The work of Weber scholars supports this conclusion. Brubaker, for instance, affirms the two-tier interpretation of Weber’s view regarding objectivity:
“The selection of means to a given end can be assessed in terms of its objective rationality, since it is possible to discriminate objectively — for Weber, scientifically — between adequate and inadequate means. But the notion of objective rationality does not apply to wertrational action — to action conceived as intrinsically rather than as instrumentally valuable, as an end in itself rather than as means to some further end.” 27
Portis agrees, writing that Weber came to believe that empirical methods, in social science, could distinguish between true and false beliefs only when researchers took a distinct orientation toward their own ultimate values. 28
On another level, however, Portis also argues that Weber nevertheless maintained that political activity and social science are incompatible pursuits, and this is where Portis’ interpretation of Weber’s thought on objectivity goes afoul.
Weber, he says, “denied that objectivity would be equated with impersonality or that it was possible for thought to be compartmentalized into normative and objective categories.” 29
As a result, Portis maintains, Weber argued that a social scientist who engaged in political activity rendered inauthentic the test of his propositions against reality. Thus, Weber’s perspective, Portis contends, is that politics are autonomous from science both in principle and in practice.
Portis is partly right. Yet he is also partly wrong. He accurately portrays Weber’s first-level view that denies the existence of either positive or natural law, affirming the fact-value dichotomy: “The categories through which social phenomena are perceived must be radically subjective, derived from priorities that the investigator brings to work rather than universal laws discovered through systematic observation.” 30 Portis, however, soon goes astray — or just does not go far enough — in characterizing Weber’s view of the fact-value dichotomy: “Because these categories are antecedent to social scientific analysis, social problems cannot be scientifically resolved.” 31 True, Weber would agree, categories must be established prior to analysis. Once established, these categories also entail ends, and it is by working objectively toward those ends that allows the social scientist to resolve a given social problem scientifically.
Moreover, if one accepts Weber’s view that objectivity can be applied to social and economic problems only after a distinct value orientation has been established, it follows that political action does not corrupt a social scientist’s objectivity as long as the scientist’s perspective or values are explicitly acknowledged.
The crucial element that Portis overlooks is that by choosing categories, by establishing a value prior to analysis, as the social scientist must, he is necessarily making decisions that are inherently political in nature. Given this, the converse of Portis’ conclusion in fact holds: That a social scientist cannot engage in objective analysis without taking overt political action, because the choice of values is itself a political act. From this it follows that science and politics are, for Weber, not mutually exclusive; rather, they are mutually inclusive. The social scientist cannot proceed with objective analysis until after his values or perspective have been established, an act which is political, whether conscious or not, whether announced to others or not.
Thus, despite Portis’ ideal vision of Weber’s thought to the contrary, social science and political activity are compatible: The social scientist, in conducting research and analyzing facts, is necessarily influenced by his political position, at least to the extent determined by his ultimate values. Weber knew this, and exhorted his fellow social scientists to clarify both for themselves and for others the values driving their investigations. Such a clarification is the prerequisite to objective analysis of facts with a particular purpose or value in mind.
Furthermore, again despite Portis’ claims to the contrary, part of the power and allure of Weber lies in the dual legacy that he handed down: He succeeded, at least in the totality of his work, in being overtly political while remaining true to his integrity as a social scientist. At least one work by Weber — his short essay titled “The President of the Reich” — directly bears this out. And even if, as Portis argues, Weber did become psychologically tormented by the tension he felt between his need to voice his political views and his need to feel integrity as a social scientist, what allowed him, in the end, to succeed in being both political and scientific was his two-tier approach to value-free social science.
Weber sees the damage inherent in failing to openly acknowledge one’s values, and the even greater danger in falling prey to the delusion that the analyst can evaluate social facts completely independent of own values. Weber sums up this position in “The Nation State and Economic Policy”: “We in particular succumb readily to a special kind of illusion, namely that we are able to refrain entirely from making conscious value judgements of our own.” 32 In other words, when the analyst fails to clarify and consciously acknowledge his values, it is unlikely that he can conduct the subsequent analysis impartially. The acknowledgement of a value orientation is the prerequisite to objective evaluation.
Bibliography
1 Ralf Dahrendorf, “Max Weber and Modern Social Science,” Ch. 37, Max Weber and his Contemporaries, eds. Wolfgang J. Mommsen and J?rgen Osterhammel (London: The German Historical Institute/Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. 577.
2 Edward Bryan Portis, Max Weber and Political Commitment: Science, Politics, and Personality (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), p. 75.
3 Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs, “Introduction,” Weber: Political Writings (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. xi.
4 Weber: Political Writings, “The Nation State and Economic Policy,” p. 1.
5 ibid. p. 12.
6 Weber: Political Writings, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” p. 331.
7 Weber: Political Writings, “The Nation State and Economic Policy,” p. 15.
8 ibid. p. 18.
9 ibid. p. 19.
10 ibid. p. 19.
11 Weber: Political Writings, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” p. 367.
12 ibid. p. 368.
13 ibid. p. 367.
14 Weber: Political Writings, Introduction by Lassman and Speirs, p. xxiii.
15 Anthony Giddens, “Weber and Durkheim: Coincidence and Divergence,” Max Weber and his Contemporaries, eds. Wolfgang J. Mommsen and J?rgen Osterhammel (London: The German Historical Institute/Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. 188.
16 Weber: Political Writings, Introduction by Lassman and Speirs, p. xxiv.
17 ibid. p. xviii.
18 ibid. p. xxiii.
19 ibid. p. xxiii.
20 Weber: Political Writings, “Between Two Laws,” p. 76.
21 Weber: Political Writings, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” p. 355.
22 Portis, Max Weber and Political Commitment, p. 15.
23 Rogers Brubaker, The Limits of Rationality: An Essay on the Social and Moral Thought of Max Weber (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), pp. 5 and 6.
24 Portis, Max Weber and Political Commitment, p. 71.
25 Portis, Max Weber and Political Commitment, p. 72, quoting Weber from The Methodology of Social Sciences, trans. Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1949), p. 72.
26 Weber: Political Writings, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” p. 354.
27 Brubaker, The Limits of Rationality , p. 54.
28 Portis, Max Weber and Political Commitment , p. 71.
29 ibid. p. 9.
30 ibid. p. 10.
31 ibid. p. 10.
32 Weber: Political Writings, “The Nation State and Economic Policy,” p. 19.