Ethics in "Politics as a Vocation"

One point that I found very interesting in Weber's work was the distinction he makes between ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility. He mentions that an ethics of conviction is where you never compromise your principles and leave the outcome of your decision to God (or fate or some other higher power). An ethics of responsibility on the other hand is where you think about the wordly consequences of your actions before making a decision and you are not so quick to dismiss something because it violates your principles. It seems pretty clear that Weber does not much care for an ethics of conviction stating that it stems from the erroneous belief that only good can come from good and only evil from evil. In fact Weber states that often times evil comes from good and good from evil. It seems to me that Weber is saying that the ends justify the means. Up to a point I would say that I agree with Weber. I think it is irresponsible as a politician to flat out refuse to compromise your principles and the consequence's be damned. I think that a politician must always look at the consequences of any action that they take, and thus they may have to compromise their principles sometimes. Yet I will balk at saying that the ends always justify the means as I do not want to make such a broad generalization. I think such things are best determined on a case by case basis. Yet I also want to say that in some ways I respect people who simply refuse to compromise their principles no matter what the consequences. In many instances that takes a lot of courage. However, I do not think this is a luxury that can be afforded to politicians.

This issue of ethics of conviction versus ethics of responsibility is also brought up in Dune in one of the exercerpts from Princess Irulan's novels (page 401 in my copy). In it she says that there comes a point in every orthodox religion where the leaders must decide to stick with their principles or abandon them so that they can take power. This is ethics of conviction versus ethics of responsibility in a nutshell. I believe her implication is that most religions (including Paul's on Arrakis) opt for sacrificing some of their principles to take power. I also believe that this is what Weber would recommend.