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Review Essay: Sociology after Maclntyre
Donald N. Levine
University of Chicago
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Review Essay
as a form of authority: its rationality rests first and foremost on its le-
gitimation through rationally enacted legal norms. True, Weber does write
about the instrumental rationality of bureaucratic organization in large-
scale societies, but he also makes clear that that presents a type of ra-
tionality different from formal rationality, which consists of following the
rules. Failure to grasp this leads MacIntyre to the strange interpretation
that bureaucratic authority is legitimated only through its instrumental
effectiveness, that "bureaucratic authority is nothing other than successful
power" (p. 25).
Armed, then, with this peculiar version of Weber's account, MacIntyre
sets out to represent modern society in terms of a set of ideal types he
calls "characters" those social roles that embody the central moral def-
initions of a culture. Foremost among these is the Manager. The Manager
is Weber's bureaucrat, but one defined (by MacIntyre) as oriented to
nothing but the exercise of manipulative power and guided by the belief
that he possesses a stock of universal, lawlike generalizations that con-
stitute the grounds for his claim to expertise. Although the character thus
portrayed may well catch some important aspects of modern complex
organizations, it has two serious shortcomings. On the one hand, by
ignoring the distinction between instrumental and formal rationality, it
glosses over the tension between the expert professional and the dutiful
bureaucrat, thereby losing sight of what many post-Weberian students of
bureaucracy have considered fundamental and of what, indeed, consti-
tutes a major axis of moral debate among the "managers" of modern
institutions. Moreover, by reducing all managerial work to manipulative
play, the account simply blinds one to the effect of those normative ex-
pectations that, in all modern institutions, countervail against raw ma-
nipulation.
No less misleading than the way MacIntyre caricatures modern society
by portraying his manipulative Manager as its dominant kind of character
is his delineation of two other characters who round out his modern social
landscape, the Rich Aesthete and the Therapist. What all three have in
common is "the obliteration of the distinction between manipulative and
non-manipulative social relations" (p. 29). Without denying the signifi-
cance in modern life of such characters and the amoral orientation they
embody, one might plausibly draw a very different portrait of modern
society by constructing a set of characters whose roles essentially embody
a commitment to moral standards. These could include the Activist and
the Judge, not to mention the types that Weber himself considered es-
sential to the modern social order, the Political Leader and the Scholar.
Although MacIntyre's glosses on modern society do not purport to
represent a serious engagement with sociological literature on the prob-
lem, he does profess such an engagement when mounting his critique of
701
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American Journal of Sociology
702
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Review Essay
From this part of his analysis, MacIntyre concludes that the social
sciences need to "start out afresh" and find their philosophical ancestry,
not in the likes of Comte and Mill, but in Machiavelli, with his respect
for Fortuna, bitch-goddess of unpredictability. On this point, however, I
would find his position better represented by advocating a renewed af-
filiation with Max Weber who, after all, issued a forthright call for a
probabilistic social science. MacIntyre cannot express such advocacy be-
cause he finds the contemporary vision of the world predominantly We-
berian and sees this vision as one that "depends for its power on its success
at disguise and concealment" (p. 103). Which brings us to the heart of
his argument, one that in spite of the flaws outlined above, sociologists
would do well to consider closely.
703
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American Journal of Sociology
II
704
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Review Essay
705
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American Journal of Sociology
III
706
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Review Essay
707
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