Lecture 4

Max Weber

values

Because his dad was authoritarian-bureaucratic minded and his mom religious, Max Weber was more reflective on people’s _______

work

→ out

According to Weber, sociologists should study values but should not bring values into _____

→ Values inevitably affect what research questions we select, but should be kept ______ once empirical analysis begins

why

→ politics

Science gives us technical knowledge but it can’t tell us about ultimate ends and ______ we should do something

→ When it does, science turns into ______

Natural sciences	Social sciences
Laws are valuable and universal	Impossible to have laws with universal validity because social life is too complex

According to Weber, what were the differences between natural and social sciences?

• autonomous

• subjective

Sociology:

• Is the study of social action of ______ and meaning-making actors who act in unpredictable ways

• Has the goal of understanding ______ meanings of action from actor’s point of view

ideas, capitalism

Weber tries to accentuate the role of ______ (beliefs, culture, religions) in history and how it led to the rise of _______

economic

→ industrial

→ business

Weber observes an empirical puzzle: there is an _______ discrepancy between Catholics and Protestants

• Catholics → non-_______, crafts and humanistic studies

• Protestants → ______ and industry

• Protestant ethic: commitment to frugality, hard work, punctuality, delayed gratification

• Predestination → individuals’ salvation already predetermined by God → uncertainty + psychological toll, in need of reassurance → started viewing economic success as a sign of salvation

  • If you were born one of the elect, it would show itself through economic success

• Economic success is consequent on hard work, deliberate and methodical monitoring of every aspect of life, self-discipline → living life in a way that glorifies God

• Acceleration of capitalism → religious basis for the pursuit of economic gain → moral crusade

Why do Protestants dominate in business and capitalist enterprise?

God, stratification

Protestants believe that the unequal distribution of goods in the world is determined by _______ and it legitimizes unequal _______

• profit

• secularized

  • efficiency

The Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism creates something new and destroys something else:

• Produces moral ethos of _______ for profit’s sake

• Destroys the Protestant ethic because it becomes _______, unmoored from religious foundations, and emptied of religious content

  • Becomes the ethic of _______

That we are trapped because we’re always thinking about how to be more productive

What does Weber means when he says that we live in an iron cage?

• science

• final

• reason

The rationalization of society contributes to disenchantment of the world (weakening of the soul) because:

• There’s an inability to assess ultimate ends through _______

• Produces nihilism → no ______ standards

• Creates meaninglessness because there are no mysteries, there must be a ______ behind everything

rationalization

Weber arrives at an ambivalent/pessimistic understanding of modern society and attributes it to ________