. For example, the instrumental goal of figuring out whether seaweed counts as a plant supports the terminal goal of understanding the natural world.

The distinction between instrumental and terminal depends on perspective, where broader perspectives bias toward instrumental. A hard drive has a terminal goal of storing and loading data. More broadly, a computer has an instrumental goal of storing and loading data to support a terminal goal of performing useful computation. More broadly, a person with a computer has an instrumental goal of performing useful computation to support an instrumental goal of figuring our whether seaweed counts as a plant to support a terminal goal of understanding the natural world.

I'd like to end with 3 practical observations about instrumental and terminal goals:

1. Instrumental goals can simultaneously support and undermine a variety of other instrumental and terminal goals. Particularly, using limited resources, e.g. time, on instrumental goals implicitly undermines unsupported terminal goals.
2. You can persuade others (including your future self) by showing an instrumental goal supports a more terminal goal from their perspective.
3. In long-term action, it helps to recontextualize whether your active goals do and still support your terminal goals.¹