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Efficacy, Efficiency and Sustainability

Efficacy (effectiveness)

Effectiveness (efficacy) of actions consists of their capability of producing desired results. A decision is effective when it brings about the consequences its subject (a person, a group, an organisation) has intended by this decision.

Efficiency (economy)

Efficiency (economy) occurs when effective actions consume the least possible amount of resources which the entity has at their disposal; it is an accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort. The action is ineffective when the agent devotes the value regarded by him/her as superior to the implementation of the value which he/she considers lower according to his/her hierarchy of values. For example, when he/she sacrifices his/her safety for expediency, and he/she appreciates his/her safety more than these benefits, the action is not efficient.

Efficiency assessment

The criteria of efficiency assessment imply an adopted taxonomy of resources. This taxonomy depends from the decision about the hierarchy of values, that is, what resources the agent considers as more valuable than others. The decisions about autotelic values (Ger. Eigenwerte) constitute the hierarchy of values. Therefore decisions intending efficiency have to respect autotelic values and axiological rationality of decisions is a necessary condition of their instrumental rationality.

The assessment about efficiency should take into account not only whether decision makers effectively pursue some aim, but also whether this objective and planned action is consistent with the realisation of objectives that are equally or more important in the longer run and further perspective of their commitments. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the efficiency of decisions is not complete without taking into account those values that the agent considers autotelic. This observation implies ethical perspective of efficiency assessment and introduces this perspective into the sciences investigating the efficiency of actions, such as, for example, praxeology and economics.