Abstract
Ordine argues that activities deemed “useless” (literature, philosophy, art, and pure research) are essential for human freedom, moral imagination, and democratic life, countering modern pressures to measure all value by immediate economic utility.
He revives Renaissance humanism, showing how thinkers like Dante, Pico della Mirandola, Montaigne, and Giordano Bruno pursued knowledge for its own sake to cultivate virtue, self‑creation, and civic responsibility.
Ordine calls for renewed patronage, institutional protection, and public support for non‑instrumental scholarship, asserting that preserving spaces for the “useless” is a moral and civic necessity for a humane, resilient society.
Context
Nuccio Ordine’s The Usefulness of the Useless (L’utilità dell’inutile) (2013), was written as a response to early‑21st‑century pressures that demanded every human activity prove immediate economic worth. Ordine frames his argument against that instrumental climate, insisting that the useless is the most useful and that reducing value to measurable output “erodes the spiritual and civic goods” (he argues these goods must be defended even when they produce no marketable return).
Nuccio Ordine’s work reclaims Renaissance humanism as a living intellectual and moral practice, rather than an ancient archive of classical texts. He is particularly influenced by readings of Giordano Bruno and Pico della Mirandola who emphasise their pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. He argues that the studia humanitatis (grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy) were aimed at forming virtuous, free citizens, not merely producing technicians or economic value:
“humanistic studies aim at the education of the whole person, cultivating judgment, memory and eloquence.”
Dante
For Ordine, La Divina Commedia functions as moral pedagogy, an educative itinerary guiding readers from error to moral clarity. He argues that the poem is “a school of memory and of conscience,” meant to form the reader’s judgment and passions. Dante’s encounters, punishments, and reconciliations are thus instructive scenes designed to shape civic virtue and personal responsibility. Ordine often underscores the poem’s practical ethical aim, not just its theological or allegorical complexity.
Ordine also focuses on Dante’s defence of books, learning, and the humanities as essential to human flourishing. He remarks that Dante affirms “the indispensable value of culture against ignorance and barbarism,” portraying reading and memory as tools of salvation for both individuals and communities. Ordine resists reductive political readings of Dante, insisting that the Commedia’s moral and literary richness transcends partisan labels and offers universal reflections on justice, love, and human dignity.
Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico in Oration on the Dignity of Man presents the pursuit of knowledge as the defining vocation of human beings, an ontological project where free will enables humans to ascend the scale of being towards the divine. For Pico, philosophical and theological learning are not merely practical tools but the very means of self-creation: knowledge lets the soul choose its nature and pursue perfection. The search for wisdom is thus both dignifying and salvific, making intellectual striving a form of spiritual elevation.
Both Ordine and Pico champion knowledge pursued for its own sake, but they frame its value differently. Ordine prizes reading for its humanising, moral, and civic effects within historical and cultural life. He defends contemplative practices against commodification. On the other hand, Pico situates knowledge in a metaphysical and theological narrative of ascent and self-fashioning, where intellectual striving is the route to higher being. Ordine’s rhetoric is restorative and humanistic; Pico’s is exalted. Together they converge on the conviction that knowledge transforms the self beyond instrumental ends, one emphasising interior civic cultivation, the other metaphysical elevation.
Montaigne
Nuccio Ordine and Michel de Montaigne share a humanist concern for the dignity and moral complexity of the individual, but they approach humanism from different historical positions and with distinct emphases. Ordine, a scholar of Renaissance culture, revives and defends classical and humanist values against modern instrumentalism. He argues that literature, poetry, and the humanities cultivate moral imagination, freedom of thought, and resistance to utilitarian reduction. He maintains that culture is the supreme resource of freedom, insisting that works produced without economic utility preserve human liberty and the capacity for critical judgment. Montaigne, writing in the sixteenth century, practises a reflective, sceptical humanism grounded in the examination of the self. His Essays model intellectual humility and curiosity, asserting that understanding human nature requires candid self-scrutiny and tolerance. In “Of Cannibals” and other essays he observes: “Que sais‑je?” (“What do I know?”), and he uses personal examples to show how judgment, custom, and reason are fallible.
Both thinkers defend the value of classical learning and the educative role of literature, but Ordine frames this as a public argument against contemporary economic cynicism, while Montaigne shows humanism as lived practice, an ethical mode of being modest, humane, and attentive to others. Ordine emphasises restoration, arguing that the humanities restore moral sensibility and democratic culture. he claims that “books are not a luxury, they are a necessity.” Montaigne emphasises inward examination and tolerance, arguing that recognising our limits fosters clemency and social harmony: “To philosophise is to learn how to die,” he writes, linking humanist reflection to the cultivation of wisdom in daily life.
Montaigne’s sceptical mode questions universal claims and privileges experience and prudence. His essays suggest that virtues grow from self-knowledge and sympathetic imagination. Ordine accepts Montaigne’s scepticism but situates it within a larger programme defending the intrinsic worth of non‑utilitarian knowledge against modern managerial logics. He treats humanism as both guardian of moral imagination and active cultural policy.
Thus, while Montaigne practises humanism as personal inquiry and moral temper, Ordine advocates humanism as a public, programmatic defence of culture’s non‑economic values. Yet both converge on the conviction that reading and reflective thought are central to human life.
Giordano Bruno
In his books on Bruno (Giordano Bruno and the Philosophy of the Ass (La cabala dell'asino) (1987), and Giordano Bruno, Ronsard and Religion (2007), Ordine stresses Bruno’s use of imagination and memory techniques alongside speculative argument, seeing Bruno’s style as deliberately provocative to unsettle received wisdom. He often notes Bruno’s theatrical and dialectic methods and treats Bruno’s rhetorical practices as integral to his philosophical project, not merely ornaments:
“Bruno writes to transform how we see reality, not merely to provide arguments that fit into an academic system.”
Ordine argues that Bruno remains relevant for contemporary debates about science, philosophy and the limits of knowledge. He presents Bruno as a figure whose cosmological imagination and insistence on intellectual autonomy continue to challenge dogmatism, positioning him as a thinker whose daring helps renew modern inquiry:
“Bruno’s thought invites us to imagine possibilities that our present categories cannot yet contain.”
Abraham Flexner
It was Abraham Flexner’s 1939 essay The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge that inspired Ordine's book. Flexner argued that curiosity‑driven, non‑utilitarian scholarship produces the deepest and most transformative advances for society. Flexner defended pure research and liberal inquiry against demands that every pursuit demonstrate immediate practical payoff, writing that investigating ideas without present utility often yields unforeseen, epochal benefits later. Flexner was a founder of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which brought together some of the greatest minds in history to collaborate on intellectual discovery and research. They included Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel. He praised institutions and patrons that protected scholars’ freedom to follow intellectual curiosity rather than short‑term utility.
Ordine’s book echoes Flexner’s central claim but reorients it toward the humanities and civic life. Ordine adopts Flexner’s paradox: that “useless” inquiry can be supremely useful. But he emphasises moral, aesthetic, and pedagogical approaches: books, reading, and beauty cultivate judgment, freedom, and democratic resilience in ways metrics cannot capture. Where Flexner stressed the long‑term social payoffs of pure science and scholarship, Ordine stresses the immediate and formative role of the humanities in shaping persons and publics.
Both authors share a defence of intellectual freedom: Flexner’s plea to protect scholars’ autonomy resonates with Ordine’s call to defend time for deep reading and study. Both advocate institutional arrangements (funding, patronage, curricular space) that help protect non‑instrumental inquiry from short‑term market pressures.
However, they diverge on their bases for progress. Flexner believes pure science and research are the engine of unforeseen progress; Ordine thinks that literature, philosophy, and the arts are formative for character and citizenship.
They also disagree on normative aims. Flexner’s argument is consequentialist: useless knowledge becomes useful through later applications; Ordine gives pride of place to beauty and reading matter, even when they never yield practical application.
They also use a different rhetorical register. Flexner writes as an institutional reformer addressing scientific and educational policy; Ordine writes as a public humanist making a moral and cultural plea.
Flexner influenced Ordine by providing a rhetorical strategy: use the paradox of usefulness to defend non‑instrumental inquiry. Ordine inherits and adapts that strategy for contemporary debates about humanities under austerity. Both texts function as interventions in public debates about funding, curricula, and institutional priorities. Ordine updates Flexner’s defence to cover when market logic targets humanities programmes. They also have complementary arguments. Readers and policymakers can combine Flexner’s evidence of long‑term social returns from pure research with Ordine’s claims about immediate moral and civic returns from the humanities to make a stronger case for protecting all forms of “useless” knowledge.
Summary
Introduction
Nuccio Ordine opens by challenging the modern obsession with utility and productivity, arguing that society undervalues activities and knowledge that appear “useless” because they don’t produce immediate economic returns. He traces a long intellectual history showing how art, literature, philosophy, and pure science—pursuits often dismissed as nonpractical—have repeatedly generated deep human, ethical, and cultural benefits that cannot be measured in market terms. Ordine insists that the so-called useless enriches human life by cultivating imagination, critical thought and moral sensibility, and that reducing everything to utility impoverishes public life and diminishes our capacity for freedom.
Ordine also warns that treating knowledge and culture as commodities serves political and economic powers by discouraging dissent and critical inquiry. He celebrates examples from past thinkers and artists who created work without regard for immediate utility, figures who expanded human understanding and resisted the instrumental logic of their times. The Introduction frames the book’s thesis: defending the intrinsic worth of the useless is essential to preserving a humane, reflective society and to protecting the conditions under which creativity, truth, and liberty can flourish.
1. The Essence of the Useless
The chapter opens by challenging the modern obsession with usefulness, arguing that what we call "useless" often harbours deep human value. The author writes that uselessness "preserves a space where freedom and thought can breathe," suggesting non-instrumental activities create the conditions for autonomy and reflection.
He then shows how art, play, and idle conversation resist commodification: these practices "do not produce marketable results, but they produce humanity." Ordine emphasises that reducing everything to utility strips life of beauty and dignity.
The chapter links uselessness to memory and time, claiming that moments without purpose cultivate patience and continuity. As the text puts it, the useless "weaves continuity between past and present," allowing traditions and personal identity to persist beyond efficiency.
Finally, Ordine calls for a cultural revaluation: protecting spaces of unproductivity (museums, parks, unstructured time) and recognising their moral worth. He urges readers to "reclaim the useless" as essential to flourishing, rather than a luxury to be discarded.
2. The Defence of Free Knowledge
Nuccio Ordine insists that knowledge possesses an intrinsic worth that cannot be reduced to market value. He contends that “knowledge that is free is the foundation of liberty,” and that pursuing truth and beauty cultivates the human person beyond any immediate utility. Education, for Ordine, must therefore protect spaces where inquiry and contemplation exist for their own sake.
Ordine warns against the corrosive effects of utilitarian thinking on culture and institutions. When universities and arts are judged solely by profitability or employability, society “loses the capacity to ask why,” and citizens become consumers rather than reflective individuals. Defending free knowledge is thus a defence of the capacity to question prevailing norms and authorities.
The humanities play a central role in Ordine’s argument because they form the moral imagination needed for civic life. Literature, philosophy, and the arts teach empathy and the ability to imagine the other, equipping people to participate in democratic life with responsibility and compassion. Without this formation, public discourse becomes shallow and instrumental.
Finally, Ordine stresses that protecting knowledge often requires solidarity and alternative forms of support. He points to historical patronage and private commitment as models to shield intellectual freedom from bureaucratic control and market pressures. Free knowledge, in his view, is both a cultural treasure and a practical bulwark of freedom, since without it, the vitality of democratic life and human dignity are at risk.
3. The function of beauty and art
Ordine opens by asserting that beauty’s value cannot be reduced to utility:
“The true usefulness of the useless is precisely this: it makes us more fully human.”
He argues that aesthetic experiences (literature, music, painting) are not vain luxuries but formative encounters that expand imagination and moral feeling. He emphasises art’s role in cultivating interior life and reflection, noting that “art teaches us to be attentive to the world’s details.” Ordine contends that this attentiveness counters the flattening effects of an exclusively market-driven mentality.
On intellectual freedom, the author writes that art “creates a space of liberty where thought can roam,” insisting that aesthetic engagement fosters curiosity and independent judgment rather than instrumental thinking. Regarding education, he defends the humanities: “Educating for beauty is educating for freedom.” Ordine recommends a liberal-arts model that values formative knowledge over purely vocational training.
Ordine warns against commodification since when beauty is priced, it risks being distorted. He critiques the tendency to measure art only by economic return, arguing that this undermines both artistic integrity and social well-being. He links beauty to civic life, claiming that shared aesthetic references promote solidarity. Public support for the arts, he says, strengthens empathy and civic dialogue. Drawing on historical examples, Ordine observes that thinkers and artists have long shown how “useless” pursuits yield deep cultural goods. He uses these authorities to show a continuity between aesthetic “uselessness” and lasting human benefits.
In conclusion he issues a normative call: “Protecting spaces for beauty is a public duty.” Ordine urges investment in the arts and humanities not for immediate profit but to preserve the capacities that sustain culture, democracy, and individual flourishing.
4. Critique of Economic Utilitarianism
Nuccio Ordine contends that economic utilitarianism, which measures the value of knowledge and human activity solely by market outcomes, is intellectually and morally impoverishing. He argues that this narrow calculus erodes the intrinsic aims of learning (beauty, wisdom, and moral formation) by insisting that everything must prove its worth in terms of economic return.
The author criticises the instrumentalisation of knowledge, showing how education and culture are increasingly treated as investments whose value is judged only by measurable market metrics. This short‑termism and calculability' privileges immediate, quantifiable benefits and ignores long‑term, unpredictable, and qualitative contributions made by the arts, philosophy, and basic science.
He warns that economic reductionism leads to the commodification of persons, where people are viewed primarily as producers and consumers and talents are treated as economic capital. According to Ordine, this undermines freedom, creativity, civic life, and essential humanistic virtues such as compassion, contemplation, and critical thinking.
To illustrate his point, Ordine invokes writers and thinkers such as Plato, Montaigne, Dante or Borges, arguing that the greatest cultural achievements often sprang from pursuits that had 'no immediate economic payoff.' He uses these examples to show that many valuable outcomes cannot be monetised or predicted.
While acknowledging arguments for efficiency and accountability, Ordine rejects the notion that usefulness and beauty are mutually exclusive. He insists that public policy driven solely by utilitarian economic criteria risks narrowing education and weakening democratic culture by cutting support for the humanities and fundamental research.
Ordine’s prescriptive plea is that society should restore respect and support the liberal arts and curiosity‑driven inquiry. He calls for institutions and public policy to protect activities whose value is cultural, ethical, and existential rather than merely economic.
5. The figure of the cultural 'donor'
Nuccio Ordine examines how individuals who support culture (patrons, benefactors, donors) play a vital role beyond mere financial contribution. He asserts that the cultural donor embodies a model of generosity that resists the instrumental logic of market value: "culture does not repay those who sustain it with immediate utility". Therefore patronage is an example of giving without calculation. Ordine stresses that this generosity defends the intrinsic worth of literature, art, and knowledge against utilitarian reduction.
Ordine traces the historical and moral dimensions of cultural patronage, showing it as an ethical stance that affirms humanistic values. He depicts the donor as someone who sustains the life of the mind and helps preserve works that otherwise might be lost to market forces. For Ordine, patronage is not mere transaction but a relational act since it creates a network of mutual recognition between creators and supporters and fosters public access to culture.
The chapter also contrasts two attitudes toward cultural support: the instrumental, where culture is judged by marketable returns, and the disinterested, where donors act out of love for knowledge and beauty. Ordine defends the latter, claiming that true patrons promote freedom of thought and long-term cultural flourishing. He warns that when patronage is subordinated to branding or short-term visibility, culture risks becoming commodified:
“when culture is measured only by profit, it loses its soul.”
Finally, Ordine highlights examples, historical and contemporary, of patrons whose commitment ensured the survival and dissemination of important works. He invites readers to reconsider patronage not as an elitist charity but as a civic responsibility. Supporting culture is a public good that enriches society as a whole. In his closing thrust, he urges a renewal of generosity, noting that to give to culture is to give a future.
6. Education, research, and the university
Ordine opens by insisting that education's value cannot be reduced to economic utility:
"The true aim of education is not to produce workers, but to form human beings."
He argues that universities must defend intellectual freedom and foster disinterested love of knowledge rather than yield to market pressures. Defending the humanities, Ordine writes that so-called "useless" disciplines - literature, philosophy, history, the arts - are essential because they cultivate critical thinking and moral imagination. Their worth, he says, is intrinsic and cannot be measured solely by job placement statistics:
"Without the humanities, there is no memory, no judgment, no resistance to barbarism."
Against managerialism, he criticises the encroachment of metrics and short-termism. "When everything is measured, everything is distorted." Ordine warns that prioritising profit-orientated research and vocational training narrows inquiry and undermines the university's role as a place of free thought.
On research, Ordine defends curiosity-driven inquiry. He emphasises that basic research — often labelled useless at first — provides the foundations for future technological and cultural advances. He stresses the ethical dimension of teaching and mentorship: "A teacher who transmits only techniques but not passion, betrays the vocation of education." He values personal relationships and the transmission of values over standardised, measurable teaching methods.
"Universities are repositories of cultural memory and guardians of the public good."
Public support for higher education, Ordine argues, is justified because universities cultivate responsible citizens and sustain democratic life.
7. The Value of Leisure and Play
Ordine argues that what is commonly dismissed as “useless” — leisure, play, and disinterested study — is in fact a vital source of human freedom, creativity, and moral formation. He insists that play “frees thought from aims and usefulness,” allowing imagination and reflection to flourish without the pressure of immediate goals.
This non‑instrumental activity, Ordine suggests, produces the conditions for moral and intellectual growth that utilitarian calculation cannot measure. Far from being mere indulgence, leisure cultivates virtues such as curiosity and patience and thereby “protects the soul from the impoverishment of success,” offering a counterweight to societies that value only measurable outputs.
Ordine also emphasises the social and cultural benefits of play and aesthetic experience, contending that engagement with art and literature preserves collective memory and deepens civic life. He writes that these pursuits create a reserve of human riches whose returns are indirect but indispensable. Finally, he rejects the notion that usefulness is the only legitimate criterion for supporting learning and culture, arguing that protecting spaces for useless pursuits is practical in the long run because they become the seedbed of discoveries and innovations that utility‑driven policies often fail to foresee.
8. Memory and Cultural Heritage
Ordine maintains that cultural memory, embodied in art, literature, monuments, and scholarly works, has intrinsic value beyond immediate utility and is essential for shaping collective identity, moral imagination, and critical thought. Ordine warns that commodification and utilitarianism threaten these ties to the past, leading to forgetfulness and cultural impoverishment, and he defends so‑called useless pursuits (classical studies, pure scholarship, the arts) as investments in civic resilience and human dignity. These justify public support for libraries, museums, conservation, and humanistic education, in his words, preserving memory is not an aesthetic luxury but “an obligation toward future generations,” requiring citizens’ engagement to prevent cultural amnesia.
9. Contemporary resistances to the useless
Ordine warns that modern institutions increasingly treat “useless” knowledge — humanities, arts, pure research, and contemplative study — as expendable because value is measured mainly by marketability and measurable outputs.
He traces the pressure to several sources: market‑driven education where universities prioritise vocational, revenue‑generating programmes, bureaucratic managerialism that uses metrics, performance indicators and efficiency logic to squeeze out time for reflection, cultural utilitarianism that dismisses non‑instrumental pursuits as frivolous and political instrumentalisation that bends knowledge to propaganda or short‑term economic aims.
The consequences, he argues, are severe: diminished intellectual freedom and imagination, the loss of formative experiences that cultivate moral judgment, empathy, and democratic sensibilities and the erosion of the conditions that foster creativity and the scientific and cultural breakthroughs that often arise from seemingly “useless” inquiry.
To resist these trends Ordine defends the intrinsic worth of disinterested learning and urges protecting institutional spaces of free inquiry through independent institutes, patronage, endowments, and endowed positions and rejecting metric‑obsessed evaluation in favour of long‑term, qualitative assessment. He stresses the civic role of the humanities in forming critical citizens, not just workers and calls for public advocacy and cultural policies that fund and legitimise non‑utilitarian forms of knowledge.
Historical and Biographical Examples
Nuccio Ordine assembles a series of portraits and anecdotes to argue that pursuits deemed "useless" — literature, pure scholarship, artistic creation, and contemplative inquiry — possess intrinsic value and yield long-term social and moral benefits.
Ordine shows how "devotion to knowledge for its own sake" sustained civilisation in the past: Renaissance humanists and anonymous librarians who preserved manuscripts, poets and thinkers who worked without immediate economic return, and scientists who pursued truth despite political indifference, all contributed cultural riches that only later were recognised.
He emphasises the recurring pattern of a time lag between creation and recognition, where acts that seem unprofitable in their era produce future dividends. This supports his claim that societies impoverish themselves when they judge value solely by market utility. Throughout the chapter Ordine highlights non-instrumental motivations — curiosity, love of beauty, moral commitment and presents these figures as moral exemplars whose perseverance, humility, and generosity foster intellectual freedom and civic depth.
Ordine names several people and sources who represent his argument:
Giovanni Boccaccio (and other early humanists), authors who revived interest in classical learning and literature through works compiled and copied by dedicated scholars and patrons.
Michel de Montaigne, the essayist whose personal, non-instrumental exploration of thought and selfhood exemplifies writing done for reflection and moral insight rather than profit or practical utility.
Giacomo Leopardi, the poet-philosopher whose contemplative, often noncommercial work shaped modern sensibilities and influenced later literature and thought despite limited immediate reward.
Galileo Galilei (and similar scientists), figures who pursued scientific truth despite institutional opposition, whose discoveries later became foundational for modern science, illustrating delayed societal payoff.
Ordine recounts several obscure individuals whose lifelong devotion to books and learning, though unrewarded in their lifetimes, preserved resources later essential to scholarship.
Collectors and private patrons, those who built collections and supported artists/scholars without immediate economic return, enabling cultural projects (museums, libraries) that benefit later generations.
By juxtaposing famous names with lesser-known custodians of culture, he illustrates how patrons, monasteries, and collectors who acted without immediate gain performed a kind of cultural foresight, and he uses evocative anecdotes to make an emotional as well as rational case. The cumulative effect is a plea to protect and fund the seemingly useless. As Ordine writes, their benefits are "real, though diffuse and delayed," and abandoning them in favour of strict utilitarian austerity risks flattening a society's intellectual and moral life.
Defending the Useless Today
Nuccio Ordine closes by reaffirming his central claim: activities and knowledge judged “useless” by utilitarian standards: poetry, philosophy, pure research, art, and disinterested learning, are essential to human dignity, freedom, and the health of society. As he writes:
“we must defend the useless because in it resides the truth of our humanity”.
He argues that reducing education and culture to immediate economic utility impoverishes the imagination, moral reflection, and the capacity for critique that sustain democratic life: “When everything is measured by utility, the soul is impoverished”.
Ordine traces the historical and moral stakes. Thinkers from Plato to Renaissance humanists defended learning pursued for its own sake because it cultivates judgment, empathy, and the inner freedom to resist instrumentalisation. He insists that learning without utility is not a luxury but a necessity. The “useless” disciplines foster creativity, long-term progress, and unexpected discoveries that eventual practical gains cannot justify in advance. He stresses that true knowledge cannot be bought or mass-produced, it requires time, patience, passion, and personal commitment.
Responding to contemporary pressures such as market-driven universities, metrics, short-term funding, Ordine issues a moral and civic plea to preserve and fund the humanities and curiosity-driven research, protect institutions that allow thought without immediate return, and resist the rhetoric that measures human worth only by productivity. Defending the useless, he insists, is not nostalgia but a political and ethical necessity. It protects intellectual freedom, cultivates citizens capable of critical thought and secures the cultural resources needed for a humane future.
Themes
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that evaluates actions by their consequences, specifically the extent to which they maximise overall happiness or utility. Classical utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill held that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” should guide moral decisions. Utilitarian reasoning tends to assess institutions, policies, and cultural investments by their measurable social benefits.
The tension between Ordine’s defence of the “useless” and utilitarian frameworks centres on different valuations of human pursuits. Ordine warns that when culture is judged only by productivity or economic return, we risk impoverishing human life: “the humanities cultivate the capacity for wonder,” he writes, a capacity that resists being reduced to metrics. Utilitarian approaches, by contrast, ask whether spending on the arts yields greater overall wellbeing than alternative uses of resources, favouring measurable outcomes.
A synthesis is possible when utilitarianism recognises non-quantifiable but broadly consequential content. Some contemporary utilitarians accept that cultural and educational experiences produce long-term benefits such as empathy, civic engagement and mental health that contribute to overall utility, even if these benefits are hard to measure.
Ordine champions the intrinsic and formative value of the humanities; utilitarianism emphasises measurable consequences for welfare. Bridging them requires appreciating indirect, long-term, and qualitative benefits that culture provides, not only immediate economic returns.
Science
Ordine maintains that measuring science by narrow numerical indicators collapses the richness of intellectual work into “a single account book,” where every research act is valued only for its immediate return. He warns that metrics such as publication counts, impact factors, and productivity indexes create “perverse incentives” that favour safe, incremental studies over bold, foundational inquiry, because scholars learn to optimise scores, rather than pursue questions for their own sake.
The author emphasises the unpredictability of discovery: basic research often yields its greatest value long after it was done, so retrospective, short‑term metrics systematically miss future significance. As he puts it, what is dismissed as “useless” today may become “indispensable” tomorrow, and measuring only present outputs risks throwing away the very projects that produce deep changes. This leads him to defend the intrinsic worth of curiosity‑driven science, knowledge pursued not as an investment but as a human good.
He calls for qualitative, humanistic judgment to complement numbers: peer evaluation, careful reading of work, attention to originality, and recognition of education, mentorship, and public engagement. Ordine writes that “intellectual generosity” and the cultivation of critical thought cannot be captured by citation counts, and insists institutions must preserve spaces where scholars can follow questions without immediate market justification. For him, evaluation systems should honour a plurality of aims like truth‑seeking, pedagogy and cultural enrichment, rather than reduce science to a single productivity index.
Finally, Ordine frames the problem as ethical and civic, not merely technical: measuring science purely by metrics undermines the democratic and moral role of knowledge. He cautions policymakers that funding and career incentives structured around narrow indicators risk “impoverishing the future,” and recommends maintaining support for basic research and the humanities so that society retains the freedom to pursue discoveries whose value cannot be quantified in advance.
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