[author]Parsons, Talcot

[content]

Legitimate Order，Charisma and Religion

Parsons, Talcott

It is time to return to the concept of legitimate order, or as it has been put above, legitimacy norms, in relation to action. The way in which Weber deals with this is of central interest. In the first place, he makes two classifications, the distinction between which is not at first might evident. The first proof modes in which “the legitimacy of an order may be guaranteed”. The second' is of reasons why binding legitimacy is attributed to the order by the actors.

The basis of the distinction emerges from consideration of the actual content of the classifications. The guarantee spoken of in connection with the first may be purely subjective (innerlich), in which case it is (a) affectual, (6) wertrational or (c) religious. Or it may be external, which means in terms of "interest," certain expectations of external consequences. The terminology here used seems somewhat objectionable, but the essential meaning is clear. It is a classification of types of motive, hence of forces, by which actual adherence to the norms of the order in question is to be explained. In the terminology of this study it is preferable to say that these motives may be classified as disinterested and interested. In the one case the order is looked upon as an expression of values, hence to be lived up to because it is valued for itself or for the values it expresses.? In the other, its existence is part of the situation in which one must act—it takes the role of mcrally neutral means or conditions for the actor's own ends. Weber may be interpreted as pointing out that even though interests may morally be quite neutral to the order they none the less may play a part in guaranteeing it, that is, in maintaining its function.

The other classification is on a different plane ——it is that of the motives for which legitimacy is ascribed to the order, not why the order is upheld in action. Negatively the conspicuous fact is that interest drops out entirely. While interest may be a very important reason for conforming to an order, it has nothing to do with ascribing legitimacy—or illegitimacy—to it. Here only the disinterested motive elements have a place. But Weber’s subclassification of these is somewhat different from the above. It is (a) traditional, (b) affectual, (c) wertrational and (d) held to be legal by positive institution (Satzung). It does not seem important enough to inquire here why Weber eliminated religious motives and added traditional. On this last it may be noted only that he says, "The legitimacy of an order by virtue of the santification of tradition is everywhere the most universal and original case."1 This linking of traditionalism with sanctity is a conspicuous feature of his treatment of the former throughout.

It is interesting to note here a shift from the original meaning of wertrational, directly corresponding to that previously noted in zweckrational. Though the term absolute occurs, in the context the important thing seems to be not the absoluteness but the "ultimacy" (in the sense of this study) of the value. This is evident from the fact that zweckrational has become identified with interest-concern with a thing or person only in so far as it or he may be usable as a means or should be taken account of as an intrinsically relevant condition. Wertrational, on the other hand, becomes here identified with the disinterested attitude of valuation of a thing for its own sake or as a direct expression or embodiment of an ultimate value, which hence cannot, in so far, simply be "used" as a means. In other words the distinction of zweckrational and wertrational, originally one of hypothetically concrete types of rational action, has stepped over into one of structural elements of action systems, recognizable as properties of attitudes. Occuring in the context where it appears this cannot but be significant.

The fourth category, positive institution of norms held to be legal, may from the present point of view be regarded as a category of derived legitimacy. The belief in legality implies that the instituting agency has a right to institute such norms. It falls for Weber into two subtypes-agreement and imposition (Oktroy-ierung). In the former case, it should be noted, the mere fact that persons with interests come to an agreement is not enough. In order that there may be legitimacy there must be an obligation assumed to carry out the terms of the agreement. This will be found to involve one or more of the other three elements, above all Wertrationalität (in the new sense). The connection of this with Durkheim's analysis of relations of contract is obvious. The element of legitimacy in agreements is a part of Durkheim's "non-contractual element of contract." Thus purely voluntary agreement is the limiting case where the element of legitimacy is reduced to a minimum. But this by no means implies that it is eliminated.

At the present moment it is not proposed to go further into the mutual relations of tradition, affect and Wertrationalität (in the second sense, which will be employed from now on). But already the analysis has gone far enough to justify certain conclusions. Legitimacy is for Weber a quality of an order, that is, of a system of norms governing conduct, or at least to which action may (or must) be oriented. This quality is imputed to the order by those acting in relation to it. Doing so involves taking a given type of attitude toward the norms involved which may be characterized as one of disinterested acceptance. To put the matter somewhat differently, for one who holds an order to be legitimate, living up to its rules becomes, to this extent, a matter of moral obligation.

Durkheim

Thus Weber has arrived at the same point Durkheim reached when he interpreted constraint as moral authority. Moreover, Weber has approached the question from the same point of view, that of an individual thought of as acting in relation to a system of rules that constitute conditions of his action. There has emerged from the work of both men the same distinction of attitude elements toward the rules of such an order, the interested and the disinterested. In both cases a legitimate order is contrasted with a situation of the uncontrolled play of interests.' Both have concentrated their special attention on the latter element. Such a parallel is not likely to be purely fortuitous.

But the parallel extends much farther. The question arises whether it is necessary to leave the analysis of the motive cle-ments involved in legitimacy at the pluralism of the three mentioned in Weber's classification or whether it is possible to find in Weber any indication of a more general unifying conception in terms of which all three may be related to each other. Such a unifying principle is undoubtedly present in the concept of charisma.

Weber himself deals with this concept in a number of different contexts' which involve rather sharp differences of emphasis. There is, however, a definite thread of continuity running through them all which consists precisely in the relation of charisma to the concept of legitimacy. Tracing this will involve some interpretation beyond simple exposition, but it is of the sort that is unavoidable in such a situation.

The conception has already been dealt with briefly in connection with Weber's religious typology. There it was noted that Weber takes as his point of departure the contrast with routine (Alltag). Charisma is, then, a quality of things and persons by virtue of which they are specifically set apart from the ordinary, the everyday, the routine. It is interesting to note that Weber on several occasions specifically contrasts charisma with the economic element. It is, as such, "spezifisch-wirtschaftsfremd."

This apartness is what characterizes charismatic things or persons. It is hence not immediately related as such to action— it is a quality of concrete things, persons, acts, etc. But a hint of the relation to action is given in the kind of attitude men take toward charismatic things or persons. Weber applies a number of terms, but two may be singled out. Applied to a person the charismatic quality is exemplary (vorbildlich)—something to be imitated. At the same time recognition of it as an exceptional quality lending prestige and authority is a duty. The charismatic leader never treats those who resist him or ignore him, within the scope of his claims, as anything but delinquent in duty. On the basis of this characterization it seems legitimate to conclude that charisma implies a specific attitude of respect, and that this respect is like that owed to a recognized duty. It is clearly the ritual attitude of Durkheim: charismatic authority is a phase of moral authority.

In other words, charisma is directly linked with legitimacy, is indeed the name in Weber's system for the source of legitimacy in general. The principal difficulty of the concept arises from the fact that he did not, apparently, originally conceive it in these general terms in relation to a scheme of the structure of action. It was, rather, conceived of in terms of a much more specific theory of social change and developed from there. There has already been occasion to develop the theory in terms of its most important empirical example for Weber, the role of the prophet.

The main context is that of a break in a traditional order. Hence two of the most prominent aspects of the concept charisma-its association with ant traditionalism as its revolutionary character and its particularly close association with a specific person, a leader. The prophet is thus the leader who sets himself explicitly and consciously against the traditional order—or aspects of it—and who claims moral authority for his position, whatever the terms in which he expresses it, such as divine will. It is men's duty to listen to him and follow his commands or his example. In this connection it is also important to note thát the prophet is one who feels himself to be reborn. He is qualitatively different from other men in that he is in touch with or the instrument of a source of authority higher than any which is established or any to which obedience can be motivated by calculation of advantage.

If the concept of charisma is oriented to this particular context, then the essential problem is that of the relation of prophetic charisma to the legitimacy of the orders which govern everyday life. In this revolutionary sense, Weber holds, charisma is in the nature of the case a temporary phenomenon. For the message of the prophet to become embodied in a permanent everyday struc-ture, to become institutionalized, it must undergo a fundamental change. In this process the authority that the prophet exercises by virtue of his personal charisma may develop in one of two directions-a traditionalized or a rationalized structure.

The crucial point in the concrete development comes with the question of succession at the passing of the original charismatic leader. It is not necessary to go into the various concrete ways in which the situation may, more or less successfully, be met. Only the two main outcomes will be noted. In the one case the charismatic quality is transferred according to one of a number of possible rules, from one concrete person (or group of persons) to another. The most usual, though by no means the only possible, instance is hereditary charisma (Erbcharisma). Then the element of sacredness, the qualification for certain functions, inheres in the particular concrete person by virtue of his birth, an act within the given sphere becomes legitimate by virtue of the fact that he performs it.

The correlate of this is some definition of the norm embodying the prophet's mission. In this case it takes the form of a traditionalized system of norms (a sacred law) which carry the same quality of sanctity, of charisma, as the person of the ruler. In this way there arise what are for Weber the two main characteristics of traditional authority——a traditional body of norms held sacred and unalterable and, within the margin of freedom left open by these and the possibility of their interpretation, an area of arbitrary personal authority of the ruler, legitimized by his generally charismatic personal quality. By this process, from being the specifically revolutionary force charisma becomes, on the contrary, the specific sanction of immobile traditionalism.

The alternative to this mode of routinization is a line of development which involves thinking of the charismatic quality as objectified and hence capable of divorce from the particular concrete person. It then becomes either (a) transferable or (b) obtainable by a person by his own efforts or, finally, (c) not a quality of a person as such at all but of an office, or of an institutional structure without reference to personal qualities. The first two still tie it to particular persons, even though they are not independent prophets or blood descendants of them. In the third case, however, charisma becomes inherent only in the office or the objective system of rules. It is hardly necessary to note that this is the road which leads to bureaucratic organization and "legality" as the standard of legitimacy. The essential point is that the quest of the source of legality always leads back to a charismatic element, whether by apostolic succession, revealed law (Calvin's Geneva), divine right or a general will.

Thus it is evident that what changes in the shift from revolutionary prophecy to traditional or rational everyday authority is not the quality charisma as such but its concrete modes of embodiment and its relations to other elements of the particular concrete complex. Indeed Weber's fullest treatment of legitimacy? leaves no doubt that there is no legitimate order without a charismatic element. In traditionalism this is always given in the sanctity of tradition.3 This involves more than the mere fact that things simply have been done in a certain way and people consider it "a good thing" to continue in the same way. There is a definite duty to do them in the traditional way. Similarly in a rational bureaucratic structure there must always be a source of the legality of its order which is, in the last analysis, charismatic. Finally, the same is true of preprophetic traditionalism.

Thus defined charisma covers a field considerably broader than what is generally called religion. But it has already been noted that the probable genesis of the conception in Weber's own mind started from the role of the prophet in the more specifically religious sense. What then, is its relation to religion? To answer this question it is necessary to go back to the place of charisma in primitive religion. As was noted in that connection the special apartness of the quality of charisma is correlated with the conception of a world of supernatural entities in the specific sense of the above discussion." Indeed, this sense of the supernatural is nothing but the ideological correlate of the attitude of respect. Corresponding to the dualism of attitude, which has been found running through the thought of both Durkheim and Weber, between that of morally neutral utilitarian use and moral or ritual respect, is one of "worlds" or systems of entities-in this most general sense, one of nature and the supernatural.

Weber has defined religious action as action in relation to supernatural entities thus conceived. Then in the broadest possible sense religious ideas might be defined as any conceptions men have of these supernatural entities and their relations to man and to nature. Then on the symbolic level the question of meaning begins to be involved. Events do not merely "happen" and "happen to" men, but they may be interpreted as having a meaning in the sense of symbolizing or expressing the actions, will or other aspects of supernatural entities.

One further logical link is necessary to complete the chain. The discussion of Durkheim's treatment of religion brought out the central role of the active attitude of men toward the non-empirical aspects of the universe. In terms of Weber's ideas this relation may be analyzed somewhat further. Weber's religious "interests" may be held to be another name for these active attitudes. The religious elements of action are concerned with men's relations to supernatural entities. Religious interests define the directions of these activities, the ends men may hope to accomplish by means of these acts.

On the "primitive" level religious actions remain a more or less unintegrated series of acts in pursuit of particular interests. The world of supernatural entities is not itself integrated into a fully rationalized system. According to the exigencies of life as they arise and to the supernatural facilities provided in the traditional culture, these interests are defined and pursued. Here the question of the influence of religious ideas is a difficult one. It is probably safest to speak of ideas, interests, value attitudes and acts as a single complex in which relations of priority are exceedingly difficult to establish. Weber does not make a very great contribution to this question.

On the prophetic level, however, he has contributed very greatly to clarifying the relationships. He has shown that, once the attempt to rationalize the meaning of the world into a rationally consistent system has been started in a given direction, there is an immanent dialectic of this process of rationalization. It may go at a more or less rapid pace; in one or several respects it may in a given development be carried to more or less radical conclusions or stopped at different points. But the main outline is clear. There is a limited number of mutually exclusive possibilities.

In the discussion of Durkheim religious ideas were treated in the main negatively, as ideas concerned with the nonempirical aspects of the world. Weber's results make it possible to define them more closely. They are ideas concerning not merely how the world works, but why in a teleological sense; they concern the "meaning" of the world. From this point of view religious ideas are inseparably bound up with human interests and vice versa. Weber has shown how the problem of evil, especially suffering, forms a central starting point for the formulation of the question of meaning. Conversely, what human religious interests can be, comes to be defined in terms of the conception of the meaning of the world.

This mutual relation is not altogether a completely relativistic circle. It is possible to say, in general, what kind of meaning and of interest is involved. The meaning is just that involved in the above teleological sense. If a friend is killed in an automobile accident the "how" is usually fairly clear in a scientifically satisfying sense. It is true that our knowledge of the physiology of death is by no means complete—and the friend of the deceased is not likely to be in possession of more than a small fraction of that knowledge. But this is not what is problematical to him. It is rather the "why" in a sense relative to a system of values. The question is, what purpose or value could his death serve? In this sense such an occurrence is apt to be felt as particularly meaningless.

The "meaning" in question, then, is that which is relevant to a teleological value context, not to a scientific explanatory context. The interests are those in the ultimate-value achieve ments with which we identify ourselves. In this connection it must be noted that the religious ideas Weber is primarily concerned with are not as such exclusively value ideas, or ends of action. They are rather rationalized interpretations of the meaning of the world, including a complete metaphysical system. Out of these fundamental metaphysical postulates, then, is to be derived what meaning the world can have for man and, from this, in turn, what his ultimate values can "meaningfully" be.

It is rather that such ideas canalize religious interests—hence define ultimate ends and through them influence action. Their functional role may be thought of as analogous to that of institutions.

They do not themselves constitute ends of action but rather a framework of ideal conditions under which ends may be pursued. What concrete ends will make sense depends on what is the structure of this framework. But for it to exert an influence on action it presupposes certain typical interests of men. The principal one relevant in the present context is the interest in giving their life a meaning. Correlative with this is the fact that all men respect or hold sacred certain things. The variations are not in this basic fact itself but in the concrete content of the sacred.

While the quest for a meaning of the world leads to one of the possible metaphysical positions, this is most emphatically not to be interpreted to mean that either the attitude of respect or the human interests correlative with such a theory are metaphysical entities. They are strictly observable empirical facts. Man is an entity that in relation to his nature and the kind of situation in which he is placed is known to develop metaphysical interpretations of his world. But whether he is this kind of entity or is placed in this kind of situation is not a metaphysical question but a question of fact. The position taken here, derived above all from Durkheim and Weber, is to be criticized and defended on empirical grounds.

It is now possible to make a reinterpretation of charisma. It is the quality which attaches to men and things by virtue of their relations with the "supernatural," that is, with the nonempirical aspects of reality in so far as they lend teleological "meaning" to men's acts and the events of the world. Charisma is not a metaphysical entity but a strictly empirical observable quality of men and things in relation to human acts and attitudes.

Though its scope is broader than the religious in the usual sense there is inherent in the concept a religious reference. That is, men's ultimate-value interests are in the nature of the case inseparably linked to their conceptions of the supernatural, in this specific sense. It is hence through this religious reference that charisma may serve as the source of legitimacy. That is to say, there is an inherent solidarity between the things we respect (whether they be persons, or abstractions) and the moral rules governing intrinsic relations and actions. This solidarity is connected with the common reference of all these things to the supernatural and our conceptions of our own ultimate values and interests that are bound up with these conceptions of the supernatural. The distinction between legitimacy and charisma can be stated, in general terms as follows: Legitimacy is the narrower concept in that it is a quality imputed only to the norms of an order, not to persons, things or "imaginary" entities, and its reference is to the regulation of action, predominantly in its intrinsic aspects. Legitimacy is thus the institutional application or embodiment of charisma.

In concluding this discussion it is interesting to point out explicitly the extraordinarily close correspondence of Durkheim with Weber both in approach to this range of problems and in treatment of them. In spite of their differences—Weber's absorption in the problems of social dynamics and Durkheim's almost complete indifference to them, Weber's concern with action and, Durkheim's with knowledge of reality—in the basic conceptual framework at which they arrive their results are almost identical. The identity applies at least two strategic points-the distinction of the moral and non-moral motives of action in relation to norms, and the distinction between the quality of norms as such (Weber—legitimacy; Durkheim—moral authority) and the broader element of which this is a "manifestation" (Weber— charisma; Durkheim-sacredness). The correspondence is the more striking in that the two started from opposite poles of thought—Weber from historical idealism, Durkheim from highly self-conscious positivism. Moreover, there is no trace whatever of mutual influence. There is not a single reference in the works of either to those of the other. It may be suggested that such an agreement is most readily explained as a matter of correct interpretation of the same class of facts.

Finally the correspondence extends to the sociologistic theorem, not only the theorem itself but the particular mode of its statement. It will be remembered that Durkheim's views on this subject were charged with being "made in Germany."1 It has already been noted how extremely unlikely that is. But in the present context the relevant fact is that Weber was in conscious and explicit revolt against most of the prevailing organicism of German social theory which he largely identified with the intuitionist methodology that he criticized so severely. As against the realism of this trend, he was almost a militant social nominalist. A great deal of the German polemic against him has been based on this fact.

Weber ruthlessly discarded from his work all nonempirical entities. The only Geist with which he will have anything to do is a matter of empirically observable attitudes and ideas which can be directly related to the understandable motivation of action. But in spite of this fact he definitely takes a sociologistic position. For one of his most fundamental results is that of the dominant social role of religious ideas and value attitudes— specific embodiments or values of charisma—which are common to the members of a great social movement or a whole society. Indeed only in so far as the attitudes derived from the doctrines of karma and transmigration are common to all Hindus is caste legitimized, and only in so far as the Protestant ethic was common to large numbers was there adequate motivation to rational ascetic mastery over everyday life. A society can only be subject to a legitimate order, and therefore can be on a nonbiological level something other than a balance of power of interests, only in so far as there are common value attitudes in the society.

This, again, is exactly where Durkheim emerged in his interpretation of the possible meaning of the social reality. It is what is left after Weber's criticism of the historical organicism of German idealistic thought. Weber's individualistic treatment of charisma in connection with the role of the prophet in no way touches this fundamental point. It merely serves to correct the principal defect which has been found in Durkheim's own statement due to his lingering sociologistic positivism. This was the implication that the empirical role of the value element was confined to sanctioning the institutional status quo. Weber, on the contrary, through his theory of prophecy and of the processes of routinization of charisma shows still another side of the picture. His position is not in the least in conflict with Durkheim's, but merely provides a further extension of its application which Durkheim failed to develop. This advance was due, above all, to Weber's comparative perspective and his correlative preoccupation with problems of social change.

Two other points should be mentioned before leaving the concept of charisma. It has already been noted' that Weber did not hold that the fully rationalized systems of ideas with which his comparative analysis of religion were concerned were, in the sharply formulated ideal-typical form in which he presents them, actually present in the minds of the great masses of the people he claims have been influenced by them. These rationalizations constitute polar-type cases—"exaggerations" almost—of the meaningful tendencies implicit in mass attitudes. This circumstance gives a clue to the general direction of interpretation of his views on the role of ideas and value elements. It will be remembered that among the motives of attribution of legitimacy to an order he distinguished affectual and wertrational. The latter may be interpreted as referring to the formulation of the rational-type case. In harmony with the residual character of the category of affect, the affectual motive may be interpreted at least to include value elements in so far as they fall short of complete and consistent rational formulation.

This is particularly indicated by the close relation between the terms in which "effectuality" and charisma are characterized, which makes it legitimate to conclude that Weber's "affect" is, in this respect, the counterpart of Pareto's "sentiment" and the ultimate-value attitude employed in this study. The distinction between this concept and Wertrationalität is the counterpart of that in Pareto between the polar type of "residue," which is a principle clearly formulated and unambiguous, and a "sentiment," or in the terminology used here, an ultimate end and an ultimate-value attitude. The principal importance of this distinction is to note that it means that for Weber also the role of the value elements is not limited to the exceptional case of the clear, logical formulation of metaphysical ideas and ultimate ends. Departures from the rational norms are not to be interpreted ipso facto as evidence of the role of psychological factors. Indeed the concept charisma is so formulated as specifically not to involve this limitation.

Unfortunately, Weber does not give any extended analysis of the relations involved. To a certain extent doubtless ideas must be regarded as manifestations of the same basic elements as are attitudes and acts. But they are not wholly a function of sentiments. The cognitive element is certainly an indispensable independent element, however imperfectly rationalized. It is a function of true, not purely imaginary aspects of reality. But even less so than in the case of scientific ideas is it wholly this. As Weber shows, in the direction of interest and of the ways of putting the problems of the meaning of the world, a subjective element is involved. In working this out a concept of Wertbeziehung would become involved. Indeed this is the starting point for a Wissenssoziologie of metaphysical and religious ideas, as the concept of Wertbeziehung in his scientific methodology was for one of scientific ideas. The most general statement is that non-empirical reality (with particular reference to the teleological problem of meaning), our cognitive conceptions of it, nonrationalized value attitudes and the structure of the situations in which we act and about which we think, are elements in a relation of mutual interdependence upon each other. But this is more a statement of the problem than a solution. Such a solution would be beyond the scope of this study. It is one of the most fundamental fields for future analytical and empirical study. Weber's importance lies in opening it up and formulating the elements of the problem in a way that promises to lead to tangible results. It lay on the frontiers of his thought.