Radical Values

Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

Radical ValuesThe Interests of People and Their Social-Political Implementation\nAuthor(s): Max Haller\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Germany\nImprint: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden\nISBN-13: 9783658475499, 978-3658475499\nSynopsis\nA famous and frequently quoted sentence by Max Weber states: Interests, not ideas, directly govern the actions of people. However, the worldviews created by ideas have often determined the paths in which the dynamics of interests propelled action. Recent sociology, however, has not done justice to this principle. Values and their effects are either assumed to be given (as in the case of Talcott Parsons) or considered entirely irrelevant (as in Rational Choice and System Theory). Extensive empirical research on values has yielded many results but has largely lacked a theoretical foundation, making its findings often contestable. Weber himself provided only unsatisfactory answers regarding the relevance of values: The decision.