Ex- and intrinsic
I've been mulling over this extract from the Winston article on religion and evolution that I posted the other day:
A Harvard psychologist named Gordon Allport... came up with a definition of religiosity that is still in use today. He suggested that there were two types of religious commitment - extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic religiosity he defined as religious self-centredness. Such a person goes to church or synagogue as a means to an end - for what they can get out of it. They might go to church to be seen, because it is the social norm in their society, conferring respectability or social advancement. Going to church (or synagogue) becomes a social convention.
Allport thought that intrinsic religiosity was different. He identified a group of people who were intrinsically religious, seeing their religion as an end in itself. They tended to be more deeply committed; religion became the organising principle of their lives, a central and personal experience.
Yeah, sort of. But (ahem) I suspect that It's More Complicated Than That. Even if your religion [or other thing, because I think this model can apply across a whole range of phenomena that people can find life-meaning in, not just the religious] is 'an end in itself', there may still be secondary gains of an extrinsic nature which are pleasing to you: group acceptance, involvement with related activities, chance to use one's talents, etc. And people who do things initially for extrinsic motivations, 'a means to an end', may find themselves getting more deeply involved in them, and finding the [whatever] becomes an end in itself.
I'm trying to think of vivid and telling examples, but it's too late on a Friday evening of a longish tiring week. Maybe tomorrow.