What is the relationship between social science and moral issues from Weber's point of view? Weber believed that you must differentiate between facts and values, science and moral issues, because socials science should be able to tell us what is going on, not what ought to be going on.
Sociology, for Max Weber, is "a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects".
The German philosopher and sociologist Max Weber is one of the founding fathers of sociology. He is regarded as the proponent of anti-positivism thought and argued that society can be understood by studying social actions through interpretive meaning the actors (individual) attach to their own actions.
Max Weber is famous for his thesis that the “Protestant ethic” (the supposedly Protestant values of hard work, thrift, efficiency, and orderliness) contributed to the economic success of Protestant groups in the early stages of European capitalism.
In his essay on “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy Weber states that: “All serious reflection about the ultimate elements of meaningful human conduct is oriented primarily in terms of the categories 'end' and 'means'.
In the 1917 lecture, it was Leo Tolstoy with whom Weber explicitly aligned himself: “Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: 'What shall we do and how shall we live?
Weber argued that owning property, such as factories or equipment, is only part of what determines a person's social class. Social class for Weber included power and prestige, in addition to property or wealth. People who run corporations without owning them still benefit from increased production and greater profits.
In his work Economy and Society (1921), Max Weber mentions four forms of social action:Traditional social action (custom) ... Affective social action. ... Rational social action with values. ... Rational-instrumental social action.