The Ethical Irrationality of the World: Weber and Hindu Ethics

Abstract

This paper argues that Weber ought to be read as a comparative ethicist who brings his German intellectual inheritance, especially Schopenauer and Nietzsche, to a dialogue with ethical traditions in India and China. It shows that Weber not only had a supple understanding of the tensions within Hindu ethics, his own account of value often closely corresponds to Hindu axiology and was enriched by an encounter with it.     

The end of emancipation? CTS and normativity

ABSTRACT

Although CTS can be described as a broad church, scholars working within this approach want to produce knowledge which can help shape, improve, change, or replace contemporary counterterrorism. Guided by Marx’s mantra that the point of theory is not only to interpret the world but to change it, CTS has since its inception challenged the status quo of contemporary counterterrorism on the basis that it is possible to conduct counterterrorism differently, more humanly, and, put plainly, better. The concept of emancipation was identified early on as the foundation and basis for knowledge. However, a deeper debate on emancipation has largely been absent since 2010. Could it be that CTS exhausted the debate on one of its core commitments only five years into its existence? Have we reached the end of emancipation? Or could it be that emancipation is not that attractive at all for CTS and its normative projects? This article begins with a review and a state-of-the-art discussion of emancipation within CTS. While it might be the end of emancipation in its traditional conceptualisation, the article argues that emancipation can be retained as the basis for normative theorising and action within CTS when reconceptualised as a Weberian value-axiom. The article concludes by exploring a transfiguration of the concept of emancipation itself.     

马克斯·韦伯卡理斯玛支配模型及其法治化改造

马克斯·韦伯提出了政治正当性支配的三种模型,其中最引人注目的是卡理斯玛支配模型。通过阐释卡理斯玛支配模型的内涵,分析在此种支配模式可能存在的弊端和缺憾,从而试图提出卡理斯玛支配模式在我国的法治化改造路径。     

The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics

This essay works through some of the necessary preliminary questions in thinking about Soviet colonialism in the Baltics. It opens by tracing the prehistory of critical thinking about Soviet colonialism in the 1960s and considers why the topic of Soviet colonialism has not (or not yet) become a dominant way to understand Soviet history. The central question posed by the article is whether one can speak about the Soviet invasions of the Baltic States as ‘colonization’. It proposes that, initially, communist Russia did not in fact seek to colonize the Baltic States and instead ‘occupied’ them; however, this initial period of occupation later developed into a period of a colonial rule.     

从阶级到阶层—-一种公共语境转换的解说

当代中国在公共语境领域发生了从阶级到阶层的话语转换,这种转换可以从社会分层理论的两个重要理论源头--马克思的阶级理论和马克斯@韦伯的社会分层理论各自所蕴涵的语境逻辑和当代中国整体性社会诉求中得到解释.马克思的阶级理论是一种关涉政治革命的宏观历史理论,与试图保持价值中立的关涉合法性论证的马克斯@韦伯的社会分层理论具有极为相殊的语境逻辑.新中国成立后,由于对革命时代阶级斗争理论的"路径依赖"以及对马克思阶级理论的语境误读,导致阶级和阶级斗争话语泛化.改革开放后公共话语发生的从阶级到阶层的转换是对中国社会整体性诉求的恰当回应,但这种转换并不表明马克思的阶级理论应当退出公共语境.     

The Stein Rokkan Lecture 2016 Mission impossible? Reconciling economic and social Europe after the euro crisis and Brexit

During the crisis, the European Union's ‘social deficit’ has triggered an increasing politicisation of redistributive issues within supranational, transnational and national arenas. Various lines of conflict have taken shape, revolving around who questions (who are ‘we’? – i.e., issues of identity and inclusion/exclusion); what questions (how much redistribution within and across the ‘we’ collectivities) and who decides questions (the locus of authority that can produce and guarantee organised solidarity). The key challenge facing today's political leaders is how to ‘glue’ the Union together as a recogniseable and functioning polity. This requires a double rebalancing: between the logic of ‘opening’ and the logic of ‘closure’, on the one hand, and between the logic of ‘economic stability’ and ‘social solidarity’, on the other. Building on the work of Stein Rokkan and Max Weber, this article argues that reconciliation is possible, but only if carefully crafted through an extraordinary mobilisation of political and intellectual resources. A key ingredient should be the establishment of a European Social Union, capable of combining domestic and pan‐European solidarities. In this way, the EU could visibly and tangibly extend its policy menu from regulation to (limited, but effective) distribution, reaping the latter's benefits in terms of legitimacy. The journey on this road is difficult but, pace Rokkan, not entirely impervious.     

Understanding Democracy as a Prerequisite for Spreading Democracy

The cultural underpinnings of American democracy are discussed with emphasis on ideas made famous in Max Weber’s, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In particular there is emphasis on the way America built upon the British cultural tradition so that the American working class would not be dependent upon bread and circuses offered by a political elite, a tradition in Europe dating back to the Roman Empire. Instead cultural emphasis on moral integrity and the self-respect of the American working class, the underpinnings of moralistic individualism as a key component of democratic culture in America but not necessarily in many other parts of the world, is emphasized. These ideas are elaborated with discussion of a certain decay of these values in present-day America, and the problems the American government has had in conveying the importance of these values to other nations seeking to democratize partly under our influence.

苏联解体与文明进程——马克斯·韦伯“俄国革命论”的视点

自苏联在1991年末解体以来,学者们对这一历史事件的肇因进行了多种分析。这些分析中,意识形态层面的分析占据了显要的位置。然而,这些分析陷入了同义反复的逻辑错误。与此相对,各种基于事实的分析,往往停留在一种事后的描述上,未能提供有效的说明。那么,从社会科学的角度来看,苏联解体意味着什么?马克斯·韦伯在其"俄国革命论"中提供了一个卓越的视角。     

需要何种法律信任

"法律信任"对"法律信仰"概念的修正,实质走向了一个韦伯式概念,其理论本身在很大程度上也是韦伯命题的理论映照。这一韦伯式的"法律信任"概念,无论是在理论上还是在现实上都面临着巨大的困难,这种双重困难指向同一问题:"法律信任"如何可能?由此,立基于韦伯式的形式法律理论之上,不可能产生真正的"法律信任"。"法律信任"概念要想有意义,就必须建立在一种更具实质性的法律理论之上。     

从经典作家看社会学方法论对政治学发展的影响

虽然政治学和社会学都有着相对独立的研究对象,相互区别的方法体系,但很多社会学者尤以马克斯.韦伯及罗伯特.米歇尔斯为代表突破所谓的学科划分,形成交叉研究,其理论和方法对现代政治学发展产生重要影响。韦伯的"因果多元论"、"价值中立"、"理想类型"等方法论原则对现代政治科学研究方法产生重要影响,直接促成了政治系统分析的产生。米歇尔斯则在对"寡头统治铁律"进行论证的过程中不自觉地开拓了政治研究的方法,自发运用了政治心理分析和政治团体分析方法。这些学者的不懈努力最终促成了政治社会学的诞生。