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Published: 23, March 2015

Max Weber: Politics as a vocation. In 1919, the year of the German revolution, sociologist Max Weber gave the lecture Politics as a vocation. In the lecture, he attempted to answer a great number of questions. What is politics? Why do men obey? Who should rule? What features should a ruler have? Furthermore, he tried to answer the fundamental question: What is a state? He claimed that sociologically a state can only be defined by its means and not by its ends. Since a state can engage itself with every possible task, there are no actions that are distinctive to it. Weber argues that the distinctive features of a state, are the ‘means peculiar to it namely, the use of physical force’ (Weber, 1921).

Therefore he defines the state as ‘a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’ (Weber, 1921). Since the state has a monopoly on force, anyone who wants to make politics his vocation has to acknowledge the fact that the usage of physical force is an inevitable part of his profession. However, can he use violence at random? I will argue that Weber does not think that the ruler should use physical force anyway he wants, as every good politician has to have a higher goal, devote himself to a cause and follow a code of ethics.

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Weber is very concerned with power relations. He believes that the ‘domination of men over men’ is natural and necessary. In order to have a functioning society some people have to rule and others have to obey. To guarantee a stabile rule the population has to accept the authority of the ruler: he rule of one man over the other has to be justified. Weber mentions three possible justifications for it. Firstly, the ‘authority of the eternal yesterday.’ A ruler is legitimate if he is a ruler by tradition, for example if he belongs to a family of monarchs. The second justification is the ‘rule by charisma’. Weber defines it as the authority of ‘revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership’ (Weber, 1921). The prophet, the demagogue or the plebiscitarian ruler belongs to this category.

Finally, there is ‘legality’. In this case a set of ‘rationally created rules’ (Weber, 1921) is obeyed. Most modern states are of that third type.

Once a ruler secured the obedience of the population a great number of new questions emerge. ‘What kind of a man must one be if he is to be allowed to put his hand on the wheel of history?’ (Weber, 1921) ‘How can he hope to do justice to the responsibility that power imposes upon him?’ (Weber, 1921) Who should he be and what should he do? Should he seek glory, like Machiavelli suggests, or should he act good and virtuous like the philosopher kings in Plato’s Republic?

A person who works in politics ultimately obtains power over people. Weber believes that such a person has to have at least three personal qualities: passion, responsibility and sense of proportion. A ruler is passionate if he dedicates himself to a higher cause. The choice of the cause is up to the individual politician. He ‘may serve national, humanitarian, social, ethical, cultural, worldly, or religious ends’ (Weber, 1921). Weber thinks that it is not relevant whether this cause is likely to be achieved or not as long as it provides the politician with an inner drive and vigor. However, passion alone is not enough because ‘politics is made with the head, not with other parts of the body or soul’ (Weber, 1921). Blind passion might lead to irresponsible actions while a politician has to take responsibility for his actions. Reconciling passion with responsibility, requires a sense of proportion. A good politician has to keep a distance. Therefore, inner composure, objectivity and a sober mind are necessary. Furthermore, he has to face many obstacles and make difficult decisions. Weber points out the difficulty of working in politics when he compares it to ‘a strong and slow boring of hard board’ (Weber, 1921). Marrying passion with a sense of proportion is difficult, but in the light of the arduousness of politics a necessary task.

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Weber’s concept of passion is echoed in his view that a politician should live ‘for’ politics rather than ‘off’ politics. In the ancient Roman Republic a person who wants to participate in politics — for example become a senator — had to have certain wealth. Weber sympathizes with this idea. He thinks that a ruler has to be economically independent from his profession. He should be able to follow a higher goal than just seeking remuneration. Weber uses the example of the landlord, who receives unearned money for renting his land. Of course, nearly every politician somehow enriched himself financially. However, if his financial security does not depend on the money he earns for his work, he could simply regard it as a bonus. His main concern could still be the work itself. While a wealthy politician might think about earning money, a poor one most definitely does. Hence, he cannot ‘make politics his life’ (Weber, 1921) and would have a hard time dedicating himself to a cause.

If a person makes politics both his life and vocation, he automatically gains authority over the use of physical force. Therefore, he will sooner or later ill stumble across political questions that require moral judgment. Weber says that ‘It is the specific means of legitimate violence as such in the hand of human associations which determines the peculiarity of all ethical problems of politics’ (Weber, 1921). He thinks that a politician has to be a moral ruler. A ruler does not have a carte blanche to use all the violence he wants: he has to be guided by a code of ethics. However, which code of ethics is the right one?

In the lecture, Weber discusses two different ethics. He begins with introduces us to the ethic of ultimate ends. According to the ethic of ultimate ends, the intention from which an action emerges is the ultimate criterion to judge whether this action was moral or not. The outcome of the action is of no significance to this judgment. The ethic of ultimate ends was very popular in the Christian ethic, or ‘absolute ethic of the gospel’ (Weber, 1921). In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus uses the metaphor of the lilies on the fields to show that people should be indifferent to material matters, because God will provide them with all the material needs they have. Furthermore, Jesus promotes to ‘turn the other cheek.’ If someone harms you, you should not only not fight back but also provide him with an opportunity to harm you again. Living according to this ethic means that ‘one must be saintly in everything; at least in intention, one must live like Jesus, the apostles, St. Francis, and their like’ (Weber, 1921). For Weber this is incompatible with the realities of politics.

According to the ethic of ultimate ends, a person should never kill a tyrant, even if doing so could save the lives of many other people. This is the point where Weber starts to critic the ethics of ultimate ends. He thinks that when it comes to politics, the ends of a decision justify its means. A politician might get into a situation where the good consequences of an action outweigh the possible immorality of its means. He thinks that ‘no ethics in the world can dodge the fact that in numerous instances the attainment of good ends is bound to the fact that one must be willing to pay the price of using morally dubious means or at least dangerous ones –and facing the possibility or even the probability of evil ramifications’ (Weber, 1921). If a politician thinks he has to use ethically questionable means in order to achieve a greater good, he should do so because in the end he has to account for the consequences of his decision. This is what Weber calls the ethic of responsibility: the view that the moral rightness of an action can only by judged by its consequences. Since Weber believes that a politician who aims for success cannot be a saint because the world of politics is often corrupted and vicious, he thinks that every good politician should use the ethic of responsibility.

Weber rejects the idea that good actions can only have good consequences and evil actions only evil consequences. In reality, a good action might have evil consequences whereas an evil action might have good consequences. What Weber does not consider is that the consequences of an action might not be absolutely predictable. Especially in a globalized world, the outcomes of an action are often neither foreseeable nor controllable. Acting according to the ethics of responsibility, requires good intuition and the ability to pre-estimate the consequences of an action.

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At the end of the lecture Weber admits that politics are not only made with the head. He thinks that a politician, who is aware of his responsibilities and acts according to the ethic of responsibility might get into a situation where he says, ‘Here I stand; I can do no other’ (Weber, 1921). Weber borrowed this sentence from Martin Luther. Luther is believed to have said it when he face the Diet of Worms. The Diet of Worms wanted Luther to renounce his views. He, however, could not square doing this with his conscience. Weber uses this quotation to allude to the ruler’s conscience: ethic is about the consciousness of the politician. Nobody except his own consciousness can hold him accountable. The courageous ruler should do what his conscience requires him to do. Like Luther, he has to take a stand and follow it through, even though there might be doubts about the outcome. Weber concludes that ‘an ethic of ultimate ends and an ethic of responsibility are not absolute contrasts but rather supplements, which only in unison constitute a genuine man–a man who can have the ‘calling for politics.’

Weber ends his lecture with a call for optimism while expressing pessimism about the future. He says ‘not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness’ (Weber, 1921). This complies with his view that we live in an ‘irrational world of undeserved suffering, unpunished injustice, and hopeless stupidity.’ Participation in politics always means participation in a struggle that cannot be won. The ideal politician has to accept this fact. Although the world might be ‘too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer’ (Weber, 1921) the politician should say ‘In spite of all!’ (Weber, 1921), stay optimistic and continue his work. He has to stick with his ethic, although nobody can hold him accountable for not doing so. He has to be strong enough to judge which ends justify which means. He must be indifferent to financial rewards. He has to keep working for a cause and he has to be able to bear the responsibility that the state’s monopoly on violence brings along.

Weber, Max. Politics as a Vocation. New York: Oxford UP, 1946. Wikisource. Web. 11 March 2010.

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