weber- the protestant ethic Flashcards
(34 cards)
context pe
- Written during Weber’s intellectual resurgence after a period of illness and depression.
- Published in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (edited with Sombart and Jaffé).
*
inspiration pe
Reaction to the Marxist claim that capitalism emerged from economic/material conditions alone.
* Intended as a case study in how religious ideas can have powerful unintended economic consequences.
thesis of pe
Modern capitalism is not just the result of technological or economic innovation, but of a specific “ethos”rooted in Protestant — particularly Calvinist — asceticism.
* Spirit of capitalism = a rational, disciplined, inner-worldly attitude towards labour, profit, and time.
* Key contrast: traditionalism (work to live) vs. capitalist ethos (live to work).
* Ascetic Protestantism — especially Calvinism and Pietism — fostered disciplined, frugal, methodical behaviour
key themes pe
asceticism and calling beruf
rationalisation
unintended consequeces
iron cage
asceticism and the calling
- Luther redefines “calling” as service to God in worldly work.
- Calvinism intensifies this: the “elect” show signs of salvation through success in their calling.
- Creates anxiety:
asceticism- creates anxiety
no sacraments or Church authority to offer reassurance → people seek evidence in worldly success.
o ‘god does not eist for men, but men for the sake of god’
o Humans pupose is to work hard and fulfil claling
* Results in a life of rationalised discipline: self-denial, reinvestment, frugality.
ritschl
o Luthers ‘conception of the vocation’ and ‘high regard for a worldy career as a central ethical contribution of all proestant creeds’
rationalisation
- The spirit of capitalism is part of a broader process of rationalisation.
- Asceticism channels irrational religious impulse into predictable, disciplined action.
- This logic ultimately outlives its religious roots: capitalism becomes autonomous.
unintended consequences
- Religious ideas produce economic structures unintentionally.
- Calvinism didn’t “want” capitalism — it created the personality type capitalism needed.
- Culture can be a force of historical causation — distinct from material or institutional structures
iron cage
- Once capitalism becomes autonomous, it no longer needs religion.
- Individuals are now caught in a system that is impersonal, instrumental, and ineluctable.
- “The shell as hard as steel” (stahlhartes Gehäuse) — later translated by Parsons as “iron cage”.
- more about the ‘economci survival of the fittest’ and ‘ruthless acquisition
style pe
- Dense, structured prose with philosophical and historical digressions.
- Rich with empirical illustration (Benjamin Franklin, Baxter’s writings, etc.).
- Straddles sociology, history, theology, and economics.
reception pe
- Hugely influential across disciplines: economic history, sociology, theology, anthropology.
- Heavily critiqued:
critique pe
tawny
revor-roper
marxists
trevor- roper
argues Protestantism followed capitalism, not preceded it.
marxists critique
o Marxists: accuse Weber of cultural idealism, ignoring material conditions.
pe foundation for
o Cultural causation in social science.
o Comparative sociology of religion.
o Theories of modernity and secularisation.
science as a vocation context
- Lecture given at the University of Munich amid WWI, part of a series on “intellectual vocations”.
- Paired with Politics as a Vocation (1919).
- Addresses the role of the scholar in a disenchanted, bureaucratised modernity.
science as a vocation key thees
disenchantment
limits of sciece
vocation and ethic
tragic individualism
since as a vocation - tragic individuals
- The individual must choose values and accept their consequences, even if isolated.
- No metaphysical security.
- Echoes Nietzsche: courage is required to live without illusions.
vocation and ethci- sav
- A “vocation” is not a career — it is a calling, a meaningful ethical stance toward one’s work.
- The true scholar must commit to science with inner detachment, discipline, and integrity.
- Calls for an “ethic of responsibility” in academic life (cf. Politics as a Vocation).
- Danger of the charismatic professor: turning lecture halls into cults of personality.
- Encourages “intellectual probity” — refusal to give comforting answers.
disenchantment sav
- Modernity = rationalisation of all spheres of life.
- Religion, myth, and metaphysics are no longer credible sources of meaning.
- “The fate of our times is characterised by rationalisation and intellectualisation and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.”
- Science can explain how things happen — but not why one should act or what one should believe.
limits of science say
- Science offers:
o Clarity, precision, means-end analysis.
o But cannot answer the “ultimate questions” of existence. - Values are inherently plural and irreconcilable.
- There is no final authority, only personal responsibility for one’s values.
sav style
- Philosophical, aphoristic, ironic.
- Less empirically grounded than Weber’s sociological works, more existential and tragic in tone.
- Stylistically close to Nietzsche and Kierkegaard: polemic as much as lecture
reception sav
- Became central to debates over:
o The role of intellectuals in modern democracies.
o Ethical neutrality in social science (Wertfreiheit).
o Secularisation and the loss of ultimate meaning in modernity. - Anticipates existentialism, critical theory, poststructuralist doubts about universal reason.
- Invoked in debates around:
