Moral breakdown and the ethical demand

TLDR

Social scientists, especially anthropologists, increasingly use the concept of morality, often to sidestep the complexities of culture, society, and power. The article seeks to develop a theory and model that enable an explicit anthropology of moralities, moving beyond the current reliance on the social scientist’s moral. It achieves this by drawing on 20th‑century continental philosophies of sociality and ethics to formulate a theory and model. The study reveals that morality is frequently framed by the researcher rather than the subjects, and demonstrates the theory’s utility through two ethnographic examples from distinct societies.

Abstract

Recently social scientists in general and anthropologists in particular have invoked the concept of morality in their studies. The use of this concept is seen by many as a way to bypass the complexities and contradictions of such traditional social scientific concepts as culture, society and power. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly evident that in many of these studies morality is used in a way that may be more reminiscent of the moral understanding of the social scientist than that of their subjects. Therefore, a well-founded anthropology of moralities must break from this assumption and rethink the ways in which the moral can be explicitly studied. By engaging in a dialogue with 20th-century continental philosophies of sociality and ethics, this article articulates a theory and model by which an explicit anthropology of moralities becomes possible. Two ethnographic examples, utilizing very different methodological techniques and focusing on two very different societies, are used to illustrate the strength of this theory as a framework for a proper anthropological study of local moralities.