European Political Thought
15 September 2011
Science, politics & values in the modern age
science, politics & values in the modern age
1 Arendt, universalism, and the Holocaust
• Holocaust as an unprecedented event of universal import
• The Nazi regime & its puzzles
2 Introduction to Max Weber
• Historical & biographical background
• Modernity as rationalization
1 Rationalization & the modern state
2 Rationalization & value conflict
• Two irreconcilable ethics?
lecture outline
an unprecedented event of universal import
“The real horror of the concentration and extermination camps
lies in the fact that the inmates, even if they happen to keep alive,
are more effectively cut off from the world of the living than if
they had died, because terror enforces oblivion. Here, murder is as
impersonal as the squashing of a gnat. …Here, there are neither
political nor historical nor simply moral standards but, at the
most, the realization that something seems to be involved in
modern politics that actually should never be involved in
politics as we used to understand it” (OT, p. 443).
Arendt, universalism & the Holocaust
the Nazi regime & its puzzles
Conflation of legality & legitimacy, and legality’s
transformation into criminality
• Eichmann’s reformulation of the Kantian categorical imperative
• Nazi language rules whereby murder is “granting a mercy death”
The problem of judgment and personal responsibility: can we
still hold people accountable under these conditions?
The problem of history: how did this happen? Why did people
accept it? Is it an inevitable product of modernity itself ?
Arendt, universalism & the Holocaust
Max Weber
(1864-1920)
introduction to Max Weber
modernity as rationalization
Two dimensions: societal and cultural
Societal: the fateful coincidence of a modern state apparatus, a
capitalist economy, and a modern bureaucracy; the separation of
different spheres of life (the home, the market, the state)
Cultural: the rise of experimental science; the spread of
rationalism – systematicity, efficiency, calculability, scientific
reasoning, and the separation of value spheres
introduction to Max Weber
1 rationalization & the modern state
Herrschaft: translated as domination; more than just the exercise of
power (Mach), the term implies organized domination
Violence and force are the central means specific to the state,
and so are central to what it means to exercise political power.
• A parallel to capitalism: those who run the state (civil servants,
officials) do not own the means of domination (i.e. force)
The problem: political leaders cannot avoid the use of violence,
which requires both responsibility and conviction. Thus
bureaucrats do not make good political leaders.
introduction to Max Weber
2 rationalization & value conflict
Entzauberung: disenchantment
“Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated
from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic
life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human
relations” (“Science as a Vocation,” in FMW, p. 155).
A “polytheism of values” and worldviews (Weltanschauungen):
Man is standing between God and the Devil and must pick one:
“Here I stand, I can do no other”
introduction to Max Weber
two irreconcilable ethics?
Gesinnungsethik: Ethic of conviction
The ethic of the Sermon on the Mount (turn the other cheek);
the uncompromising pacifist; the revolutionary syndicalist
Verantwortungsethik: Ethic of responsibility
A balancing of ends and means: Is it worth X to achieve Y?
The modern political leader needs to have a feeling of
responsibility; a sense of proportion; and passionate
commitment
introduction to Max Weber
