Artefactual norms

There is a long-standing tradition of characterizing artifacts in terms of purposes. Artifacts are physical entities, subject to the laws of nature, but what makes them different from stones and clouds—that is, what makes them artifacts—is the fact that they are intentionally produced and used by human beings to realize certain goals (see, e.g., Simon 1969; Hilpinen 2004; Kroes and Meijers 2006; or much earlier, see Aristotle’ s Physica). Consequently, an evaluation of an artifact is typically cast in terms of, what von Wright (1963a) calls, its instrumental goodness. An artifact is good if it indeed has the capacity to produce a certain practical end, bad otherwise