Ethic of ultimate ends

"Ultimate end" redirects here. For the comic limited series, see Ultimate End.

The ethic of ultimate ends, moral conviction, or conviction is a concept in the moral philosophy of Max Weber, in which individuals act in a faithful, rather than rational, manner.

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—that, is in religious terms, "the Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord"—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."[1]

— From Politics as a Vocation, Max Weber, 1918.[2]

The "ultimate end" is out of the hands of the actor. So long as he/she acts in a moral manner, any bad results, or negative ends, are not the responsibility of the actor and ultimately a result of God's will or other forces.[3]

  1. ^ "Politics as a Vocation" (PDF).
  2. ^ Originally a speech at Munich University, 1918. Published as "Politik als Beruf," (Munich: Duncker & Humblodt, 1919). Later in Max Weber, Gesammelte Politische Schriften (Munich, 1921), 396-450. In English: H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and ed., in Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 77-128.
  3. ^ Swedberg, Richard; Agevall, Ola (2016). The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts (Second ed.). Stanford University Press. pp. 122–123. doi:10.1515/9781503600225. ISBN 978-1-5036-0022-5. OCLC 956984918.