In 1919, one year into Weimar’s short-lived life, the German sociologist Max Weber gave a talk titled Politics as a Vocation, in which he outlined two moral systems the statesman must navigate: an “ethic of conviction,” which demands that he pursue justice; and an “ethic of responsibility,” which demands that he consider the consequences of his doing so. In at least some cases, Weber suggested, the second imperative trumps the first. Social justice is all well and good, but it does not justify burning down the Reichstag—or, one might add, the Minneapolis police station.
Needless to say, Weber’s compatriots did not get the memo. The ethic of conviction dominated left and right alike, until it pushed Weimar over the volcano’s edge. What they lacked is what we presently need: an ethic of responsibility to temper our convictions. The only way we’ll avoid the flames is if both sides rediscover it.
For fun (again, old-school-blogpost style), let's riff about how the "ethic of conviction" and "ethic of responsibility" can relate to each other.
Contemporary media culture places a huge premium on the performance of conviction, abounding with moralizing denunciations of one's political opponents, chest-beating declarations of virtuousness, and proclamations of impending ethical crisis. This frenzy over conviction pervades political analysis (obviously), but it has also permeated our broader media culture.
However, conviction without responsibility degenerates into a carousel of posturing. Conviction can be thrilling, even intoxicating. Social media shows how professing conviction (to raucous applause, of course) can be an extraordinary dopamine hit. Yet a sense of responsibility is needed to give that conviction a moral seriousness.
Responsibility in part involves interrogating the character of one's own thought. Blind conviction can leap from moral outrage to moral outrage, but responsibility demands applying perspective. That perspective can help temper and focus that conviction. Seeing the muddiness of the world can help us treasure the glow of truly good things even more. Seeing what it means to live in the world can inform our convictions (as those convictions in part draw from our bigger understanding of the world).
True responsibility addresses the demands of charity. Responsibility joins conviction to care--the sense of something outside ourselves and the awareness of worldly vulnerability and fragility. It might even hint that, if our conviction is to have a robust purchase, it can't rely on merely the idolization of our own preferences but has to draw from some deeper sources.
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*(Speaking of challenges facing the American republic, I'll toss in a link to a recent-ish National Review piece of mine on that very topic: Francis Fukuyama, David Brooks, and the renewal of the resources of liberty.)
