In the final pages of Politik als Beruf Max Weber introduces his now famous distinction between two types of ethics: the “ethics of conviction” ( “Gesinnungsethik”) and the “ethics of responsibility” ( “Verantwortungsethik”). Neither of these is simple to translate and neither of these is easy to understand. What makes it even more difficult to comprehend Weber’s two types of ethics is the absence of a sufficient context. In the following piece I will try to address this problem. In the (...) first part I set out the nineteenth century notion of “conscience”, in the second I address the Protestant Ethic with the particular emphasis on Calvin’s theology, and in the third I lay out the political and ethical demands of some of the Old Testament Prophets. The people’s appeals to conscience, Calvin’s convictions, and the beliefs of Old Testament prophets were all predicated on a sense of devotion to God. Weber’s “modern politician” shared many of their ethical convictions but was no longer able to appeal to the authority of God. Instead, the modern political actor has to have a sense of responsibility and a belief in the accountability for the future. By providing this theological context one will have a fuller background for understanding of Weber’s two types of ethics. (shrink)

One of the still unsolved problems in liberal anarchism is a definition of social constituency in positive terms. Partially, this had been solved by the advancements of liberal discourse ethics. These approaches, built on praxeology as a universal framework for social formation, are detached from the need of any previous or external authority or rule for the discursive partners. However, the relationship between action, personal identity, and liberty within the process of a community becoming solely generated from the praxeological a (...) priori remains largely disputed. In order to develop a testable constitutional model, this study revises how the “ontological turn” was introduced into liberal theories and redefines the concept of liberty. Liberty is usually understood as a moral goal or measurement for just actions, as the generative principle of all social existence - individual and interpersonal. For this purpose, the function of performative contradiction within the mechanism of interpersonal “encounter”, as part of the co-generative process of the individual becoming and social formation was explored through the production of a game-based narrative historiography grounded on 19th century life writings. This narrative historiography was developed in the context of Swiss history, with a “design-based” research approach, and resulted in a prototype for networked storytelling through which the transformative learning process could be visible and the negotiation of competing individual visions of the future could be re-enacted. (shrink)