Word: ethic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Weber, in his fundamental essay, "Politics as a Vocation," emphasizes over and over the fact that politics "operates with very special means, namely power backed up by violence," and so one requires a special and sensitive ethic of political conduct. Weber goes on to suggest two such: the ethic of ultimate ends, under which one takes actions on the basis of one's pure and good intentions regardless of the immediate consequences--even though these may be the opposite of what is desired. This kind of thinking is identified by Weber as being common among those possessed with religions zeal...
However it is immensely moving When a mature man is aware of a responsibility for the consequences of his conduct and really feels such responsibility with heart and soul. He then acts by following an ethic of responsibility and somewhere he reaches the point where he says: "Here I stand; I can do no other." In so far as this is true, an ethic of ultimate ends and an ethic of responsibility are not absolute contrasts but rather supplements, which only in unison constitute a genuine...
...incorporate this necessity for individual choice and its implications about the laxity of absolute principle, with Weber's combination of the two ethics, I would suggest an ethic of motives. Under this ethic one would have to judge outside actions, those of other people and those of governments, in terms of the probable motives of the protagonists. Thus, Ho Chi Minh has killed many peasants but one does not equate him with Hitler and refuse him support, because one judges that he acted for the welfare of his people and not for personal power or out of insane hatred...
Right now the government keeps its influence over the economy by chucking $86 billion into missiles and tanks. It can't put this money into poverty programs because billions of dollars just handed over to the poor would ruin our whole competitive ethic (this is what everyone in Congress thinks anyway; and of course, it isn't true. But unfortunately they decide...
...likely to have, very little success in this attempt to convert the Workers into agents of the revolution. This is because the Workers believe deeply in the existing value-structure which necessarily is one that is designed to perpetuate the present relationship of power. Specifically, this is the ethic of individualism which says that each man must try to acquire as much wealth for himself as he possibly can. The index of a man's standing is measured exclusively in terms of the goods he possesses which ensures the smooth functioning of the growth-economy and legitimizes the wealth...