Should education serve socio-political missions, or should it be non-instrumental? In this paper I analyze a tension between two views concerning purpose in education, and I suggest a model that may help to reconcile it.

First we have social-mission approaches, subordinating education to socio-economic goals. One educational system can serve two masters or more, with inner contradictions: high-schools in countries in conflict are nationally committed to army-recruitment, encouraging obedience, are asked to "feed" high-tech industries with creative, open-minded people, and to promote academic and emotional skills of students. Additionally, education is conceived of as necessarily political (Freire1987, Lam1999) and so not only capitalist powers "use" it. educators are also expected to eliminate racism, violence, and injustice, promote democracy, and social justice.

In contrast, I recognise non-instrumental approaches, rooted in ancient traditions. Aristotle (1973) recognised pure study as an end in itself, and placed it at the top of human existence. Judaism attributes high religious and moral value to "Torah Lishma" - studying the Bible for its own sake. Islamic philosophy identifies the purposes of learning as morality and happiness – two inner purposes, not subordinated to external goals (Arar&Haj-Yehia2018).

Kant established the values attributed to non-instrumentalism, both morally and aesthetically, with the categorial imperative ordering "to always respect humanity as an end and never merely as a means" (Kant,1785/1998,38) and the  definition of beauty  as  "delight without interest" (1790/1951,38-39); Another moment of beauty is "purposiveness without purpose" (1790/1951, 55), which mixes a subjective feeling of inner purpose, with the freedom from external objectives. Referring to education we conclude that only pedagogies in which teachers and students are respected as human subject are morally justified, and that educational processes with inner purposefulness have aesthetic qualities.

Indeed, current thinkers criticize instrumentalism in education in various forms: seeing teachers as instruments instead of respecting their professional judgement (Biesta2015), subordinating educational processes to external goals, instead of acknowledging them as emergent (Osberg&Biesta 2021), treating schools functionally, focusing on efficiency, measurements of outcomes and quality not recognising them as homes for holistic processes (Magrini,2014; Biesta,2022).   

Interestingly, two thinkers who support non-instrumentalism, hold this inner tension un-explicitly within their theory. Martha Nusbaum (2010) criticizes materialism in national education-systems, oriented to technological competition and economic considerations. She suggests turning back to liberal curriculum, emphasizing humanities. However, the reason for Nussbaum’s preference, is protecting democracy, which she believes is threatened by the utilitarian approach. Nussbaum’s writing is not theoretical but practical – she defines it as a manifesto. Her book's name, “Not for Profit - Why Democracy Needs the Humanities” reflects the duality: the non-instrumental title is followed by a practical subtitle. I warmly identify with her moral and political preferences, but I must admit that her approach is not less instrumental than that of her capitalist opponents, it is just subordinated to different objectives.

Daniel Pink criticizes the use of external motivation for complex missions (like learning) and proposes to businesses and educators to allow inner motivation (i.e. supporting non-instrumentalism). However, his argument is based on the lesser efficiency of external motivation, namely, a very instrumental argument. Furthermore, in analysing the factors of inner motivation he mentions a sense of purpose, leading again to a dualistic message: Whoever is internally motivated, sees his action as subordinate to a purpose external to the action in itself.

To sum up the problem, I recognise two voices: one that "recruits" education in the service of external goals, and another that attributes value to non-instrumentalism. Furthermore, but I argue that within liberal-humanist educational discourse, these two voices are often inter-related thus creating tension, confusion or contradictions.

This is a theoretical paper, inspired by Kantian philosophy, And by current writings around the concepts 'purpose' and 'instrumentalism' in education (references are given above and below). I analyse critically two current theories (Pink and Nussbaum) to demonstrate the confusion and inner contradictions, and then I present other theories that clear parts of the clouds. Self-Determination-Theory (Ryan&Deci2017) offers a scale of motivation, and thus makes it easier to grasp how we can integrate non-instrumental aspects with the subordination to external purposes, and Biesta explains how to overcome instrumentalism without giving up on democracy. (2022). Finally, I offer a theoretical model as a way to reconcile the tension. The model does not describe the "is" but rather phrases the "ought" of education. Namely, I try to portray an ideal "map" of the educational act, by splitting the term Education into smaller layers of activities of teachers and students, and showing where and how is appropriate to subordinate educational work to external goals, and in what aspects it is important to guard its pure non-instrumental nature. The model proposes three layers of educational activity, which may be graphically illustrated by three concentric circles. The outer circle is about the teacher’s ideological approach to her work. This is where she needs to be allowed to set goals out of commitment to larger purposes. She plans her teaching with awareness of its socio-political implications. In the middle circle, I locate non-instrumental teaching and learning in school, where both teachers and students should be encouraged to master their work autonomously, without subordination to economic interests or national standards. They teach and learn out of a sense of choice and experience the joy of pure learning. The inner circle represents the aesthetic nature of learning. Here, the students experience Kant's aesthetic duality of "purposiveness without purpose", namely, a subjective sense of purpose, in their encounter with the learning contents and methods, without real subordination to external purposes. The sense of purposiveness gives them a sense of meaning and reduces boredom and alienation from the curriculum. Consequently, they become committed to the quality of learning, as an intrinsic purpose of learning for its own sake. To exemplify the practical expressions of the three layers and the interactions between them I present an imaginary example of a literature teacher, describing different moments in her work before, during and after class.

Identifying and distinguishing between purposive and non-instrumental aspects of teaching and learning reveal themselves to be complex tasks, whose complexity is inherent to the nature of education, rather than indicating confusion or internal contradiction. Learning is optimal when pursued for its own sake, without being subordinated to external ends, and when involving an aesthetic experience of internal purposiveness that gives it significance.. Teaching, on the other hand, includes both the leading of learning as an aesthetic activity, alongside with engaging in a moral and political commitment. Education is a complex endeavour that contains responsibility for processes of learning and teaching, and thus touches on the aesthetic, moral and political spheres. To conclude, I would like to share my concerns, along with my hope. In light of the current rise of antidemocratic trends worldwide, and regimes that are hardly committed to protecting democracy and human rights, our moral-political task as educators in protecting humanistic morality and democratic societies is becoming increasingly vital – and at the same time more challenging. We must commit to it as a clear and urgent purpose of our work, but we also should, and we can, undertake it without compromising the aesthetic quality of our students’ learning experience.

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