Abstract

This article explores Max Weber's reasons for claiming that morally exemplary ideas with some regularity produce the unwanted result of highly dubious ethical consequences. The diagnosis of such "normative paradoxes" is Weber's attempt to refute the optimistic philosophies of history with their own tools. If the philosophy of the Enlightenment assumed that bold, progressive ideas could steer the world toward improvement, Weber sought to demonstrate that the opposite was true: once such ideas became historically effective, there was a certain inevitability with which they produced evil and social harm. It will be shown that Weber thought he could justify this thesis by demonstrating that it is ultimately the givens of human nature that stand in the way of any linear and faithful realization of morally well-intentioned ideas, and even cause them to be transformed into their opposites.