Education is deemed an important and powerful tool that will lead to a person accessing opportunities that will lead them to have a successful life. In other words, it can be termed as a means to an end because it will transform a person and help them lead a better life than they could have if they were not educated. It is from that perspective that it will be argued that education is more valuable instrumentally than intrinsically. When something is intrinsically valuable, it is said to be good for it, and there is nothing one will achieve or produce by having it. A good example of intrinsic value is happiness or truthfulness. When a person is happy, that is it; they are just happy and will remain so. But when it comes to something being termed as instrumentally good, then its value is measured by what a person is meant to achieve through it. It is against this background that education will be termed as more instrumentally valuable than it is intrinsically valuable.
It is always believed that education brings happiness. That is especially true considering that quality and proper education will lead to a person accessing job opportunities that will ensure they have a good salary that will enable them to buy the good things that money can afford. It is undisputable that abundance of money often leads a person to acquire anything and everything they could have wished for in this life. For instance, they will afford proper medical care, and they can afford expensive and luxurious holidays and all they need to make their lives comfortable. Therefore, education will have served as a means to an end where it enables a person to have the jobs of their dreams and a beautiful life and family (Gingell, 2013). The life of a person who has it all is always stable, and it is this stability that brings happiness. For anyone to be happy, they need to be happy from deep inside their hearts and souls, and even if that may not be the key to happiness; it will sure lead to one accessing a few things that will make their lives happy.
Lifestyles are evolving and sometimes people are pushed to the limits of their financial freedoms. Many are the times when world economies sink into crises that lead to loss of employment. That only means one thing; that there will be a scarcity of jobs and that only those who have very high academic credentials stand to get employed while others keep struggling. Even the lowest of jobs that do not need specialized skills require a certain level of education. So, therefore, for a person to earn a living, get a job that will ensure they lead a stable life, they need to be educated. To achieve self-sufficiency, it is only prudent that one stays employed for them to achieve financial independence. Education will have served the purpose of being a means to an end because only the educated will stand to benefit from such situations and the uneducated stand to lose.
Education also plays a very important role in enabling people to become successful in their lives. It is more of the platform that enables a person to develop goals they intend to pursue and then develop mechanisms that will enable them to achieve those goals. It is possible that people have dreams of what they want to become or achieve in life. If they have basic education that will enable them to transmute the dreams into thoughts, then they will be in a better position to work on those dreams and make them a reality (Gingell, 2013). That does not mean those who are uneducated cannot work on their dreams; they can, but education gives a person a multifaceted and intellectual approach to handling different situations. Besides, they often develop a capacity of using multiple ways to handle any obstacle as they go about pursuing their goals and dreams.
It becomes easier for a person who is educated to work in a new environment or setting. If the same were to happen to any person who is uneducated, it would be a hard thing to do considering that education offers a person the opportunity to interact with other people from different cultures other than theirs (Fairfield, 2009). As people go on to study at different levels, they encounter situations they are not used to and can counter and manage them. The same can happen when a person is introduced to a new setting with different people; an educated person can travel to different nations, meet new people and experience a different culture without feeling intimidated and superior or inferior to others. Education enables a person to test their capabilities by way of taking up new challenges and coming out successful. The intellectual capacity they develop acts as a means of helping them cope with any situation in, and outside of their comfort zones.
In this era education has become a very important tool that enables one to navigate in the job market. People are often expected to use the acquired knowledge to develop ideas and intrinsic values that help them to draw similarities and distinctions in nature (Palmer, 2013). The mere fact that they know how to maneuver through the world is enough advantage over those who lack the knowledge that helps people make important life decisions. That is where the reasoning beyond the illogical comes in for it helps individuals participate in informed arguments that are based on facts. That way they can sustain discussions or arguments that are beneficial not only to them but also to society. In fact, their arguments can be compared to arguments held by uneducated people and the difference will be seen. Education, therefore, is a means to a peaceful and intelligent world in which people sit and reason soberly in their quest to find solutions to their problems.
Education is more valuable instrumentally than intrinsically by all respects because the qualifications a person gets are the ones that determine their success. Once a person acquires knowledge and academic qualifications they get a ticket to pursuing careers and a fruitful life. But again, it cannot be ignored that education might lead to the acquisition of values that will shape the character of a person. There is something about education that equips a person with knowledge, wisdom and experience to deal with situations in an intelligent manner. Education, therefore, accords an individual with not only material things but also life experiences that enable one easily solve the challenges they face. But more importantly, the knowledge one starts to acquire at first grade influenced the knowledge acquired in eighth grade and even at the university level. Every level of education serves as a means of getting to the next level until one finishes high school, college or university.
References
Fairfield, P. (2009). Education after Dewey. New York: Continuum.
Gingell, J. (2013). Education and the Common Good: Essays in Honor of Robin Barrow. New York: Routledge.
Palmer, D. (2013). Does the Center Hold? An Introduction to Western Philosophy. New York: McGraw- Hill
