Campbell -Truth, Value-freedom, And Legitimacy in Weber

8/14/2019 Campbell -Truth, Value-freedom, And Legitimacy in Weber

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Cardiff University

Truth Claims and Value-Freedom in the Treatment of Legitimacy: The Case of WeberAuthor(s): David CampbellReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 207-224Published by: Blackwell Publishingon behalf of Cardiff UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1410281.

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JOURNALOF LAWAND SOCIETYVOLUME13,NUMBER2, SUMMER19860263-323X$3.00

TRUTH CLAIMS AND VALUE-FREEDOM IN THETREATMENT OF LEGITIMACY:THE CASE OF WEBER

DAVIDCAMPBELL*INTRODUCTION

Actorswhobelieve hat a socialorder s legitimateanalyticallyhold that theclaimto legitimacy f the order s true.It is frequently rgued hata distancedtheoretical ommentary n an order's tabilitymustadoptone of two distinctlineswhenaddressinguch beliefs.One wouldbesimply o takenote of thesebeliefsanddiscuss helegitimacy heyrecognisedivorced rom ts truthclaim.Legitimacywould thus be representedust as a psychologicalphenomenonwhoserelationshipo truth signored orthepurposes f empiricaltudy.Theotherapproachwouldbeto assessthe truthfulness f the claimto legitimacyandeitherendorse hebeliefs,and withthem heorder's tability,or not. Thefirstof these lines is taken to be the interestof empirical cienceseekingtoexplain he order's tability;hesecond stheseparatenterest fethicsseekingto passpracticaludgmenton thatstability.In this paper I shall argue that the separation of these two interests isfundamentallynsupportable.WhilstI could directmycriticism o either hescience or the ethics which follows from this separation, will concentrateupon the formerhere.I will contend that the value-free mpirical tudyoflegitimacys impossible,and that scientific ommentarieswhichpurport ohave carried it out merelyconceal the value-judgments hey necessarilycontain. I do not say this in order to claim that empiricalsocial study isimpossible.Rather it is to arguethat, properlyconceived,the interestofempirical ocial science is one which is intrinsically ommitted o practicalintervention. uppression f this not onlylimitsthepractical alueof sciencebutactually eadsto empiricalncoherence.I willargue histhrougha consideration f Weber'spursuitof a value-freetreatmentof legitimacy.I shall use this devicebecause,as we will see, histreatment aises hefundamentalssuesposedby anysuchattempt,anddoes

*School of Law, LancashirePolytechnic, Preston, PRI 2TQThis paper was drafted during studies at the University of Michigan School of Law, which Ishould like to take this opportunity to thank for its hospitality. I should also like to thank DaveBurnet and especially John Holmwood for their comments.207


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so inawaywhich s notopento themostobviousobjectionso value-freedomwhichcan belevelledat,forexample, egalpositivism.Weber learly onductshis politics as a polemical intervention n the public considerationoflegitimationclaims, particularly he competingclaims of capitalismandsocialism. nhissociology,bycontrast,heunequivocallyets outtopursueanaccount of legitimacythat does not evaluate the truth claims of thelegitimations xamined.For Weber,value-freeunderstanding f beliefsinlegitimacyrrespectivef their ruth s therequisite f thescientificdiscussionof legitimacy.Weber'sapparent uccess n arrivingat such an understanding ecessarilyrestson a hiddenarticulation f specificvalue-judgments.Weber's"observa-tional understanding" f particularhistoricallegitimationclaims in factcontainsa systematic valuationof those claims from the perspective f hisownresigned cceptance f thetruthof legal-rationalegitimacy.The hiddenexpressionof thesevalue-judgments,hen,destroysWeber'saspirations ovalue-freedom,orwhilst t isclearly orbiddenbyhisformalmethod,wewillsee that it is in factintrinsically equired y much of what is valuable n theempirical ontentof hissociology.

THE CONTRADICTORYFORM OF WEBER'STREATMENTOF LEGITIMACYWeber's ormalconceptualisationf legitimacys developed hroughouthisconstructionof a sociological apparatus or the examinationof action inEconomyandSociety.2 Beliefs n legitimacyare a typeof orientation o anorder:

Action . . . may be guidedby the belief in the existenceof a legitimateorder.Theprobabilityhat actionwillactuallybe so governedwill be called the "validity" f theorder nquestion.3

Validitycorrespondso thehighestpossibledegreeof stabilityof an order:Naturally,n concrete ases, heorientation f action o an order nvolves widevariety fmotives.Butthe circumstancehat,alongwiththe othersourcesofconformity,he orderis also heldby at least some of the actors . . . to be binding,naturallyncreases heprobabilityhat actionwill in fact conform o it, often to a veryconsiderable egree.Anorderwhich s adhered o frommotivesof pureexpediencys generallymuch ess stablethan one upheldon a purelycustomarybasisthrough he fact that the correspondingbehaviour asbecomehabitual . . Buteven his ypeof order s in turnmuch essstablethanone whichenjoys heprestige fbeingconsidered inding, r,as itmaybeexpressed,of "legitimacy".4

Thisconceptof legitimacyscharacteristically eberianntworespectswhichwemustnote.Firstly,it clearlyarticulates he particularkind of explanationWeber'ssociologytriesto putforward.An orientation s first dentifiedas a beliefinlegitimacy nd then anexplanation f stabilityon the basisof theprobability208


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of that belief being held is built up. In his own terms, to which I will return,Weber initially observationally understands the meaning of a particularorientation to an order to be a belief in the order's legitimacy. He thenproceeds to motivationally understandthe order's stability as the probabilityof actors guiding themselves according to that belief, a probability measuredas validity. There are two typologies of legitimations in Economyand Societycorresponding to this two-stage explanation of stability.5 The first, classifiedaccording to observationally understood beliefs in particular claims tolegitimacy, is of concepts adequate at the level of meaning to the diversity ofways in which "The actors may ascribe legitimation to a social order . . . "6The second, listing differentgrounds of validity, is of concepts motivationallyunderstood to be causally adequate to the ways in which "The legitimacyof anorder can be guaranteed . . . "7Secondly, Weber's treatment of legitimacy is informed by a rigid fact/valuedichotomy. Sociology's subject is only the existence of stability. Legitimacy isto figure only in the explanation of the empirical consequences of particularorientations, treating it solely as a means of producing stability throughvalidity:

Naturally, the legitimacy of a system of domination may be treated sociologically only asthe probability that to a relevant degree the relevant attitudes will exist and thecorresponding practical conduct ensue.8

Weber's discussion analytically involves values as the bases of beliefs inlegitimacy. Values must be identified so that legitimacy might be understoodas a specificform of orientation. However, the value itself is, as stronglyas canbe insisted, to be incidental to sociological commentary on its existence.9 Thevalue may be taken to be expressedin the empiricalfact of action orientatedbybeliefs in legitimacy, and this is all that is material to science, though of coursea non-scientific ethical interestin the substance of the value can be taken, if it isstrictlydemarcated.10 This scientificagnosticism is made particularlyclear inthe concept of charismatic domination:

The term "charisma" will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality byvirtue of which it is considered extraordinaryand treated as endowed with supernatural,superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities . . . how the qualityin question would be ultimately judged from any ethical, aesthetic or other such point ofview is naturally entirely indifferent for the purposes of definition. What is aloneimportant is how the individual is actually regarded by those subject to charismaticdomination . . .It is on this value-free basis that Weber feels able to run his treatment oflegitimacy together with considerations of power to produce a typology offorms of legitimatedomination.12 Domination becomes valid when the actorssubject to it believe in its legitimacy:

Custom, personal advantage, purely affectual or ideal motives of solidarity, do not form asufficientlyreliable basis for a given domination. In addition there is normally a furtherelement, the belief in legitimacy.13209


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The concept of legitimate domination is to express an agnosticism similar tothat afforded by treatments of legitimacy in broadly contemporaneous elitetheoryexemplified by Mosca's "political formula".'4 When Weberholds thatbeliefs in legitimacy maintain the stability of an order of domination he by nomeans wishes to confer any actual legitimacy upon that order. He merelywants to point to the empirical significanceof validity:Experienceshows that in no instancedoes domination voluntarily limit itself to the appealto material or affectual or ideal motives as the basis for its continuance. In addition everysuch system attempts to establish and to cultivate the belief in its legitimacy.'

I will take up Weber's methodology of sociological explanation and value-freedom at greater length in a little while. For themoment, I want to set out thecentralproblem bound up in the value-free treatment of legitimacy, and I willdo this by arguing that Weber's commitment to such a treatmentproduces amajor contradiction in his work, preventing the coherent formulation of theexplanation he purports to put forward.Faced with an orientation that increases stability, it is a task common toboth the ethical and the scientific intereststo understand that orientation as abelief in legitimacy in order to ascertain the characterof their subject matter.Scientific value-freedom can hardly consist in this first step, for ethics mustalso be value-free in this sense. It would be impossible to contest the actuallegitimacy of an order if one did not understand its stability as resting onvalidity in the first place. The political writings in which Weber set out hisscepticismabout the 1917Revolution whilstallowing that a sincerepreferencefor socialist rather than capitalist economic organisation at least significantlyunderpinnedit are a case in point.16Nor, for Weber, can science and ethics part in their reference to meaningswith a value content. When actors orient action through beliefs in legitimacy,sociology has to observationally understand their orientation as such andconvey that understanding. Consider the following account of attitudesdeveloped under the prophetic religions:

To exploit unscrupulously one's particular class position in relation to less powerfulneighbours in the manner typical of precapitalist times - through the mercilessenslavement of debtors and the aggrandisement of land holdings - meets withconsiderable social condemnation and religious censure . . . 7

Had Weber failed to use value-laden terms in the above account he wouldsimply have failed to identify "condemnation" and "censure" and the reasonsfor it -"unscrupulousness" and "mercilessness".The social acts would haveescaped the sociological account, for the facts are values.Of course, if, as it seems in the above quotation, Weber allows actors' valuejudgments to stand as such, then the resultant passage into his accounts ofactors' understandingswill create the value position of effective affirmationofthe actors' beliefs. In anothercontext, Weber considers it unfortunate that it istoo pedantic and cumbersome to use only a pure sociological terminologywhich would obviate the use of actors' own expressions in sociologicalwriting.1 I am certainthat this is a mistakencomplaint, but Weberis certainly

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registering the problem with value-free discussion of legitimation beliefs.What Weber himselfdoes about this problemis take over the actors' termsbutthen try to distance himself from their meanings by a use of quotation marksand qualifying circumlocutions that in German is so overwhelming as to bereallyirreproducible n English.19This must be readas a rudimentaryattemptto develop a sociological meta-languageof legitimacywhich works with, but isnot committed to, the actors' beliefs. To put such words as "unscrupulous-ness"in invertedcommas perhapsallows Weber to say that this is so accordingto standards about which he is agnostic.All this can, I think, be said of a theoretical distance taken from actors'beliefs in both ethics and science. But, having gone this far together, onWeber's account these two interests must now part. The former can go on toinquire into the correctness of the beliefs in legitimacy under consideration.The latter must remain at the level of the beliefs. This would seem to meanallowing, for scientific purposes and with no actual endorsement by anymeans intended, the truth of the beliefs. Whatever one's ethical opinion of thebeliefs, sciencecan pursueits interestonly by adopting a complete agnosticismwhich allows any claim to legitimacy to stand whilst its empirical con-sequencesarepursued.As actors didorient themselvesaccording to the beliefs(assuming that they did), it would be empirically mistaken to deny thosebeliefs a place in explanation. One must allow the beliefs as a fact, and notdeny this fact because one disagrees with it. Though Joseph Smith may wellhave been a swindler,for example, it would be an errorto deny the force of hischarisma in creating mormonism.2The eschewing of possible penetration into the truth claims of legitimationsis regarded by Weberas the cost of science, but it is surelynot only ethical butalso empirical penetration that is lost. If one allows a legitimation claim,however reservedly,one cannot go beyond the actors' own understandingsoftheir acts. The actors' beliefs will contain their own explanation of those acts,based on the legitimation being true. If the sociologist may possibly know ofthe legitimation being false, to eschew replacing the actors' own com-prehensionwith an explanation that is superioris a simple renunciationof thescientific interest.The same can be said of a refusalindependentlyto confirm alegitimation one knows to be true, for it also constitutes an empiricalpenetration of beliefs independently to show them to be correct. If we knewthat Smith was a swindler, then an account which deepened our knowledge ofhis influence by showing it to be the product not of genuine charismaticcommitment but of pretencewould be a superior empiricalaccount than thatwhich those who believed in him could put forward.Weber is led to his profession of agnosticism because he conflates thescientific recognition of beliefs with acceptance of the beliefs as, for scientificpurposes, true. Value-free representation of beliefs must refrain fromchallenging those beliefs. But, of course, one can understand actors' beliefs asbeliefs in the truth of a legitimation whilst simultaneously denying that truthand therebydenying the adequacy of the actors' self-understanding.It wouldcertainly be a disastrous error to deny that actors acted from beliefs in

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legitimacy because one does not agree with the legitimation. However, as wecan register the belief and our evaluation of it, we need not make this error;whilst on the other hand there is a compulsion empirically to penetrate thebeliefs' truthclaim.I say compulsion here, for this is not merely a question of what is desirablefor science but rather it is a question of what is necessary. Setting asideobjections to this, let us allow that Weber could always use actors' value-ladendescriptionsof theiracts in a way that conveyed his distance from those valuepositions. The resultsof this would surelyhave verylittle explanatorycontent.Apart from conveying the initial identification of the general orientation ofthe action as being through beliefs in legitimacy, we are told nothing if we arepresented with detailed understandings which certainly turn on the legitim-ation being true which are then put in inverted commas precisely to enter areservation about that truth.That is to say, we are told nothing if the inverted commas are takenseriously. But in the absence of any alternative account we would either stopreadingor, by the force of Weber'somission of anythingelse, be bound to readthe use of the actor's terms as an affirmation. This may be an affirmationonlyup to a certain point, but the certain point seems to be a purely formalrhetoricalcaveat about value-freedom.To be perfectly frank, though it takes us rather ahead in the argument,Weber does not really present us with this choice between tautologousaffirmation of actors' meanings or no explanation at all. Rather his ownsociological accounts can always be seen to take a value stance with regardtothe legitimations discussed. It is a stance which, by continuous reservationabout the truth of those legitimations, and by its effective putting forward ofexplanations of alterationsin stabilitynot in the actors' own termsbut in thoseof Weber's scheme of legitimatedomination, turnsagnosticism into cynicism.The two are not, as Weber seems to believe, the same thing. Weber

fundamentallyclaims that legitimation claims arise from:. . the generally observable need of any power, or even of any advantage of life, tojustify itself. The fates of human beingsare not equal. Men differin their states of health orwealth or social status or what not. Simple observation shows that in every such situationhe who is more favoured feels the neverceasing need to look upon his position as in some

way "legitimate", upon his advantages as "deserved", and the other's disadvantage asbeing brought about by the latter's "fault". That the purely accidental causes of thedifferencemay be ever so obvious makes no difference.This same need makes itself felt inthe relation between positively and negatively privileged groups of human beings. Everyhighly privileged group develops the myth of its natural . . . superiority. Underconditions of stable distribution of power and, consequently, of status order, that myth isaccepted by the negatively privileged strata.21

Accounts of legitimations on this basis cannot be the same as those putforward by those who believe the legitimations to be true (except in the casewhen the legitimation is itself couched in terms of cynical disenchantment)and, indeed, we will see that they are not when we examine Weber's ownaccounts.212


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The conclusion thinkwemustreach s that,beyonda preliminarytageofthe denotationof beliefs n legitimacyas subjectmatter,a stagecommontoboth ethical and scientific ommentary, alue-freedomontradictsnot onlythe former but also the latter interest. It is a limitationon sciencein thepeculiarlystrong sense that it preventsthe coherentformulationof anysociological explanation at all.22 Once one goes beyond the stage ofpreliminary dentification and embarks upon detailed description andexplanationproper,one must eitheremploy(andto all intentsandpurposestherebyaffirm)heactors'value-basedelf-understandings,r takeadistancefrom thoseunderstandingswhichitself, in consequenceof the explanationsnow put forward either being the same as or different from the layunderstandings,ecessarilyakesupa valueposition.Value-freedom annotavoid takingup this position,but it can removedoing so from the socialscientists, onsciousdirectionand makethe character f thepositionadopteddifficult o ascertain.This is, as we shall see, preciselywhat happenswithWeber.Thecontradiction etweenvalue-freedom ndexplanationhas,as a matterof fact,visited tselfupontheEnglish peaking eception f Weber's reatmentof legitimacy n a peculiarlydirect manner.It has created an irresolvableambiguityn the translationof the key compositeconceptWeberarrivesat,that of legitimatedomination. n the Hendersonand Parsons ranslationofpart one of WirtschaftundGesellschaftas The Theory of Social and EconomicOrganisation, "legitime Herrschaft" is rendered as "authority".23Roth andWittich'spartialrevision of this to a combinationof "domination"and"authority"24ssurelymore nlinewiththe senseWeberntended, ndIhave,followingthe argumentsof Bendix25and Mommsen26, onsistentlyused"domination" ere.Weber's ntentsto focusmerelyon theempiricaltabilityof anorder, hechanceof actionbeing ncompliancewith t.Hencenotonlyislegitimacy treated in the way we have seen, but law27 and politicalorganisations28 re to be reduced to their exerciseof coercion to securecompliance; onventions29 nd churches30o their exerciseof disapproval.There is a rhetorical endencyto separateHerrschaftrom Macht(power)encouragedn Englishby the use of authority,31ndclearlyWebermeanstoreduceall orders o a questionof Macht.Domination s therefore he bettertranslation,butthere s morethan anetymologicalpointat issue here.Withtheformulation legitimeHerrschaft"Webermeans o runtogetheradirect understandingof actors' beliefs as beliefs in legitimacy and asociologicalexplanationof stability n termsof power.But this is not thesimplematterof theunproblematicombination fconceptswhich t seems nthe almost mathematicallyaustere prose of Economyand Society. Thelanguagewhichrenders enuinebelief n thelegitimacy f an ordercannotbethelanguagewhichrenders hesociologicalaccountof that order's tabilityntermsofpower.The latter anguagemustopposethe truthclaimat thebasisofthelegitimation.Thecutting hroughof actors'beliefs nan order'segitimacyby sociologicalaccounts of the mechanismsof securingcompliancewith

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power relations is not agnostic as to the legitimation's truth claim; it is adismissal of that claim.Weber wants the verysame concept to express fitnessof obedience and thecoercive basis of obedience. This simplycannot be done.32One has to conveyone or the other, though one may thengo on to convey either as understood interms of the other. If one wants to follow Weber's intentions, one shouldconvey cynicism.33 But the possibility of finding a commitment to the fitnessof obedience in Weber's treatment of legitimacy cannot be ruled out, andindeed it becomes manifest in his discussion of legal-rational domination.Though there would seem to be little doubt that the rendering "authority"owes much to the consensual elements in Parsons' functionalism, explicitlyrepresented in those writings where he attempts to strip "power" of itsconnotations of opposition and conflict, it is a rendering which drawsattention to this side of the contradiction in Weber's treatment of legiti-macy.34Having, I trust,preliminarilyset out thecontradiction that seemsimmanentin a value-freeempiricaldiscussion of legitimacy, I would like now to examinethe elements of such a discussion in greaterdetail.

IDENTIFYING BELIEFS IN LEGITIMACYFor Webersociology is, of course, the science of interpretativeunderstanding:

Sociology.. is a scienceconcerningtself with the interpretative nderstandingfsocialactionandtherebywitha causalexplanation f its courseandconsequences.35As such, sociology has two constituent operations, observational (aktuellesVerstehen)and motivational understanding (motivationsmassig):

Understanding aybe of two kinds: he first s thedirectobservationalnderstandingfthe subjectivemeaningof the given act as such, includingverbal utterances . .Understandingmay, however,be of anothersort, namelyexplanatoryunderstanding. . .This is . . . understandingf motivationwhichconsists n placing he act in anintelligible nd more nclusive ontextof meaning.36A basic identification of an act as expressinga particular meaning is achievedthrough observational understanding,and this is preliminaryto placing thatact in an explanatory context by motivational understanding.The relation ofthese operations is that of two discrete, sequentially ordered stages ofunderstanding.For example:We . . .understandan outbreak f angeras manifested y facialexpressions,xclam-ationsor irrationalmovements.Thisis directobservational nderstandingf irrationalemotional eactions . . we havea motivational nderstandingf the outburst f angerif we knowthat it has beenprovokedbyjealousy, njured ride,or aninsult.This conception of sociological explanation turns, of course, upon Weber'sfamous attempt to develop a complementary rather than an antagonisticcontrast between understanding(verstehen)and explanation (erklaren),that

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is, between hermeneutic and positivistic types of explanation, within what isnow known as the methodological crisis (Methodenstreit)of German socialstudies (Geisteswissenschaften).The impetus of his attempt was an abidingrecognition of the peculiar quality of understanding in sociological explan-ation coupled to a criticism, particularlydirected towards intuitionism,38 ofverstehenas a sufficient(or, in the strict sense of direct re-livingof the act beingconsidered, even necessary)39 basis of understanding. Weber took frommarginalist economics a stress on predictive rigour in explanation,40 andsought to complete interpretative sociology based on observational under-standing by incorporating into it the positivistic elements of the stage ofmotivational understanding. In this respect, Weber's method representsoneof the most substantial attempts to bringinto the Geisteswissenschaften formof causal account based on the pattern of the (positivistically understood)natural sciences. Let us examine the consequences of this conception ofsociology for the very identification of beliefs in legitimacy.As Weber makes clear, the very possibility of sociology arises because somephysical deeds, which he terms actions, express a meaning. Other deedsconstitute behaviour which does not arise from actors' having a meaning butrather tends to be the product of psychophysical stimulae.41Accounting forthe charactersof orders will obviously involve reference to behaviour as wellas action, not to speak of reference to the range of natural sciences,42 butsociology offers a unique quality in its explanation of action. This quality isthe understandingin the sense of gaining a comprehension of what the actionmeant to the actors which sociology can achieve.43 Now, this is not only aresource for sociology but also a duty for the sociologist, for sociology mustidentify its subject matter in this way. The meaningful quality of action mustbe grasped in order to comprehend at all the science's subjectmatter:

Take two people who in other respects have no social relationship and who "exchange"two objects with each other. They could be savages of differenttribes,or a Europeanand asavage who meet in darkest Africa. Quite rightly one puts emphasis on the fact that asimple depiction of the overtly perceivablecourse of events, the muscle movements and, ifthere is "speaking", the sounds, which make up the "physical"events in no way capturestheir "essence". For this "essence" consists of the "meaning" which each imputes to theexternal behaviour and this "meaning" of their present behaviour in turn sets the"regulation" of their behaviour in the future. Without this "meaning", one says, an"exchange" would neither be possible in reality, nor even conceivable. Quite so 44

This drawing out of an essential task of sociology poses a most importantinitial problem for the empirical study of legitimacy. We recall that the thrustof Weber's treatmentof legitimacyis to reduce it to neutralvalidity and thenceto stability (and with it law to coercion, convention to condemnation, etc.). Hegoes about this whilst also setting himself the task of identifying the existenceof an order held to be legitimate by using concepts adequate at the level ofmeaning to the actors' beliefs, that is to say, given value-freedom, conceptswhich do not challenge the actors' own sense of that legitimacy. When theidentificatory work of Weber's sociology is clearly set out in this way, itbecomes, I think, apparent that he cannot do both.

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If we consider some of Weber's own discussions this readilyemerges.Whendiscussing the patriarchalbelief typical of traditional domination,45 he saysthat, for example:Under patriarchaldomination . . . the belief in authority is based on personal relationsthat are perceivedas natural. This belief is rooted in filial piety, in a close and permanentliving togetherof all dependentsof the household which results in an external and spiritual"community of fate". The woman is dependent because of the normal superiority of thephysical and intellectual energies of the male; and the child because of his objectivehelplessness; the grown-up because of habituation, the persistent influence of educationand the effect of firmlyrooted memories from childhood and adolescence; and the servantbecause from childhood on the facts of life have taught him that he lacks protectionoutside the master'spower sphereand that he must submit to him to gain that protection.Paternalpower and filialpiety are not primarilybased on the actual blood relationship, nomatter how normal this relationship may be for them.46

In this he is clearlyunderstandingthe bare fact of a belief in legitimacyin a wayquite different from the way it is actually understood by the subjectactors, asthe equivocation over "perceived as natural" should alert us. The concretecontent of the fact, its meaning for the actors, is replaced by its meaning forWeber.47Such a shift is not in itself illegitimate, so long as it is recognisedandits explanatory power held up as an issue. A concrete belief in a master's rightmight well be the product of ingrained habituation,48 producing virtualbehaviour rooted in immemorial tradition.49 But to say this is to dispute theactors' own understandings, recognising them to be based in legitimacy butthen rejectingtheirown, let us say, belief in the naturalgivenness of hierarchy.These remarks are obviously critical of Weber, but it is as well to point outthat they are able to be made only because Weber sets himself understandingas an issue when addressing legitimations. This is typically not the case withlegal positivist attempts to make the reduction of law to coercion in order togive a value-free empirical account of legitimacy. Though these attemptsinvolve a purported descriptive sociology50 of observabledispositions,5' howthe description or observation is to be made is not raised as a question. Thesediscussions claim to be able to identify a legal system through sets ofbehaviour, but the principles of identification are those of the describer, notthe described. A truly paradoxical situation arises out of this.Legal philosophy of this sort has in fact never adequately addressed thepolitical philosophical issues of legal legitimacy, and, indeed, there remains anethical void here essentially as it was left by Austin.52 To point out that suchdifficultproblems remain here is, of course, in itself, no criticism. Strangely,however, irresolution here is representedas value-freedom when attention isturned to the empirical study of beliefs in legitimacy, which are reduced tobeing the products of coercion, a position which is thought to be agnosticabout the claims of those beliefs. It becomes difficult to distinguish thegunman from the tax collector53 when one's supposed observations have hadthe effect of reducing both to coercion. (There may indeed be no ethicaldifference,though I doubt it, but this is not the point.) If one reducesgunmanand tax collector to coercion and then bases one's account of tax-paying inthese terms, this is not a value-free discussion of such acts, it is a rival account

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to the actor's own, which is presumably based in a belief in the legitimacy ofthe tax or the general legitimacy of the tax-paying. In the alternative, if theactors actually believed that coercion was at the basis of the tax, then it is notvalue-free in effect to agree with this.Confusion over this point arises in that there is little proper empirical studygoing on here, for the nature of the beliefs studied is never taken into accountexcept as through the legal positivist's eyes. It is only when legal positivism'sethical reservations about law are confused with empirical study that theopposition of coercion to the very meaning of beliefs in legal legitimacycan beignored. What empiricalcontent is presentmay be called behavourist, both todraw attention to the contrast with Weber and to locate legal positivism withina certain idea of sociological method. For this method, the understandingofmeaning is not regarded as central to sociology, rather it is thought to beirrelevant as the subjects of sociology are physical motions. A legal system ofsocial control apparatuses54can easily be described in a purportedly value-free way on this basis, for the problem of coming to terms with the subjectactors' own meanings appears never to arise.The suspicion remains, however, at least in the best of legal positivistwriting,55that the social control apparatuses described in this way, ignoringtheir at least extremely strong empirical connection with legitimation claims,simply leave out of the description a centralelement of the legal system whichthey purport to explain. Until understanding is made central to the legalpositivist idea of empiricial study, no resolution of this difficultycan really beexpected.Though the empirical difficulties in even identifying the subject matter ofdiscussions of legitimacy which attend value-free stances are thus brought tolight by Weber, I want to go on to show in some detail that his commitment tosuch a stance means that he cannot deal with them.

EXPLAINING BELIEFS IN LEGITIMACYWe must be clear about the seriously limited way in which even Weber'sconception of value-free sociology addresses problems of understanding.Though positivistic elements are added to observational understanding, thecausal explanation remains, precisely, an addition to verstehen.The signifi-cance of this which I want to emphasise is that this addition as such can donothing to improve the rigour of the separate, initial stage of observationalunderstanding,which in Weber remains no more than a philosophically naiveempathy.56 The scientific certainty (Evidenz)57 of observational under-standing, its adequacy at the level of meaning (sinnhafteAdaquanz), s, Webertells us, determined by the sociologist assessing how far the meaningattributed to the act is the typical basis of such an act.58This is really nothingmore than an appeal to verisimilitude. In effect, Weber treats meanings assimplyavailable through acts, and pays almost no attention to making explicithow the sociologist is to observationally understand, and yet, of course,

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he continuously puts forward the results of this operation. It is thisunproblematic availability and communicability of meaning that allows theseparation of observational and motivational understanding, for the latterneed only be added to what is left as self-supporting, if not self-sufficient,empathy.I suggest that value-freedom at least strongly disposes Weber towards thisposition, for detailed consideration of how we are to understandarises as anissue only when we appreciateour inevitable distance from the subjectbeliefs,and value-freedom claims to have given up this distance. Paradoxically,Weber tends to lose his valuable advances upon behaviourism as hisinattention to the difficulties of understanding converges with the simplebehaviouristoverridingof it. Bydefault, the extreme formalism of the prose ofEconomy and Society seems to represent a neo-Kantian parallel to logicalpositivist claims to a neutral scientific observation language.59There is, I think, a response which can be made to this criticism of Weberwhich arises from his settingout of observational understanding.This is to saythat it is simplyincorrect to claim that Weberdid not spendtimein elaboratingobservational understanding,and to point to his extended comments on thedifference between understandingrational and irrational actions.60Action is not sharply contrasted to behaviour by Weber but rather it isgraduallydistinguished, and even amongst those deeds which are granted thestatus of action distinctions of, as it were, degree of meaningfulness arerecognised. Weber classifies four kinds of social action:

Socialaction . . . maybe orientatedn fourways.Itmaybe: 1)purposive-rational,hatis,determined ytheexpectationss to thebehaviour f objects n theenvironmentndotherhumanbeings;heseexpectationsreusedas "conditions"or theattainmentf theactors'ownrationally ursued ndcalculatednds; 2)value-rational,hat s,determinedbya consciousbelief n the valueforitsown sake of someethical,aesthetic, eligious rother ormof behaviour,ndependentlyf itsprospects f success;3)affectualespeciallyemotional),that is, determinedby the actors'specificaffects and feelingstates;(4)traditional,hat s, determinedyingrained abituation.61This classification constitutes a rough continuum along which Weber claimsone can find a progressive clarification of observational understanding.Behaviour has no meaning and cannot be sociologically understood, and thealmost psychophysically habitual or emotional traditional and affectualactions together with the ultimately affectual value-rational action canbe understood less clearly than the paradigmatically rational purposive-rationality:

[W]eunderstand hata personsdoingwhenhetries o achieve ertain ndsbychoosingappropriatemeansonthe basisof the factsof thesituation, sexperience asaccustomedus to interprethem. Theinterpretationf suchrationallypurposeful ctionpossesses,for the understandingf the choiceof means,the highestpossibledegreeof verifiablecertainty .. on the other hand, many ultimate ends or values toward whichexperience hows that human action can be orientatedoften cannot be understoodcompletely ... .62218


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All this is, however,ratheroff our point. Put forward n the tone of self-evidencethat is the very problemwith observationalunderstanding,hedistinction f rationaland irrational ctiondoesnotspeak o thedeepening fthequalityof thatunderstandingt all. It is ratherustthesettingout of one ofits results,albeita most importantone for Weber thedistinctionbetweenrelatively ationaland irrational eeds.Therecanbenodoubt,of course, hatin formulatingthis distinction Weber is addressinga most importantcontemporaryssue - the structureof moderntechnical-rationality.ut theway he formulates t, basicallyon the basis of verisimilitudinous nder-standings,musttendmoretowards heunmediated,deological eproductionof attitudesbased in the cultural milieu of that structurethan towardsscientific ommentary n legitimation laims.63There s in facta strongcircularityn observationalunderstandingwhichfollowsfrom thewayWeberpresents heextentof his ownunderstandingsthe measureof the intrinsicmeaningfulness f actionsunderconsideration.Weberhimselfdisplaysa basiccommitment o theconceptionof rationality stechnicalpredictability, ndon this basis actionbecomesproperlyavailableforhissociologyonlyto the extentthatit is purposive-rationallyredictable.It is the central eatureof thatsociology,evenas muchas,say,is the casewiththe economist Pareto'sopposition of reason and sentiment,64 hat it isdominatedby orientations o the modern westernorder,65and all under-standingscarriedout under his domination.66Value-freedom reventsanychallengeto that dominationby obstructingany overtly evaluativeper-spective rombeingtaken.This snot to allow,to takeupwhatI trust snowa clear heme, hatWebermanages o avoidpassingevaluationsnwhathesaysabout thelegitimationshediscusses.Thecharacters f thetypesof legitimate omination refoundedin the typologyof social action.Traditionaldominationrests on traditionalorientations f action,charismatic ominationon a combinationof affectualand value-rationalorientations.These types of action, thoughdiverse onother counts, cruciallyexpressa common contrast to the rationalityofpurposive-rational ction through their defining feature, delineated byobservational nderstanding,f irrational rientation.Traditionalegitimacytends o begroundednhabituationwhich satthemargins fmeaningfulnessat all.Charismasirrationalo theverydegree hataffectual ommitment oafigure opposes the rationalcalculation of means. The thrustof Weber'ssociologyis to dismissthe adequacyof the understandings f the subjectactors, orif thesewere rue heywouldbetheirownexplanation nd Weber'scommentarywould be redundant,and to put forwardhis concepts oftraditional and charismaticlegitimacy,which explain these lay under-standingsas beingbased n irrational rientations:

Strictlyraditional ehaviour . . liesverycloseto theborderline f whatcan ustifiablybecalledmeaningfullyriented ction,and indeed s oftenon theotherside . . . Purelyaffectualbehaviour lso standson the borderline f what can be considered meaning-fully"oriented,and often it, too, goes over the line . . .[Value-rational action isdistinguishedrom the affectual ype by its clearlyself-conscious ormulationof the219


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ultimatevaluesgoverning he actionand the consistentlyplannedorientation . . tothosevalues.At the same time thetwo typeshave a commonelement,namely hatthemeaningof the actiondoes not lie in the achievement f a resultanterior o it, but incarryingout the specifictype of action for its own sake . . . Value-rational ctionmay . . . have variousdifferent elations o instrumentallyationalaction.From thelatterpointof view,however, alue-rationalitysalways rrational.67This is by no meansvalue-free. ts wholeexplanatorypowerrestson it notbeingso.A quitedifferent valuation,but anevaluationnonetheless,spresentnthediscussionof legal-rationaldomination,68which is based on purposive-rationalorientationsdefinedin termsof theirparallelitywith (economic)calculationas theparadigmaticormof rationality:

Action sinstrumentallyational. . . when heend,the meansandthesecondaryesultsareallrationallyaken nto accountandweighed.This nvolvesrational onsiderationfthealternativemeans o anend,of the relations f theend to thesecondaryonsequences,and inally f therelativemportancef different ossible nds.Determinationf action neitheraffectual rtraditionalerms s thus ncompatiblewith thistype.69

The value position which Weber's treatmentof this legitimationsilentlyarticulatess thatof theprincipal atalisticelementsof his cultural ocation.Legal-rationalegitimationsare acceptedas displaying he rationality hatthey claim. Legal-rationaldominationis explainedby understandingtslegitimation laimsas true:The decisivereasonfor the advanceof bureaucraticrganisationhas alwaysbeenitspurely echnical uperiority verany other form of organisation.The fullydevelopedbureaucraticpparatus ompareswith otherorganisationsxactlyas does the machinewithnon-mechanical odesof production.Precision,peed,unambiguity,nowledge fthe files,continuity,discretion,unity, strictsubordination, eductionof frictionandmaterialand personalcosts - these are raised to the optimumpoint in the strictlybureaucraticdministration,ndespeciallyn itsmonocraticorm.70Whathappensn Weber's et of observational nderstandingsf legitimationclaims should now be clear to anyone familiarwith his writings.Theyarticulate set of evaluationswhichaccordwiththeproject hat dominatedhislaterwork the universal istoryof rationalisation. heymakeup,infact,the two halves71of that project.Ordersof traditionaland charismaticdominationdraw their validity from legitimationbeliefs which turn onorientationswhichcannot sustain economic)rationality:

It is not onlythe financialpolicyof mostpatrimonialegimeswhich endsto restricthedevelopmentof rational economic activity, but above all the characterof theiradministrativepractices . . . under the dominance of a patrimonial regime . . . certaintypesof capitalism re ableto develop . . . This s not,however,rueof thetypeof theprofit-making nterprisewith heavy investments n fixed capital and a rationalorganisationof free labour which is orientated o the marketpurchasesof privateconsumers. his ypeofcapitalismsaltogetheroo sensitiveo all sortsof irrationalitiesnthe administrationf law[and] axation, or theseupsetthe basis of calculability . .Pure charisma s specifically oreignto economicconsiderations . . It is not thatcharismaalwaysdemandsa renunciation f propertyor evenof acquisition . . Theheroicwarriorandhis followers eekbooty;the electiveruleror the charismatic artyleaderrequireshematerialmeansof power.What s despised, o longas thegenuinely220


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charismaticype is adhered o, is traditionalor rationaleverydayeconomising . .From thepointof view of rational conomicactivity,charismaticwantsatisfactions atypicalanti-economic orce. It repudiatesany sort of economicinvolvement n theeverydayroutine world. It can tolerate,with an attitude of completeemotionalindifference,nly irregular, nsystematiccquisitive cts.72By contrast, legal-rational domination turns on its complete - indeed utterlycompelling for Weber - fitness for economic rationality:

ThePuritanwanted o work n acalling;we areforced o do so. For whenasceticismwascarried ut ofmonastic ells ntoeverydayife,andbegan o dominateworldlymoralitytdid itspart nbuildinghetremendous osmosof the modern conomicorder.Thisorderis now bound to the technicalandeconomicconditionsof machineproductionwhichtoday determine he lives of all who are born into this mechanism,not only thoseconcernedwitheconomicacquisition,with rresistibleorce.Perhapstwillcontinue odoso until he last ton of fossilised oal isburnt. nBaxter's iew hecareforexternal oodsshouldonly ieon theshoulders f the"saint ikea lightcloak,whichcanbe thrownasideatanymoment".But fatedecreed hat thecloak shouldbecomean ironcage.73

In sum, the treatment of traditional and charismatic legitimations producesevaluations of them which grounds his account of why economic rationalitycould not develop outside of the modern west;74 the treatment of legal-rational domination shows why it could develop there, and serves as the basisof his discussion of how it did so.75Let me be clear. I do not object to the presenceof the themeof rationalism inWeber's understanding of lay beliefs in legitimacy. I think this presence isindeed the basis of what is the really valuable empirical content of his work,though not a content with which I am by any means in complete agreement.What I do object to is the way that presenceis generated, for his commitmentto value-freedom compels him to deny the distance he takes from actors'beliefs.

By this denial both practicalandempiricalstrengthare lost. If actors' beliefsare shown by social explanation to contain mistakes, then these must becriticised by any social science striving for adequacy to its subject matter.Some evaluation will inevitably enter into any account of those beliefs;eitherideologically in the form of an obscured evaluation or potentially openly.These beliefs are capable of being reflexivelyexamined by those who professthem,and the relation of social scientific and lay discoursesmay strivetowardsattaining an overt dialogue of potentially emancipatory, demystifyingcritique. In Weber, critique is lost as dialogue is suppressed. The value-freedom of observational understandingwill allow of no overt considerationof this relationship, and Weber effectively has no alternative but to accept orreject in an immediate fashion the various beliefs he discusses. His value-freedom is a defaulting of the potential for critique, not thereby to becomevalue-free as this potential cannot be completely suppressed, but to havepositions dictated ideologically.The products of this dictation for the empirical content of Weber'ssociology are a set of mistakes about the character of legitimations based bothon irrational and rational orientations. Leaving aside the detailed criticismswhich may be made of Weber's accounts of the economic ethics of the world221


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religions,76 despite his clear intention to be empirically adequate, value-freedom limits Weber's understandingof the real characters of the beliefs hediscusses as the dialogical issues bound up in this are suppressed. Webercontinually diminishes the contextual material rationality of traditionalorientations by assessing these against a conception of rationality as suchidentified with capitalist economic rationality.77The most importanterror he makes is a consistent though confused78 over-estimation of the necessity of legal-rational domination for material produc-tivity,79and thus of that domination's inevitability.80Given in this form, thisis surely more an eloquent reproduction of a central contemporary ideologyrather than a real empiricial analysis of the beliefs discussed.This is not to dismiss the substanceof Weber's studies. My argumenthas inlarge part turned on locating his sociology within the very development oftechnical-rationalitywith which his work is concerned. ThereforeI may agree,for example, that from Weber's treatmentof legal-rational domination theremay be recovered one of the most important contributions to the analysis ofbureaucracies. Such work of substantive renewal has not been my aim in thispaper.81Rather, in my critiqueof value-freedom, I have tried to describe theepistemological limitation which this sets upon his substantive sociology.Denying through value-freedom the possibility of explicit evaluation of itsadequacyto its subjectmatter,Weber'ssociology falls beneath the level of self-consciousness, and is in fact largely given as an unconsidered acceptance ofthemes drawn from its cultural location. In the ambience of helplessresignation with which he has done much to surround technical-rationality,Weber has produced a definitive articulation of that rationality's ideologicaldominance. But, starting with the fatalistic conclusions it shields fromscrutiny, Weber's value-free sociology could do no more. That it is not ofrelevanceto practicalemancipation is clear. It is vital to recognisethat it couldnot be emancipatory because it is not science.

NOTES AND REFERENCESSee J. Habermas, LegitimationCrisis (1976), pp. 97-8.

2 M. Weber, Economyand Society (1978) (hereafterES), pp. 941-55, 31-8, 212-301.3 Id., p. 31. In quoting from Weber, I have occasionally amended the translations.

4 Id.5 On the distinction between these see id., p. 33, n. 20. Based on T. Parsons, The StructureofSocial Action (1968), pp. 658-9, this is Parsons' note to Weber, The Theoryof Social andEconomic Organisation (1947) (hereafter TSEO), p. 126, n. 51 which Roth and Wittichreproduce.6 Id., p. 36.7 Id., p. 33.8 Id., p. 214.9 Id., p. 33.

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10 Id.,pp. 32-3, 325-33. As Weber ellsus, id.,pp.4, 32,he herereiterates artof a polemicagainstStammler's hilosophyof law,whichhe considersgreatlyconfused n largepartbecauset failsto strictlydistinguish etween heempirical nd thedogmatic reatmentsflaw, made in a 1907 review of the latter's Wirtschaftund Recht nacht der MaterialistischenGeschichtsauffung:Weber, Critiqueof Stammler(1977) (hereafterCS).1 ES, p. 251.12 Id.,pp. 941-8, 212-5.13 Id., p. 213.14 See G. Mosca, TheRuling Class (1939).15 ES, p. 213.16 Weber,"Socialism",n Max Weber, p. 199-212.(1971;d. J.E.T.Eldridge)17 ES, p. 582.18 Id., p. 14.'9 On the difficulties f translatingWebernthisrespect eethe translators'emarksnWeber,FromMax Weber1948) hereafter MW),pp.vi-vii;and the editors' ommentnES,pp.cvii-cviii.20 Id., pp. 242, 1112.21 Id., p. 953.22 Topursue urtherhefollowing riticisms f Weber eeHabermas,Legitimation risis,op.cit., pp. 95-117; Habermas,"LegitimationProblems n the ModernState",in Com-municationand the Evolutionof Society (1979), pp. 199-200; H. F. Pitkin, WittgensteinandJustice (1972), pp. 260-6; W. G. Runciman, Social Science and Political Theory(1969), pp.56-63; L. Strauss, Natural Right and History (1953), pp. 49-64; and E. Voegelin, The NewScience of Politics (1952), pp. 13-26.23 SeeParsons'notesto TSEO,pp. 131,n. 59, 152,n. 83.24 See Roth'snote to ES,p. 53,n. 31, in whichBendixand ShilsandRheinstein re cited asauthorityorthe useof"domination".25 See R. Bendix, Max Weber 1960), p. 481, n. 13.26 See W. J. Mommsen,The Age of Bureaucracy (1974),p. 72, n. 1, who cites Aron andRunciman sauthorityor theuseof "domination".27 ES, p. 34.28 Id., p. 54.29 Id., p. 34.30 Id., p. 54.31 See J. H. Westergaardnd H. Resler,Class in a Capitalist Society (1976),pp. 144-7.32 See P. M.Blau,"CriticalRemarks nWeber'sTheoryof Authority",nMax Weber1970;ed. D. Wrong),p. 156;andpp.54-8 of Wrong'sntroductiono this collection.33 SeeBendix,op.cit.,p. 418,n. 13.This s Bendix's xplanation f his use of"domination".34 See Parsons,'Max Weber'(1960)25 AmericanSociologicalReview752. Parsons heredefends"authority"n a reviewof Bendix.Forthebackgroundnterpretationf Weber'streatment f legitimacyhatsupports histranslation eeParsons,TheStructuref SocialAction, op. cit., pp. 658-72.35 ES,p.4.36 Id., p. 8.37 Id., pp. 8-9.38 Weber, Roscher and Knies(1975), pp. 129-86.39 Id.,p. 169;andES,p. 5.40 Weber,"The Meaningof 'EthicalNeutrality' n Sociologyand Economics", n TheMethodology of the Social Sciences (1949), pp. 1-47.41 ES,pp.4-7.42 Id., pp. 7-8, 12-3, 17.43 Id., pp. 13, 15,19.44 CS, p. 109.45 ES,p. 954.46 Id., pp. 1006-7, myemphasis.

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4 Id., p. 215.48 Id., p. 25.49 Id., p.215.50 H. L. A. Hart, TheConcept of Law (1972), p. v.51 D. Black, "The Boundaries of Legal Sociology" (1972) 81 YaleLaw Journal 1091.52 J. H. Austin, The Provinceof JurisprudenceDetermined(1954), lecture 1.53 Hart, op. cit., p. 19.54 Black, op. cit., p. 1096.55 Hart, op. cit., passim, n.b. chap. 2.56 See A. Schutz, ThePhenomenologyof the Social World 1976), pp. 3-44; and P. Winch, TheIdea of A Social Science (1963), pp. 111-20.57 ES,p. 5.58 Id., p. II1.59 See H. G. Gadamer, Truthand Method(1975), p. 461.60 ES, pp. 5-7.61 Id., pp. 24-5.62 Id., p. 5.63 See the conclusions and the approach of D. Beetham, Max Weberandthe Theoryof ModernPolitics (1974), n.b. pp. 261-76.64 See V. Pareto, The Mind and Society (1935), Vol. 1.65 See G. Therborn, Science, Class and Society (1980), pp. 270-315.66 See Habermas, The Theoryof CommunicativeAction (1984), Vol. 1, chap. 2.67 ES, pp. 26-7.68 Id., pp. 954-1005.69 Id.,p. 26.70 Id., pp. 973-4.71 Weber, "Author's Introduction" (hereafter Al), in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism(1976) (hereafterPESC), pp. 27-8; Weber, "The Social Psychology of the WorldReligions" (hereafterSPWR), in FMW, pp. 292-301; and ES, pp. 576-90.72 ES, pp. 239-40, 244-5.73 PESC, p. 181.74 ES, pp. 611-40; SPWR, Weber, TheReligionof China,(1951);Weber,"Religious Rejectionsof the World and Their Directions", in FMW, pp. 323-59; Weber, The Religion of India(1958); Weber, AncientJudaism(1952).75 AI; PESC;Weber, "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism", in FMW, pp. 302-

22; and Weber;GeneralEconomicHistory (1961) (hereafterGEH), pp. 352-69.76 See, on Buddhism and Hinduism, G. R. Madan, WesternSociologists on Indian Society(1979), pp. 64-251; on Islam, B. S. Turner, Weberand Islam (1974); on Confuscianism andTaoism, O. B. van der Sprenkel"Max Weber on China" (1964) 3 History and Theory348-70; and on Judaism, I. Schiper, "Max Weber on the Sociological Basis of the JewishReligion" (1959) 1Jewish Journalof Sociology 183-95.

77 See G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History (1979), pp. 320-1, n.b. the instructivecomparison he draws between GEH, pp. 260-1 and K. Marx, Grundrisse 1973), pp. 325-6.78 See A. Eisen, "The Meanings and Confusions of Weberian 'Rationality' ", (1978) 29 BritishJournalof Sociology 57-70.79 See P. Q. Hirst, Social Evolution and Sociological Categories (1976), chaps. 3-7.80 See A. W. Gouldner, "Metaphysical Pathos and the Theory of Bureaucracy", (1955) 49AmericanPolitical Science Review496-507.81 See Habermas, The Theory of CommunicativeAction, Vol. 1, op. cit., chap. 3.

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