Parsons on de Parsoning Weber

8/9/2019 Parsons on de Parsoning Weber

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On "De-Parsonizing Weber"Author(s): Talcott ParsonsSource: American Sociological Review, Vol. 40, No. 5 (Oct., 1975), pp. 666-670Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094201Accessed: 08/09/2009 07:52

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COMM ENTS

ON "DE-PARSONIZINGWEBER"(COMMENTNCOHEN TAL.,ASRAPRIL, 975)

I frankly do not find this paper in whichWhitneyPope has associatedhimselfwith twocoauthors any more acceptable than I didPope's paper (1973) on my interpretationsofDurkheimon whichI wrote a recent comment(Parsons, 1975). The authors have repeatedlyaccused me of "distortingWeber'smeaning."I'm afraidI mustcome back with a claim that,however that may be, they havedistorted mymeaning.They rely very heavily on TheStructureofSocial Action (Parsons, 1949), my first bookwhich was initially published38 years ago in1937, and, on the whole, play down laterwritingson Weber.This, to be sure, did havean extended treatment of Weber's work,adding up to four chapters.I did, however,explicitly warn readersof that book that thetreatment in it of the work of the fourauthors I considered-namely, beside Weber,Alfred Marshall,Vilfredo Pareto and EmileDurkheim-was not a general secondaryaccount of their contributions to socialscience, but a study which focused on certainrelatively specific problems. The authors ofthe paperdo not mention this limitation,butit is crucial o understandingwhatI was tryingto do (Parsons, 1949:v). The main objectiveof the book was to attempt to clarify certainproblems of the relation between economictheory and sociologicaltheory.It was this objective which justified theinclusionof Marshall t all since Marshallwasan economist, not a sociologist.My treatmentof Marshall n the book was highly selectiveand that of the other three authors not quiteso much so, but still to a very substantialdegree. In the case of Weber, my mostimportantstarting point was Weber's amousstudy, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism (1958), in which he assumed whathas seemed to many to be the paradoxicalposition that certain categories of religiouscommitments have played a particularlyimportant part in the genesis of the specialtype of modern capitalism,which he called

rational bourgeois capitalism,with which he,Weber,was concerned.Of course, I was not merelyawareof thelong-standingconception of economic self-in-terest,but indeed usedthis as my own startingpoint. I was particularly intrigued withWeber'shypothesis that a major componentof what concretely would be calledeconomicbehaviorwas not, however,to be understoodonly in quite the traditionaltermsof classicaland neo-classicaleconomic theory. This alsoprovided the principal, initial point ofreference for my concern with the normativeaspects of social action and the structureofsocial systems. The authors of the paper arequite right that I put a very strong emphasison these normativeaspects. This is not in theleast to say that I was unaware of otheraspects of social action, particularly inWeber'swork, but I had specialreasons n thedesign of that particularstudy to emphasizethe importanceof the normative.Nearly at the beginningof their paper,theauthors introduce what seems to me to be atruly egregiousmisinterpretation f my views.That is, they say that economically rationalaction is not normatively oriented but isoriented in terms of interests toward con-siderationsof what they call "practicality." tseems to me that nobody could have even anelementaryunderstanding f economic theoryand take this position. Of course,the concept"economic rationality" involves a cruciallycentralnormative element. It concernsselec-tion of means to given goals on the part ofeither producersor consumersor both on thebasis of normative standards of rationalitywhich, in the economic case, have to do withthe balancingof utility on the one hand,coston the other. (Of course the concept does notdeal with broader meaningsof rationality.)Weber was entirely aware of these matters,and the authorsare simply wrongwhen theydeny that there is a normativecomponent inWeber's concept of Zweckrationalitat. Indeed,Weber 1968:212-301) used the conceptionofeconomic rationalityas the point of referencefor formulating his type; thoughhe extendedits applicabilitybeyond the economic sphereto include, above all, political rationalitybut666


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COMMENTS 667also cognitive and technological varietiesandothers (Weber,1968:1158-211).In his study of the ProtestantEthic,Weber(1958) introduced another component whichhad not played a part n the main traditionofeconomic theory, namely a set of value-com-mitmentsanchored n religion. He, of course,associated this with the religious movementwhich he called "ascetic Protestantism"andillustrated particularly with materials fromEnglish Puritanism and to some extent,American sources. This religiously basedorientation valued economic rationality butdiffered from the standardeconomic treat-ment by not treating consumption as theprimary given goal of economically rationalaction. Rather, t held that productiveactivityin the economic sense came to be treatedas amoral obligation through the treatment ofeconomically productiveroles as "callings,"nthe senseof a wordcommonlyused in Puritanliterature.In Weber's ormal classificationoftypes of action, this component of thecapitalisticeconomic behaviorwith which hewas concerned would not be kept classifiedunder the heading Zweckrationalitat, butrather the other category of rational actionwould be used, namely Wertrationalitit(Weber,1968:3-62).

This case may, however, be used toillustrate a very important point aboutWeber'smodes of procedure as a theorist.Though he formulatedwhat he called "idealtypes" and the two types of valueorientationbelong to this category, he never maintainedthat they could not occur empirically incombined form (Weber, 1968; Parsons,1949:520). Indeed, the economic behaviorwhichhe focused on the Puritanswas both toa very high degree economically rational inthe traditional sense and an attempt toimplementa value commitment independentof considerations of personal advantage,notably in the utilitiesof consumption.It is worth noting that the mode of analysiswhich Weberfirst introducedwith respect tothe relations between ascetic Protestantismand capitalism turned out to be of muchbroader ignificance hanits application o thefield of economic action only. RobertMerton's amous work (1970) on science andsociety in 17th century England picked up

hints made by Weber himself about therelevance of this value complex to concernwithscientific investigation.Here,the conceptself-interest, n the relativelyspecificeconom-ic sense of it, becomes of secondaryimportance, but rationality of even moreaccentuatedimportance,and clearlyincludesrationality which is normativelyoriented tothe proper selection of means to achieve

whatever the goals of the activity may be(Merton, 1970; Parsons and Platt, 1973).There are other comparable ields of rationalaction which I have mentioned, such asWeber's own special concern with thepolitical,but a very importantone happenstobe the legal. A fact should be rememberedhere which the authors of the paper do notmention, that Weberwas originallytrainedinjurisprudenceand only furtherin his careerbecamedisciplinewise irst an economist,thena sociologist.There is a relatedset of issues on which abrief commentary needs to be made. Thisstarts with the authors'treatment of Weber'sconcept of traditionalaction. It seems to methat they are guilty of a confusion ofconcepts. Both traditionalaction as a type ofaction and traditional authority are idealtypes which specify types of action but donot specify motivation.Practically hroughouthis formulation of a schema of ideal types,Webercarefully avoids commitment to spe-cific correspondencesbetween type of actionon the one hand, motivation on the other. Itseems to me that the stresswhichthe authorslay on habitationconfuses thisissuebecause Iwould think of habituation as primarily apsychological category of motivation. Again-aiidagain,Weberstressesthat the motives forconformingto any giventype of ordermay beexceedingly varied.They may include factorsof habituation; hey may, however,approachthe pole of the fullest rationality. Whatthemotivation of the participant actors mayhappen to be is an analytically distinctquestion as compared to the typology ofactionor of types of politicalorder.Thereis one particularlymportantexam-ple I should like to elaborate a little further.One of the categoriesWeber ntroduces s thatof Brauch which I translated as "usage"(Weber, 1968:29-31). The authors seem tothink that it was one of the moreegregiousofmy misinterpretations of Weber that Iimputed a normative component to thiscategory;I amverycarefulto say component,not that the category as a whole is primarilynormative. Thisseems to me both intrinsicallycorrectand a correct nterpretationof Weber'smeaning. It applies in innumerablecontextssuchas, for example,rules of etiquette.There is, however, one particular casewhich is very conspicuousand illustratesmypoint admirably. This concerns linguisticusage. Indeed, one of the primary historiccontexts in which the word "usage" hasdeveloped is in the English discussions oflanguage.It seems to me that it would be astrange interpretation of the findings ofmodernlinguisticanalysisto maintainthat inthe usage of languagethere is no normative


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668 AMERICAN OCIOLOGICALEVIEWcontent whatever, though to be sure most ofour actual choices of words and constructionof sentences certainly contain a large elementof habituation.The dominant recent school of linguistictheory, revolving around the name ofChomsky, is completely unequivocal on thispoint. To put it in Chomsky's terms, the"deep structures" of a language are unablealone to generate very large numbers ofspecific utterances-at what Chomsky calls"surface levels" (Chomsky, 1957; 1972). Thedeep structures are utilized through a series ofwhat he explicitly calls rules of transforma-tion. Surely the concept rule is a normativeconcept and is so meant by Chomsky in thiscontext. This is not simply habituation in thepsychological sense. Indeed Chomsky himselfhas some very sharp critical remarks about theattempt to reduce linguistic phenomena tophenomena of habit by, for example, suchbehaviorist psychologists as Skinner (1957).The above considerations lead directly toanother topic on which I feel the authors havetaken an altogether untenable position. Thisconcerns a concept which figures veryprominently in the Cohen, Hazelrigg and Popearticle, namely that of interest. In theirdiscussion of the economic case, as I havenoted, they use the concept of interest toobliterate the normative component ofeconomically rational action, denying that itexists or plays any part in Weber's thinking.However, they also generalize far beyond thiscase. Indeed, they quote from Weber's ownwork the phrase "material and ideal in-terests." They quote a famous passage ofWeber's which I myself have quoted withapproval, I think, a number of times. This isto the effect that it is not "ideals whichdetermine courses of action, but the interestsof actors." Weber's conception of the range ofsuch interests, however, far transcended theusual categories of economic and politicalinterests. Notably, under such headings asideal interests, he included very explicitly theinterest in religious salvation, the interest inthe growth of knowledge through scientificresearch and many others.It might help clarify this much vexedproblem area if I introduce the phrasing usedby W. I. Thomas (1931). I think it would be acorrect interpretation of Weber's position thatideas serve, to quote Thomas, "to define thesituation." For action defining the situation inthis sense, however, does not by itselfmotivate actors to attempt to implementimplications of this definition of the situation.Additional components of the complex ofaction must be taken into account in order tosolve the motivational-implementation prob-

lem. Weber (1958) gave an almost paradig-matic example of the necessary kind ofanalysis in his treatment of how thereligiously pious Puritan was motivated toengage in economically productive activity.The authors are quite right in stressing thatthere had to be a concern with the problem ofpersonal salvation as well as the special set ofreligious beliefs which originated in Calvinism.There is a subtle and continuing tendencywhen such a term as "interests" is used toimply that the "really" important interests areso-called "material interests" or belong in thesphere of what the authors call practicality. Itwas clearly Weber's position, however, thatthis was far too restricted a formulation of theconcept of interest. Indeed, as a sociologist ofreligion, Weber made enormous contributionsto the clarification of the relevance toconcrete action of quite other categories ofinterest. Apropos of my initial statement itshould, I think, be clear that I had specialreasons in the design of The Structure ofSocial Action for being particularly concernedwith this phase of Weber's work. My relativeunderplaying of Weber's political sociologywas not a simple function of failure tounderstand it, but rather of selective interestin a certain limited set of problems. The totalneglect by the authors of the paper of thisconsideration seems to me to be one of themain defects of their treatment.At this point, a brief statement on myviews of Weber's political sociology seems,however, to be essential. My reading of theCohen et al. paper gives me the impressionthat none of the three authors possesses athorough command of the German language.This impression persists; though they do, fromtime to time, quote certain German wordswhich Weber used, notably, in the presentcontext, the word "Herrschaft." As they note,a few years ago I had a certain discussion in areview (Parsons, 1972) of Reinhard Bendix'swork (Bendix and Roth, 1971) about thetranslation of that word. The authors followBendix in uniformly translating it as "domi-nance." I made a careful distinction, whichWeber also makes (1956:122-4), betweenlegitimate and non-legitimate Herrschaft.Where legitimate Herrschaft was involved, Iused the term "authority," reserving othermodes of expression for the non-legitimatecases.It seems to me that the authors seriouslymisinterpret the significance of the concept oflegitimacy in Weber's theoretical structure. Asthe authors clearly recognize, Weber was farindeed from believing in a single factor viewof the determination of human action. Theyare quite correct in quoting him as saying


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COMMENTS 669that, once a normative order has beenestablished, motives of conformingbehavior,insofar as it exists, may be exceedinglyvariant, including commitment to legitimacyof the order, but also various aspects ofself-interestand the like. The questionof therange of possible motives for conformity,however, should be clearly distinguished romthe question of the institutional groundingofa system of normative order. Here, in thelatter context, it seems to me that the conceptof legitimacy is far more crucial than theauthors of the paper will concede. I believethat Weberknew what he was doing whenheused modes of legitimation as the primarybasis of his famous classificationof types ofauthority. (I prefer the word "authority"to"dominance.")This, of course, is not in theleast to say that empirically, dominancewithout legitimation historically has notplayed an extremely important role. This,however, is not the issue with which I amconcerned.To me, the question of the balance Weberdrew between the factors involved in thelegitimationof normativeorder n society andthe factors of self-interest in ignoring ordefying such legitimationis an empirical,nota cruciallycentral theoreticalquestion.Webercertainly went very far in emphasizingthelatter set of factors, but this does not, as Ihave just said, dispose of the theoreticalsignificanceof the conceptof legitimacy n hisconceptual scheme. I should again callattention, which the authors do not, to thefact that Weber was in the first instancetrained in jurisprudence and was deeplyimbued with the importance of law. To besure,his personal experience was mainly withlaw in the Prussian radition, which we mayconclude was a rather special and extremecaseamong modern systems of law. Neverthe-less, for example, in my address n Heidelbergon the occasion of the GermanSociologicalAssociation's celebration of the centenary ofWeber'sbirth, I stressed the centralityof thesociology of law in Weber's hinking(Parsons,1965), whereas Professor Bendix (1965)stressed the centrality of the politicalsociology. It is perfectly clear that the threeauthors of the present paper follow Bendixin this respect. I do not, however,think theymake the case that this must be the primarymodel.This commentary clearlydoes not cover allthe points which might have been discussedrelative to the Cohen, Hazelrigg and Popepaper. I think, however, that it covers asufficient range so that the grounds of myobjectionto their point of view should not be

too obscure.I, for example, do not find theirpaper particularlydistinguishedor specificityof reference, o my own work in particular.The issues in this controversy,as was truein the controversy with Whitney Pope overDurkheim (Pope, 1973; Parsons, 1975), andPope's rejoinderclearly,however, are serious.I do not think it is a question of simple"alternativeopinions" about Weber'swork. Ihave, of course, stressedthe senses in whichmy initial study of Weberwas not meant to beandwas not a generalassessmentof evaluationof Weber'ssociological theory. However,thechargeof distortion, which the authorsof thepaper have leveled against me is certainlyapplicable to them, I think, both in theirinterpretation of Weber's own work and ofmy own commentarieson it. At any rate, Ihope I have made clear that the problemswhich Weber's work presents to the socialscientist are far more complex than theauthors of this paper adequately take intoaccount.Perhaps I may be permitted, in the finalconclusion, a note of wonderment that I amaccused of being an "old fashioned evolu-tionist." I certainlyam an evolutionistin thefield of human action. My evolutionism,however, is quite different from that of thelate 19th century, of which, perhaps,HerbertSpencer (1925-9) may serve as the primaryexample.This point is barelymentioned, withno attempt at grounding, but I think it is asymptom of the polemicalorientation of theauthorsratherthan of their criticalresponsi-bility and acumen.Also, I may call attention, as the authorsdo not, to the fact that, nearly twenty yearsafter publication of The Structure of SocialAction in 1937, my own orientation to thefocal problemof the latter book-the relationsbetween economic and sociological theory-underwent a major transformation.This isdocumented in the book Economy andSociety (Parsonsand Smelser,1956).

Talcott ParsonsHarvard UniversityREFERENCES

Bendix,Reinhard1965 "Contribution o the Proceedingsof theGerman Sociological Association's cele-bration of the Centenaryof Max Weber."Pp. 184-91 in Otto Stammer(ed.), MaxWeber und die Soziologie Heute.Tubingen,Germany:Mohr PaulSiebeck).Bendix,Reinhard nd GuentherRoth1971 Scholarshipand Partisanship:Essays onMax Weber. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia ress.


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670 AMERICAN OCIOLOGICAL EVIEWChomsky,Noam1957 Syntactic Structures.The Hague:Mouton.1972 Language and Mind. Enlarged Edition.NewYork:Harcourt.Merton,RobertK.1970 Science, Technology and Society in

SeventeenthCenturyEngland.New York:Fertig.Parsons,Talcott[1937] The Structure of Social Action. New1949 York:[McGraw-Hill.]Free Press.1965 "Wergebundenheitnd Objektivitit n denSozialwissenschaften.Eine Interpretationder BeitrageMax Webers."Pp. 39-64 inOtto Stammer(ed.), MaxWeberund dieSoziologie Heute. Tubingen, Germany:Mohr PaulSiebeck).1972 "Review of Reinhard Bendix andGuentherRoth. Scholarship nd Partisan-ship: Essays on Max Weber." Con-temporarySociology 1 (3):200-3.1975 "Commenton 'Parsons'nterpretationofDurkheim' nd on 'Moral reedom hroughunderstanding n Durkheim."' AmericanSociologicalReview40 (1):106-11.Parsons,Talcott andGeraldM. Platt in collaborationwithNeilJ. Smelser1973 The American University. Cambridge,Mass.:Harvard niversityPress.Parsons,Talcott and NeilJ. Smelser1956 Economy and Society. New York: FreePress.Pope, Whitney1973 "Classic n classic:Parsons'nterpretationof Durkheim." American SociologicalReview38 (4):399-415.Skinner,Burrhus rederic1957 Verbal Behavior.New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Spencer,Herbert[1876- The Principlesof Sociology. 3 vols. New1896] York:Appleton.1925-1929

Thomas,William .1931 Introduction to The Unadjusted Girl.Boston:Little,Brown.Weber,Max[1922a] Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. 2 vols.1956 Tfibingen,Germany:Mohr PaulSiebeck).[1904-5] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of1958 Capitalism. Tr. Talcott Parsons. NewYork:Scribner's.[1922b] Economy and Society. 3 vols. Guenther1968 Roth and ClausWittich eds.). New York:Bedminister.

REPLYTOPARSONSParsons' commentary is disappointing inas-much as it fails to advance the discussionsubstantially beyond the points made in ourarticle. Apparently, Parsons' thinking aboutWeber has not changed, for although he states

that we were wrong to rely so heavilyon hisThe Structure of Social Action (1949), hegives no evidence of any interpretationofWeber hat differsfundamentally romthat inTheStructure and his reviewof Bendix'work(1960). Although we allegedly distorted hisviews on Weber, Parsons demonstrates nospecific distortionsexcept for our failure toweigh the emphasisof his (1964) Heidelbergaddress(Parsons, 1971) against the emphasisof his numerous other works on Weber.Insteadof citingsupposedlyneglectedchangesin his viewpoint, he devotes much of hiscommentary to a reaffirmationof his earlyargument-most importantly,his "verystrongemphasis on these normative aspects" ofWeber.Parsons ayshe had "specialreasonstoemphasizethe importance of the normative."The question is whether this emphasis canaccuratelybe attributed o Weber.

TYPESOFACTION RIENTATIONNDTYPESOFSUBJECTIVEEANINGOur paper argues that Parsons distortedWeber, chiefly by systematicallyoverplayingnormative and understating nonnormativeelements in Weber's ociology. WebeganwithWeber'sfour types of action orientation andthree types of subjective meaning. Parsonsleaves the bulk of our analysisunchallenged;we considerthose points wherehe takesissuewith us.Weber 1968:25) definedtraditionalactionas action "determinedby ingrainedhabitua-tion." Parsons asserts that our analysisconfuses the issue by stressing the "primari-ly.... motivationalpsychologicalcategory" ofhabituation. However, the emphasis onhabituation s not ours,but Weber's1968:25;see also 31, 312, 333). Parsons'quarrel s withWeber,not with us. Our originalpoint wasthat Weber's category was not primarilynormative.Parsonsdoes not challengeus onthis-the central ssue.Parsonscontinues to misreadWeber'susagecategory. Weber'sdefinition (1968:29, 333)did not mention norms nor does Parsonscitepassages in Weber including any such refer-ence. Whereas in The Structure Parsons(1949:678) cited "standardsof 'good taste' "as an example of usage,he now addsa second

example, namely, "rules of etiquette." Inneitherinstance,however,does Parsons ocatehis example in Weber.Rules of etiquette aretypically guaranteed by sanctions; conse-quently, they more closely approximateWeber's category of "convention" (viz.Weber'sreference [1968:34] to "the rulesgoverning. .social intercourse"as an exampleof convention) than they do "usage."

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