Weber’s distinction between zweckrational (instrumentally rational social action determined by purpose and expectations about a behaviour taken under a condition of scarcity) and wertrational (value-rational social action determined by belief in the unconditional intrinsic value of some acts of choice) is also fundamental to understand the pluralism on which individual and social social dynamics are grounded (Weber [1921] 1978).
Pareto’s distinction as well as Weber’s different types of rationality are central in order to understand the partiality of neoliberalism’s anthropological interpretation of individual behaviour as well as its sociological explanation of social dynamics. In fact, the logic behind neoliberalism has discarded derivations …show more content…
This shift should embrace at least the possibility to open a discussion on a substantive theory of justice. The increasing inequalities spread all around the world provides an argument even if not everybody agrees with it for going in this direction (Pogge 2008). These inequalities spark disgust: a good beginning, perhaps, for moving in search of a theory of justice. The impossibility to reach a universal consensus about the major tenets of the latter can be taken for granted. Knowing this, it is then fruitful to re-consider the question raised by the republican tradition about the connection between virtue and government. In other words: if there are good reasons for being unsatisfied with both a general theory of justice, which could probably never reach a universal consensus, and the management of social issues like inequality based on the calculus of consent, which underpins the political project of neoliberalism, then the only way out, albeit utopic, seems to refer to the theory of virtue that goes back to the ancients. As Aristotle taught us: “justice is complete virtue; virtue, however, not unqualified but in relation to somebody else. It is complete virtue in the fullest sense, because it is the active exercise of complete virtue; and it is complete because its possessor can exercise it in relation to another person, and not only by himself” (Arst., Eth. Nich. 1129b 30). And: “in every kind of knowledge and skill the end which is aimed at is good (…) In the state, the good aimed at is justice; and that means what is for the benefit of the whole community” (Arst. Pol. 1282b
Pareto’s distinction as well as Weber’s different types of rationality are central in order to understand the partiality of neoliberalism’s anthropological interpretation of individual behaviour as well as its sociological explanation of social dynamics. In fact, the logic behind neoliberalism has discarded derivations …show more content…
This shift should embrace at least the possibility to open a discussion on a substantive theory of justice. The increasing inequalities spread all around the world provides an argument even if not everybody agrees with it for going in this direction (Pogge 2008). These inequalities spark disgust: a good beginning, perhaps, for moving in search of a theory of justice. The impossibility to reach a universal consensus about the major tenets of the latter can be taken for granted. Knowing this, it is then fruitful to re-consider the question raised by the republican tradition about the connection between virtue and government. In other words: if there are good reasons for being unsatisfied with both a general theory of justice, which could probably never reach a universal consensus, and the management of social issues like inequality based on the calculus of consent, which underpins the political project of neoliberalism, then the only way out, albeit utopic, seems to refer to the theory of virtue that goes back to the ancients. As Aristotle taught us: “justice is complete virtue; virtue, however, not unqualified but in relation to somebody else. It is complete virtue in the fullest sense, because it is the active exercise of complete virtue; and it is complete because its possessor can exercise it in relation to another person, and not only by himself” (Arst., Eth. Nich. 1129b 30). And: “in every kind of knowledge and skill the end which is aimed at is good (…) In the state, the good aimed at is justice; and that means what is for the benefit of the whole community” (Arst. Pol. 1282b