Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Ethics of conviction: Ethics of conviction is a moral theory that emphasizes the importance of acting in accordance with one's own personal beliefs, even if those beliefs are unpopular or lead to negative consequences. It is often contrasted with ethics of responsibility, which emphasizes the importance of considering the potential consequences of one's actions and acting in a way that minimizes harm. _____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Max Weber on Ethics of Conviction - Dictionary of Arguments
Habermas III 232 Ethic of conviction/Weber/Habermas: The autonomisation of law and moral leads to formal law and to profane ethics of conviction and responsibility. Of course, this autonomization is still in the making even within religious systems of interpretation. This leads to the dichotomization between a search for salvation, which is oriented towards inner salvation goods and means of salvation, and the realization of an outer, objectified world. Weber shows how ethics of conviction approaches develop from this religiousness of conviction. (1) >Ethics, >Morality, >Law, >Society, >Modernity, >Modernization. The ethics of conviction is universalistic and guided by principles. It removes the distinction between internal and external morals. This corresponds to a radical break with the traditionalism of legal tradition.(2) >Principles, >Tradition. Norms that refer to magic etc. are devalued. Norms are now regarded as mere conventions that are accessible to a hypothetical view and can be set positively. III 233 Norms, procedures and matters become the subject of rational discussion and profane decision making. This leads to the most important characteristics of rules of law: - Any right can become a statute - The law as a whole consists of a system of abstract rules, the administration of justice consists in the application of these rules to individual cases. - Civil servants are not personal rulers. The administration is also bound by rules of law and is conducted in accordance with principles that can be specified and are not disapproved of. - The people who obey the rule constituted by law are citizens and not subjects. They obey the law, not the officials. - Any measure of interference with freedom or property must be justified. (3) >Norms. Habermas III 314 Problem: the moral-practical rationality of ethics of conviction cannot itself be institutionalized in the society whose start it makes possible. Rather, it is replaced by a utilitarianism that owes its existence to an empirical reinterpretation of moral, namely the pseudomoral appreciation of procedural rationality, and no longer has an internal relationship to the moral sphere of value. >Purpose rationality. Solution/Weber: Competition with scientifically rationalized patterns of interpretation and life orders determines the fate of religion Habermas III 315 and ultimately shifts it into the irrational.(4) >Religion. Habermas III 318 Ethics of Conviction/Weber/Habermas: According to Weber, ethics of conviction is characterized by the following attitude: "The Christian does right and places success in God's hands." (5) Habermas: Weber thus enters into a philosophical discussion that was able to work out the stubbornness of moral-practical questions, the logic of the justification of norms of action, after morality and law had separated themselves from the terminology of religious (and metaphysical) world views. 1. M. Weber, Gesammelte Ausätze zur Religionssoziologie, Bd. I. 1963, p. 541. 2. Ibid. p. 543. 3. R. Bendix, Max Weber. Das Werk, München 1964, p. 320. 4. M. Weber (1963) p. 253 5. M. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Bd. I Tübingen, 1963, p.552._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Weber I M. Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - engl. trnsl. 1930 German Edition: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus München 2013 Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 |
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> Counter arguments in relation to Ethics of Conviction
