Value-rational action

Part of a series on
Sociology
Key themes
  • Society
  • Globalization
  • Human behavior
  • Human environmental impact
  • Identity
  • Industrial revolutions 3 / 4 / 5
  • Popularity
  • Social complexity
  • Social environment
  • Social equality
  • Social equity
  • Social power
  • Social stratification
  • Social structure
  • Social cycle theory

1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias

1900s: Fromm · Adorno · Gehlen · Aron · Merton · Nisbet · Mills · Bell · Schoeck · Goffman · Bauman · Foucault · Luhmann · Habermas · Baudrillard · Bourdieu · Giddens
  • icon Society portal
  • v
  • t
  • e

Value-rational action (or Wertrational) is a social action which is taken because of the intrinsic value of the action itself, regardless of its consequences. It is one of Max Weber's four action types.[1]

  1. ^ Parsons, T. (1947) 'Introduction' to M. Weber (auth.), A. H. Henderson & T. Parsons (trans.), T. Parsons (ed.) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Collier Macmillan, London.

See also