means to an end
Tool, not goal
A means to an end is something valued not for itself but for what it helps achieve.
The job was just a means to an end—a way to pay for graduate school.
The phrase often implies the thing is unpleasant or merely tolerated: I don't enjoy networking, but it's a means to an end.
Sometimes carries moral weight, as in Kant's principle that people should never be treated merely as means to an end.
- motiveReason for action
- avenueBroad urban roadway
- goalDesired end result
- instrumentDevice for specific tasks
- utilitarianismGreatest-happiness moral theory
justification · consequences · necessary evil · moral compromise · device · expedient · compromise · morality · methodology · strategy · game plan · Machiavellianism · mechanism · vehicle · procedure · tool · resource · aim
- ethicsmorality, deontology, dignity, sanctity of life, utilitarianism
means to an endthe end
Final point of something
objective · destination · outcome · culmination · telos
mean, means, meant, meaning, meanings, meaningful, meaningfully, meaningless, meaninglessness