The Ethic of (Ir)Responsibility

Ralph Nader's candidacy has me thinking about Max Weber.

In 1918 the great German sociologist gave a lecture which was later published as the essay "Politics as a Vocation."  This essay has not only greatly influenced my understanding of the social, economic, cognitive and personal foundations for personal success in politics, it has profoundly shaped my beliefs about what constitutes ethical behavior in politics.  Weber believed that if one working in politics wished to stave off threats to the "salvation of the soul,' than "what is decisive is the trained relentlessness in viewing the realities of life, and the ability to face such realities and to measure up to them inwardly."  I cannot claim to have measured up to Weber's standard, but I can think of no better standard to which one should aspire.

For Weber, "three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion."  Weber distinguished passion from frenzy or heated rhetoric; he characterized passion "in the sense of matter-of-factness, of passionate devotion to a 'cause'...It is not passion in the sense of that inner bearing which [can be called] 'sterile excitation'..."  Passion manifests itself in the resolute, unending, but ultimately pragmatic pursuit of one's goals.

However,

mere passion, however genuinely felt, is not enough. It does not make a politician, unless passion as devotion to a 'cause' also makes responsibility to this cause the guiding star of action. And for this, a sense of proportion is needed. This is the decisive psychological quality of the politician: his ability to let realities work upon him with inner concentration and calmness...The 'strength' of a political 'personality' means, in the first place, the possession of these qualities of passion, responsibility, and proportion...

[there are] only two kinds of deadly sins in the field of politics: lack of objectivity and--often but not always identical with it--irresponsibility. Vanity, the need personally to stand in the foreground as clearly as possible, strongly tempts the politician to commit one or both of these sins...

I thought of both these "deadly sins" while watching Nader share his delusions with Tim Russert last Sunday.  My wife is a therapist, and she immediately recognized what one might characterize as Nader's "grandiose self importance, preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, driven desire for attention and admiration, [and his] intolerance of criticism."  But beyond the behaviors, I'm taken by the ethical implications of his actions.  Again, from Weber:

We must be clear about the fact that all ethically oriented conduct may be guided by one of two fundamentally differing and irreconcilably opposed maxims: conduct can be oriented to an 'ethic of ultimate ends' or to an 'ethic of responsibility.' This is not to say that an ethic of ultimate ends is identical with irresponsibility, or that an ethic of responsibility is identical with unprincipled opportunism. Naturally nobody says that. However, there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of ultimate ends...and conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account of the foreseeable results of one's action.

...If an action of good intent leads to bad results, then, in the actor's eyes, not he but the world, or the stupidity of other men, or God's will who made them thus, is responsible for the evil. However a man who believes in an ethic of responsibility takes account of precisely the average deficiencies of people...he does not even have the right to presuppose their goodness and perfection. He does not feel in a position to burden others with the results of his own actions so far as he was able to foresee them; he will say: these results are ascribed to my action. The believer in an ethic of ultimate ends feels 'responsible' only for seeing to it that the flame of pure intentions is not quenched...To rekindle the flame ever anew is the purpose of his quite irrational deeds, judged in view of their possible success. They are acts that can and shall have only exemplary value."

Acts of exemplary value are not to be disparaged.  But they have an appropriate context in which they are acceptable and not acts of narcissism or nihilism.  I have been inspired by many people known primarily for their acts of exemplary value.  The German students known collectively as The White Rose group executed in 1943 for speaking out against the complicity of everyday Germans in the crimes of Hitler and the Nazis.  The young man who stood resolutely in front of the tank in Tiannmen Square.  Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on the bus.  When there is no other means of affecting justice and change, many believe that exemplary acts will accomplish nothing productive, or worse, will go unnoticed by the world.  But it is then that exemplary acts are most powerful.  As Hannah Arendt wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem, "holes of oblivion do not exist.  Nothing human is that perfect, and there are simply too many people in the world to make oblivion possible.  One man will always be left alive to tell the story.  Thus, nothing can ever be `practically useless,' at least not in the long run."  But exemplary acts are the acts of saints or those with nothing else left to lose in the short run, but they are ethically responsible only as long as--and this is crucial--other people do not have to bear the risks and potential costs of their actions.

For making America and the world bear the risks and potential costs of his actions, Ralph Nader should be judged one of the most unethical politicians in America.

Nader refuses to entertain any discussion of the real-world effects of his actions as presidential candidate in 2000, either as it affected the voting or in terms of the results of that campaign.  He repeatedly blames Katherine Harris and the U.S. Supreme Court for the fact that Bush became President, while refusing to consider that had he not been in the race that Gore would probably have won New Hampshire and would have won Florida by a margin too great for Harris and Jeb Bush to undermine.  He says little about what he would do as President, revealing that he has no expectation of winning.  He repeatedly make the absurd claim that those who've implored him to not run are just "hostages to an antiquated winner-take-all system" trying to "deny democracy and free speech," when in reality they are just pointing out that millions of people could bear he costs of his irresponsible exercise of democracy and free speech.  In essence, he's painted a picture of himself in as a martyr, but he refuses to see that his saintliness will result not in his sacrifice but in the sacrifice of the legislative and consumer protections he's achieved, the ideals he claims to embody and protect, and the people on whose behalf he claims to act.

"Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast," wrote Goethe in Faust.  Like Faust, Weber believed that these ostensibly conflicting impulses can be reconciled; Weber believed it is

immensely moving when a mature man-- no matter whether old or young in years--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.' That is something genuinely human and moving. And every one of us who is not spiritually dead must realize the possibility of finding himself at some time in that position. 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 man--a man who can have the 'calling for politics.'"

Thus, according to Weber only those who can view politics as something much greater than themselves truly have the "calling for politics."

Weber (as quoted by presidents both fictional and real) described politics as "a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth--that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word."

At this time of dashed primary-season hopes for many, it's probably worth ending with a sincere and hopeful challenge to all American voters:

"...even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say 'In spite of all!' has the calling for politics."

Indeed.