RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY AND ETHICS IN THE WEBERIAN PERSPECTIVE: DOMINATION, THEODICY AND TYPES OF SOCIAL ACTION

Abstract

This article examines religion, theodicy, and spirituality from a Weberian perspective, emphasizing their implications for social action in modern and disenchanted societies. Drawing on Max Weber’s sociology of religion, the analysis considers religion as a form of rationalized social action, articulated through different types of religious domination and shaped by the process of disenchantment, in which rationalization and bureaucracy weaken the institutional centrality of religion. The concept of theodicy is then explored as the set of religious explanations concerning suffering, evil, fortune, and misfortune, highlighting its role in moral and social legitimation. By comparing traditions such as Protestantism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the study examines how distinct religious ethics generate specific modes of rationalization of economic and social life. Finally, the article discusses the emergence of spirituality as a contemporary category—less institutionalized and more subjective—that dialogues with Weber’s central concerns, particularly the search for meaning, the experience of suffering, and the orientation of social action. The study concludes that, even in highly rationalized contexts, religion and spirituality remain decisive dimensions in the construction of meaning and in the legitimation of forms of life.