On "De-Parsonizing Weber"

Author(s): Talcott Parsons

Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 40, No. 5 (Oct., 1975), pp. 666-670
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094201
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 COMM ENTS
WEBER"
ON "DE-PARSONIZING
(COMMENT ONCOHEN ETAL.,ASR
APRIL,1975)
I frankly do not find this paper in which
WhitneyPope has associatedhimself with two
coauthors any more acceptable than I did
Pope's paper (1973) on my interpretationsof
Durkheimon which I wrote a recent comment
(Parsons, 1975). The authors have repeatedly
accused me of "distortingWeber'smeaning."
I'm afraidI must come back with a claim that,
however that may be, they have distorted my
meaning.
They rely very heavily on The Structureof
Social Action (Parsons, 1949), my first book
which was initially published 38 years ago in
1937, and, on the whole, play down later
writings on Weber.This, to be sure, did have
an extended treatment of Weber's work,
adding up to four chapters. I did, however,
explicitly warn readersof that book that the
treatment in it of the work of the four
authors I considered-namely, beside Weber,
Alfred Marshall, Vilfredo Pareto and Emile
Durkheim-was not a general secondary
account of their contributions to social
science, but a study which focused on certain
relatively specific problems. The authors of
the paper do not mention this limitation, but
it is crucialto understandingwhat I was trying
to do (Parsons, 1949:v). The main objective
of the book was to attempt to clarify certain
problems of the relation between economic
theory and sociologicaltheory.
It was this objective which justified the
inclusion of Marshallat all since Marshallwas
an economist, not a sociologist. My treatment
of Marshallin the book was highly selective
and that of the other three authors not quite
so much so, but still to a very substantial
degree. In the case of Weber, my most
important starting point was Weber'sfamous
study, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism (1958), in which he assumed what
has seemed to many to be the paradoxical Weber(1968:212-301) used the conception of
position that certain categories of religious economic rationality as the point of reference
commitments have played a particularly for formulatingthis type; though he extended
important part in the genesis of the special its applicability beyond the economic sphere
type of modern capitalism, which he called to include, above all, political rationality but
666
rational bourgeois capitalism, with which he,
Weber,was concerned.
Of course, I was not merely aware of the
long-standingconception of economic self-in-
terest, but indeed used this as my own starting
point. I was particularly intrigued with
Weber's hypothesis that a major component
of what concretely would be called economic
behavior was not, however, to be understood
only in quite the traditionalterms of classical
and neo-classicaleconomic theory. This also
provided the principal, initial point of
reference for my concern with the normative
aspects of social action and the structure of
social systems. The authors of the paper are
quite right that I put a very strong emphasis
on these normativeaspects. This is not in the
least to say that I was unaware of other
aspects of social action, particularly in
Weber'swork, but I had specialreasonsin the
design of that particularstudy to emphasize
the importanceof the normative.
Nearly at the beginningof their paper,the
authors introduce what seems to me to be a
truly egregiousmisinterpretationof my views.
That is, they say that economically rational
action is not normatively oriented but is
oriented in terms of interests toward con-
siderationsof what they call "practicality."It
seems to me that nobody could have even an
elementaryunderstandingof economic theory
and take this position. Of course, the concept
"economic rationality" involves a crucially
central normative element. It concerns selec-
tion of means to given goals on the part of
either producersor consumersor both on the
basis of normative standards of rationality
which, in the economic case, have to do with
the balancingof utility on the one hand, cost
on the other. (Of course the concept does not
deal with broader meanings of rationality.)
Weber was entirely aware of these matters,
and the authors are simply wrong when they
deny that there is a normativecomponent in
Weber's concept of Zweckrationalitat. Indeed,
 COMMENTS 667
also cognitive and technologicalvarietiesand whatever the goals of the activity may be
others (Weber,1968:1158-21 1). (Merton, 1970; Parsons and Platt, 1973).
In his study of the ProtestantEthic, Weber There are other comparablefields of rational
(1958) introduced another component which action which I have mentioned, such as
had not played a partin the maintraditionof Weber's own special concern with the
economic theory, namely a set of value-com- political, but a very importantone happensto
mitments anchoredin religion. He, of course, be the legal. A fact should be remembered
associated this with the religious movement here which the authors of the paper do not
which he called "ascetic Protestantism"and mention, that Weberwas originallytrained in
illustrated particularly with materials from jurisprudenceand only further in his career
English Puritanism and to some extent, became disciplinewisefirst an economist, then
American sources. This religiously based a sociologist.
orientation valued economic rationality but There is a related set of issues on which a
differed from the standard economic treat- brief commentary needs to be made. This
ment by not treating consumption as the starts with the authors' treatment of Weber's
primary given goal of economically rational concept of traditionalaction. It seems to me
action. Rather,it held that productiveactivity that they are guilty of a confusion of
in the economic sense came to be treatedas a concepts. Both traditionalaction as a type of
moral obligation through the treatment of action and traditional authority are ideal
economically productiveroles as "callings,"in types which specify types of action but do
the sense of a word commonly used in Puritan not specify motivation.Practicallythroughout
literature. In Weber'sformal classificationof his formulation of a schema of ideal types,
types of action, this component of the Weber carefully avoids commitment to spe-
capitalisticeconomic behaviorwith which he cific correspondencesbetween type of action
was concerned would not be kept classified on the one hand, motivation on the other. It
under the heading Zweckrationalitat, but seems to me that the stresswhich the authors
rather the other category of rational action lay on habitation confuses this issue becauseI
would be used, namely Wertrationalitit would think of habituation as primarily a
(Weber,1968:3-62). psychological category of motivation. Again
-aiidagain, Weberstresses that the motives for
This case may, however, be used to conformingto any given type of order may be
illustrate a very important point about exceedingly varied. They may include factors
Weber's modes of procedure as a theorist. of habituation;they may, however, approach
Though he formulated what he called "ideal the pole of the fullest rationality. What the
types" and the two types of value orientation motivation of the participant actors may
belong to this category, he never maintained happen to be is an analytically distinct
that they could not occur empirically in question as compared to the typology of
combined form (Weber, 1968; Parsons, action or of types of political order.
1949:520). Indeed, the economic behavior There is one particularlyimportant exam-
which he focused on the Puritanswas both to ple I should like to elaboratea little further.
a very high degree economically rational in One of the categoriesWeberintroducesis that
the traditional sense and an attempt to of Brauch which I translated as "usage"
implement a value commitment independent (Weber, 1968:29-31). The authors seem to
of considerations of personal advantage, think that it was one of the more egregiousof
notably in the utilities of consumption. my misinterpretations of Weber that I
It is worth noting that the mode of analysis imputed a normative component to this
which Weberfirst introduced with respect to category;I am very carefulto say component,
the relations between ascetic Protestantism not that the category as a whole is primarily
and capitalism turned out to be of much normative. This seems to me both intrinsically
broadersignificancethan its applicationto the correctand a correctinterpretationof Weber's
field of economic action only. Robert meaning. It applies in innumerablecontexts
Merton'sfamous work (1970) on science and such as, for example, rules of etiquette.
society in 17th century England picked up There is, however, one particular case
hints made by Weber himself about the which is very conspicuous and illustratesmy
relevance of this value complex to concern point admirably. This concerns linguistic
with scientific investigation.Here,the concept usage. Indeed, one of the primary historic
self-interest,in the relativelyspecific econom- contexts in which the word "usage" has
ic sense of it, becomes of secondary developed is in the English discussions of
importance, but rationality of even more language.It seems to me that it would be a
accentuated importance, and clearly includes strange interpretation of the findings of
rationality which is normatively oriented to modern linguistic analysis to maintainthat in
the proper selection of means to achieve the usage of language there is no normative
668 REVIEW
AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
content whatever, though to be sure most of
our actual choices of words and construction
of sentences certainly contain a large element
of habituation.
The dominant recent school of linguistic
theory, revolving around the name of
Chomsky, is completely unequivocal on this
point. To put it in Chomsky's terms, the
"deep structures" of a language are unable
alone to generate very large numbers of
specific utterances-at what Chomsky calls
"surface levels" (Chomsky, 1957; 1972). The
deep structures are utilized through a series of
what he explicitly calls rules of transforma-
tion. Surely the concept rule is a normative
concept and is so meant by Chomsky in this
context. This is not simply habituation in the
psychological sense. Indeed Chomsky himself
has some very sharp critical remarks about the
attempt to reduce linguistic phenomena to
phenomena of habit by, for example, such
behaviorist psychologists as Skinner (1957).
The above considerations lead directly to
another topic on which I feel the authors have
taken an altogether untenable position. This
concerns a concept which figures very
prominently in the Cohen, Hazelrigg and Pope
article, namely that of interest. In their
discussion of the economic case, as I have
noted, they use the concept of interest to
obliterate the normative component of
economically rational action, denying that it
exists or plays any part in Weber's thinking.
However, they also generalize far beyond this
case. Indeed, they quote from Weber's own
work the phrase "material and ideal in-
terests." They quote a famous passage of
Weber's which I myself have quoted with
approval, I think, a number of times. This is
to the effect that it is not "ideals which
determine courses of action, but the interests
of actors." Weber's conception of the range of
such interests, however, far transcended the
usual categories of economic and political
interests. Notably, under such headings as
ideal interests, he included very explicitly the
interest in religious salvation, the interest in
the growth of knowledge through scientific
research and many others.
It might help clarify this much vexed
problem area if I introduce the phrasing used
by W. I. Thomas (1931). I think it would be a
correct interpretation of Weber's position that
ideas serve, to quote Thomas, "to define the
situation." For action defining the situation in
this sense, however, does not by itself
motivate actors to attempt to implement
implications of this definition of the situation.
Additional components of the complex of
action must be taken into account in order to
solve the motivational-implementation prob-
lem. Weber (1958) gave an almost paradig-
matic example of the necessary kind of
analysis in his treatment of how the
religiously pious Puritan was motivated to
engage in economically productive activity.
The authors are quite right in stressing that
there had to be a concern with the problem of
personal salvation as well as the special set of
religious beliefs which originated in Calvinism.
There is a subtle and continuing tendency
when such a term as "interests" is used to
imply that the "really" important interests are
so-called "material interests" or belong in the
sphere of what the authors call practicality. It
was clearly Weber's position, however, that
this was far too restricted a formulation of the
concept of interest. Indeed, as a sociologist of
religion, Weber made enormous contributions
to the clarification of the relevance to
concrete action of quite other categories of
interest. Apropos of my initial statement it
should, I think, be clear that I had special
reasons in the design of The Structure of
Social Action for being particularly concerned
with this phase of Weber's work. My relative
underplaying of Weber's political sociology
was not a simple function of failure to
understand it, but rather of selective interest
in a certain limited set of problems. The total
neglect by the authors of the paper of this
consideration seems to me to be one of the
main defects of their treatment.
At this point, a brief statement on my
views of Weber's political sociology seems,
however, to be essential. My reading of the
Cohen et al. paper gives me the impression
that none of the three authors possesses a
thorough command of the German language.
This impression persists; though they do, from
time to time, quote certain German words
which Weber used, notably, in the present
context, the word "Herrschaft." As they note,
a few years ago I had a certain discussion in a
review (Parsons, 1972) of Reinhard Bendix's
work (Bendix and Roth, 1971) about the
translation of that word. The authors follow
Bendix in uniformly translating it as "domi-
nance." I made a careful distinction, which
Weber also makes (1956:122-4), between
legitimate and non-legitimate Herrschaft.
Where legitimate Herrschaft was involved, I
used the term "authority," reserving other
modes of expression for the non-legitimate
cases.
It seems to me that the authors seriously
misinterpret the significance of the concept of
legitimacy in Weber's theoretical structure. As
the authors clearly recognize, Weber was far
indeed from believing in a single factor view
of the determination of human action. They
are quite correct in quoting him as saying
 COMMENTS
that, once a normative order has been
established, motives of conforming behavior,
insofar as it exists, may be exceedingly
variant, including commitment to legitimacy
of the order, but also various aspects of
self-interestand the like. The question of the
range of possible motives for conformity,
however, should be clearlydistinguishedfrom
the question of the institutional groundingof
a system of normative order. Here, in the
latter context, it seems to me that the concept
of legitimacy is far more crucial than the
authors of the paper will concede. I believe
that Weberknew what he was doing when he
used modes of legitimation as the primary
basis of his famous classification of types of
authority. (I prefer the word "authority"to
"dominance.")This, of course, is not in the
least to say that empirically, dominance
without legitimation historically has not
played an extremely important role. This,
however, is not the issue with which I am
concerned.
To me, the question of the balance Weber
drew between the factors involved in the
legitimationof normativeorderin society and
the factors of self-interest in ignoring or
defying such legitimationis an empirical,not
a crucially central theoreticalquestion.Weber
certainly went very far in emphasizingthe
latter set of factors, but this does not, as I
have just said, dispose of the theoretical
significanceof the concept of legitimacyin his
conceptual scheme. I should again call
attention, which the authors do not, to the
fact that Weber was in the first instance
trained in jurisprudence and was deeply
imbued with the importance of law. To be
sure, his personalexperience was mainly with
law in the Prussiantradition, which we may
conclude was a rather special and extreme
case among modern systems of law. Neverthe-
less, for example, in my addressin Heidelberg
on the occasion of the German Sociological
Association's celebration of the centenary of
Weber'sbirth, I stressedthe centrality of the
sociology of law in Weber'sthinking(Parsons,
1965), whereas Professor Bendix (1965)
stressed the centrality of the political
sociology. It is perfectly clear that the three
authors of the present paper follow Bendix
in this respect. I do not, however, think they
make the case that this must be the primary
model.
This commentaryclearlydoes not cover all
the points which might have been discussed
relative to the Cohen, Hazelrigg and Pope
paper. I think, however, that it covers a
sufficient range so that the grounds of my
objection to their point of view should not be
669
too obscure. I, for example, do not find their
paper particularlydistinguishedfor specificity
of reference,to my own work in particular.
The issues in this controversy,as was true
in the controversy with Whitney Pope over
Durkheim (Pope, 1973; Parsons, 1975), and
Pope's rejoinderclearly, however, are serious.
I do not think it is a question of simple
"alternativeopinions" about Weber'swork. I
have, of course, stressed the senses in which
my initial study of Weberwas not meant to be
and was not a generalassessmentof evaluation
of Weber'ssociological theory. However,the
chargeof distortion, which the authorsof the
paper have leveled against me is certainly
applicable to them, I think, both in their
interpretation of Weber's own work and of
my own commentarieson it. At any rate, I
hope I have made clear that the problems
which Weber's work presents to the social
scientist are far more complex than the
authors of this paper adequately take into
account.
Perhaps I may be permitted, in the final
conclusion, a note of wondermentthat I am
accused of being an "old fashioned evolu-
tionist." I certainly am an evolutionist in the
field of human action. My evolutionism,
however, is quite different from that of the
late 19th century, of which, perhaps,Herbert
Spencer (1925-9) may serve as the primary
example. This point is barely mentioned, with
no attempt at grounding,but I think it is a
symptom of the polemical orientation of the
authors rather than of their criticalresponsi-
bility and acumen.
Also, I may call attention, as the authors
do not, to the fact that, nearly twenty years
after publication of The Structure of Social
Action in 1937, my own orientation to the
focal problemof the latter book-the relations
between economic and sociological theory-
underwent a major transformation. This is
documented in the book Economy and
Society (Parsonsand Smelser,1956).
Talcott Parsons
Harvard University
REFERENCES
Bendix,Reinhard
1965 "Contributionto the Proceedingsof the
German Sociological Association's cele-
bration of the Centenaryof Max Weber."
Pp. 184-91 in Otto Stammer(ed.), Max
Weber und die Soziologie Heute.
Tubingen,Germany:Mohr(PaulSiebeck).
Bendix,Reinhardand GuentherRoth
1971 Scholarshipand Partisanship:Essays on
Max Weber. Berkeley: University of
CaliforniaPress.
670 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
Chomsky,Noam that we were wrong to rely so heavily on his
1957 SyntacticStructures.The Hague:Mouton. The Structure of Social Action (1949), he
1972 Language and Mind. Enlarged Edition. gives no evidence of any interpretation of
New York:Harcourt. Weberthat differs fundamentallyfrom that in
Merton,RobertK.
1970 Science, Technology and Society in The Structure and his reviewof Bendix' work
SeventeenthCenturyEngland.New York: (1960). Although we allegedly distorted his
Fertig. views on Weber, Parsons demonstrates no
Parsons,Talcott specific distortions except for our failure to
[1937] The Structure of Social Action. New weigh the emphasis of his (1964) Heidelberg
1949 York: [McGraw-Hill.] address (Parsons, 1971) against the emphasis
FreePress. of his numerous other works on Weber.
1965 "Wergebundenheit und Objektivititin den Instead of citing supposedlyneglected changes
Sozialwissenschaften.Eine Interpretation in his viewpoint, he devotes much of his
der BeitrageMax Webers."Pp. 39-64 in
Otto Stammer(ed.), Max Weberund die commentary to a reaffirmation of his early
Soziologie Heute. Tubingen, Germany: argument-most importantly, his "verystrong
Mohr(PaulSiebeck). emphasis on these normative aspects" of
1972 "Review of Reinhard Bendix and Weber.Parsonssays he had "specialreasonsto
GuentherRoth. Scholarshipand Partisan- emphasizethe importanceof the normative."
ship: Essays on Max Weber." Con- The question is whether this emphasis can
temporarySociology 1 (3):200-3. accuratelybe attributedto Weber.
1975 "Commenton 'Parsons'interpretationof
Durkheim'and on 'Moralfreedomthrough
understandingin Durkheim."' American
SociologicalReview40 (1): 106-11. TYPESOF ACTION ORIENTATION AND
Parsons,Talcott and GeraldM. Platt in collaboration
TYPESOFSUBJECTIVE MEANING
with Neil J. Smelser Our paper argues that Parsons distorted
1973 The American University. Cambridge, Weber, chiefly by systematically overplaying
Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress. normative and understating nonnormative
Parsons,Talcottand Neil J. Smelser elements in Weber'ssociology. We began with
1956 Economy and Society. New York: Free Weber'sfour types of action orientation and
Press.
Pope,Whitney three types of subjective meaning. Parsons
leaves the bulk of our analysis unchallenged;
1973 "Classicon classic:Parsons'interpretation
of Durkheim." American Sociological we consider those points where he takes issue
Review38 (4):399-415. with us.
Skinner,BurrhusFrederic Weber(1968:25) defined traditionalaction
1957 Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton- as action "determinedby ingrainedhabitua-
Century-Crofts. tion." Parsons asserts that our analysis
Spencer,Herbert confuses the issue by stressing the "primari-
[1876- The Principlesof Sociology. 3 vols. Newly.... motivational psychological category" of
1896] York:Appleton.
1925- habituation. However, the emphasis on
1929 habituationis not ours, but Weber's(1968:25;
Thomas,WilliamI. see also 31, 312, 333). Parsons'quarrelis with
1931 Introduction to The Unadjusted Girl. Weber, not with us. Our original point was
Boston: Little, Brown. that Weber's category was not primarily
Weber,Max normative. Parsons does not challenge us on
[1922a] Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. 2 vols. this-the centralissue.
1956 Tfibingen,Germany:Mohr(PaulSiebeck). Parsonscontinues to misreadWeber'susage
[1904-5] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
category. Weber's definition (1968:29, 333)
1958 Capitalism. Tr. Talcott Parsons. New
York: Scribner's. did not mention norms nor does Parsonscite
[1922b] Economy and Society. 3 vols. Guentherpassages in Weber including any such refer-
1968 Roth and ClausWittich(eds.). New York: ence. Whereas in The Structure Parsons
Bedminister. (1949:678) cited "standardsof 'good taste' "
as an example of usage,he now adds a second
example, namely, "rules of etiquette." In
neither instance, however,does Parsonslocate
REPLYTO PARSONS his example in Weber. Rules'of etiquette are
typically guaranteed by sanctions; conse-
Parsons' commentary is disappointing inas- quently, they more closely approximate
much as it fails to advance the discussion Weber's category of "convention" (viz.
substantially beyond the points made in our Weber's reference [1968:34] to "the rules
article. Apparently, Parsons' thinking about governing.. .social intercourse"as an example
Weber has not changed, for although he states of convention) than they do "usage."