Objectivity, Political Order, and Responsibility in Max Weber’s Thought

ABSTRACT

Weber’s conception of politics has long been interpreted in relativistic and “agonistic” terms. Such interpretations neglect Weber’s notion of “objectivity” as well as the complex links between politics as “community,” on the one hand, and as “value sphere,” on the other. Seen against this backdrop, Berufpolitik becomes a balancing act in which the pursuit of subjective values is objectively constrained not only by the ethic of responsibility, but more generally by the political imperative to safeguard the preconditions for communal order and, in late modernity, of liberal freedoms. Without them, neither the objective “clarity” generated by science nor the subjective political commitments based on “clear vision” would be possible.

Keywords:

• historical sciences
• Max Weber
• political community
• political sphere
• political responsibility

ORCID

Maurizio Ferrera http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0869-2593

Notes

1 For a review and discussion of such positions, cf. especially Lassman 2006 and 2011. As pointed out by Villa 1999, Weber’s alleged strong relativism has been the object of enormous criticism from both the left (Lukàcs, Horkheimer and Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas) and the right (Strauss, Voegelin, MacIntyre).

2 As the volumes of the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (MWG) published by Siebeck Mohr are not available in English, in this article I have used the English editions suggested by Swedberg 2005. As to the secondary literature on Weber, this article extensively draws (also) on the Italian Weber scholarship (especially that of Norberto Bobbio and Pietro Rossi), still not adequately known in English-language debates.

3 According to Dilthey, understanding is based on the observer’s ability to identify with the observed social object/phenomenon, “re-living” and reproducing within herself the experience of others. Weber denies that such “re-lived experience” (Erlebnis) provides a suitable starting point for sociological understanding (Rossi 1971).

4 Counterfactual analysis ensures the objectivity of causal imputation in the study of individual historical cases and singular events. If the scientific interest is in several cases, macro-structures, or macro-historical processes, counterfactual analysis is replaced by the comparative method. In the first case, what is practiced is a sociologically inspired historical analysis. In the second case, what is practiced is macro-historical sociology, of which Weber is rightly considered the founder (Kalberg 1994 and Ringer 1997). For Weber’s role in highlighting the methodological promises of counterfactuals and a discussion of the state of the art, see Tetlock and Belkin 2001 and Levy 2008.

5 In a famous passage, Weber (1949, 59) states that a logically correct scientific demonstration must be acknowledged as true “even by a Chinese,” by which he means an individual who lacks “sensitivity” to the cultural assumptions and value-reference of the author of that demonstration.

6 The role of “community” and ‘“order” in politics is emphasized especially in Weber’s sociological writings, while conflict is the main feature of his political writings, which are oriented toward practice and current issues. As noted by Beetham 1985, the different analytical emphasis and argumentative purposes of academic-sociological and political writings have generated interpretative ambiguity and misunderstanding. In my view, this has also hindered a full appreciation of the foundations of Weber’s political theory.

7 Even on a purely terminological level, the literature on Weber has not considered the different connotations that the concept of “objectivity” assumes in the scientific sphere, on the one hand, and in the political sphere, on the other.

8 Weber distinguished, as is known, only three pure types of legitimacy: traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational. Democracy is especially connected to charismatic legitimacy. Elections are seen as the objectification of leader selection. It is documented that Weber had thought about the possibility of a free-standing fourth type of “democratic” legitimacy, autonomous and separate from the other three (Weber 1917). Cf. also Breuer 1998 and Beetham 1985.

9 Order is a prerequisite for social, cultural, and institutional articulation, and thus for the very existence of value-spheres. The absolute (and incommensurable) rationale of politics is the maintenance of the internal and external configuration of domination (Weber 1958), which is in turn a prerequisite for order.

10 As rightly argued by Boudon 2001, the parallel with Nietzsche has been exaggerated by many commentators.

11 He famously justifies, for example, the armed opposition of Florence against the Papal States to safeguard the survival of the republic (Weber 1946).

12 In light of the connection between passionate Sachlichkeit and democratic Verantwortung vis-à-vis surplus violence, the argument according to which a leader such as Adolf Hitler might qualify as a vocation politician (Somin 2000) appears entirely off the mark.

13 The two expressions “analytical ethics” and “analysis of facts” were used by Weber in a letter to Tönnies (Baumgarten 1965, 399)

14 “Objectively correct” rationality (Richtigkeitsrationalität) characterizes those means-ends relationships that are based on “rules of experience.” As Rossi 1971 explains, objective rationality connotes the effective adequacy, empirically verified, of a certain means in view of a certain end. Subjective and objective rationality may coincide, but not necessarily.

15 This statement is attributed to Martin Luther, who pronounced it after he refused to retract some of his heresies in front of the Diet of Worms in 1521. For a detailed discussion of this “Luther-like moment” see Breiner 1989, Owen and Strong 2004, and especially Satkunanandan 2014.

16 I employ here the language of contemporary political theory. For “coherentism,” the justification of ethical propositions does not rest on realist assumptions, but on their being part of a cohesive and coherent system of beliefs. See Brink 1989.

17 This is especially true for the discussion of ethical and political issues. As noted by Weber’s student (and distant cousin) Paul Honigsheim (2000, 113), the position of his master is indeed “tragic,” but dotted with reassuring “howevers.”