Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994 Dissertation University of Amsterdam. Chapter 1. Max Weber's universalist
sociology of bureaucracy: the contradiction between public rationalism and private masculinism
13
2. Sociology as rational social science: the separation of facts and values and the creation of
the abstract individual as consequences of the separation of public and private life
Weber was the first scientist who constructed 'sociology' as a separate academic discipline,
developing it from 'social economy',
15
in such a way that the social scientist could claim the
authority of the natural sciences: he made sociology an 'objective' science
16
which is
assumedly based on a universalist procedure of acquiring knowledge which would enable
everybody ('even a Chinese'
17
) to judge the validity of the evidence, independently of his or
her personal opinions and values. Paradoxically, he did this on the basis of his conviction
that every social theory depends on the value-bound selection of elements of reality by the
investigator.
Weber's emphasizes that social science is about 'facts', which he views in a sharp
opposition to personal 'value' judgments
18
; he wants to differentiate between 'what is' and
'what should be'.
19
This differentiation between facts and norms has become such an
fundamental element of established social science, that it is hardly ever discussed as such
20
.
In Weber's view the opposition of facts and values is the same as that of ratio and feelings
21
and that of rationality and irrationality
22
; it therefore appears to be similar to the opposition of
'sense' and 'sensibility' Jane Austen analyzed a century earlier. It is based on the liberty of
conscience granted by the declarations of human rights, which made the choice of values a
private decision, protected against the public domination of the state.
23
In Weber's method
15
MSS p. 63 ff., GAzW p. 161 ff.
16
See Beetham (1974) p. 276: 'The impact of Weber's undoubted brilliance as a scholar and thinker, and his
obvious concern to distinguish between the logical status of facts and value judgments, itself contributed
powerfully to the illusion of an epoch of social science which believed that to avoid the open expression of values
in its work was sufficient to make the conclusions objective and value-free.'
17
MSS p. 58/9, GAzW p. 156/7.
18
A clear example is to be found in SV, FMW p. 146, GAzW p. 602: 'I am ready to prove from the works of our
historians that whenever the man of science introduces his personal value judgments, a full understanding of the
f a c t s ceases.' That Weber himself, however, had some notion of the problematical status of this opposition,
can be deduced from what he writes only a little earlier: '"To let the facts speak for themselves" is the most unfair
way of putting over a political position to the student.'
19
MSS p. 51, GAzW p. 148.
20
See Weiß (1981) p. 49.
21
MSS p. 60, GAzW p. 157.
22
See Van Vucht Tijssen (1985) p. 6: the definition of 'the irrational' in terms of 'the rational' 'finally results in a
dichotomization of the rational and the irrational, while Weber makes the latter category into a repository
('vergaarbak') of the most heterogeneous elements.'
23
According to Winckelmann (1952), p. 66, the liberty of conscience is the oldest 'human right'. Jane Rendall in
'Virtue and Commerce: Women in the Making of Adam Smith's Political Economy', in Kennedy & Mendus (1987),
p.44/5, presents an interesting interpretation with regard to the changes in the concept of citizenship in early
modern Europe: 'Throughout much of early modern Europe, definitions of the public sphere had looked to an
older model of citizenship, that ultimately based on the pursuit of virtue within the classical republic. Through
anachronistic, the classical rhetoric, based around the theme of the independent, virtuous, and by definition
masculine, citizen, remained immensely powerful. Yet this was to be challenged as, increasingly, citizenship
came to be seen as resting not on virtue, but on rights, the rights of the individual, both natural and contractual.
The public world was no longer that in which the individual might find moral fulfillment. Inseparably associated
with such a changing view of the public sphere, was the relocation of the pursuit of virtue within the private
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