subjective valuations and cannot be judged instrumentally. This belief supports philosophers who hold that facts ("what is") can serve as instrumental means for achieving ends, but cannot authorize ends ("what ought to be"). This fact-value distinction creates what philosophers label the is-ought problem: wants are intrinsically fact-free, good in themselves; whereas efficient tools are valuation-free, usable for good or bad ends. In modern North-American culture, this utilitarian belief supports the libertarian assertion that every individual's intrinsic right to satisfy wants makes it illegitimate for anyone—but especially governments—to tell people what they ought to do. Foster finds that the is-ought problem is a useful place to attack the irrational separation of good means from good ends. He argues that want-satisfaction ("what ought to be") cannot serve as an intrinsic moral compass because 'wants' are themselves consequences of transient conditions. Since 'wants' are shaped by social conditions, they must be judged instrumentally; they arise in problematic situations when habitual patterns of behavior fail to maintain instrumental correlations. Examples Foster uses with homely examples to support his thesis that problematic situations ("what is") contain the means for judging legitimate ends ("what ought to be"). Rational efficient means achieve rational developmental ends. Consider the problem all infants face learning to walk. They spontaneously recognize that walking is more efficient differently to crawling—an instrumental valuation of a desirable end. They learn to walk by repeatedly moving and balancing, judging the efficiency with which these means achieve their instrumental goal. When they master this new way-of-acting, they experience great satisfaction, but satisfaction is never their end-in-view. Revised definition of 'instrumental value' To guard against contamination of instrumental value by judging means and ends independently, Foster revised his definition to embrace both. Instrumental value is the criterion of judgment which seeks instrumentally-efficient means that "work" to achieve developmentally-continuous ends. This definition stresses the condition that instrumental success is never short term; it must not lead down a dead-end street. The same point is made by the currently popular concern for sustainability—a synonym for instrumental value. Dewey's and Foster's argument that there is no intrinsic alternative to instrumental value continues to be ignored rather than refuted. Scholars continue to accept the possibility and necessity of knowing "what ought to be" independently of transient conditions that determine actual consequences of every action. Jacques Ellul and Anjan Chakravartty were prominent exponents of the truth and reality of intrinsic value as