Introduction

doi:10.1017/9781108591249.001

1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023

James Laidlaw

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James Laidlaw

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James Laidlaw: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

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Summary

This chapter addresses the general character of the ‘ethical turn’ in anthropology and the variety of intellectual styles, reflected in the chapters in this volume, which it has come to include. That variety is such that only two propositions may be said to be generally shared: that the ethical dimension of human social life is non-trivial, and that the understanding of ‘morality’ that is dominant in contemporary Western societies is inadequate for describing and understanding it. In upholding the first of these positions, the anthropology of ethics has departed from those trends in recent anthropology characterized by Sherry Ortner as ‘dark anthropology’. In pursuit of the second, it has attempted to free itself from the imaginative straitjacket of what the philosopher Bernard Williams called the ‘Morality System’, so that it may reckon with the full range of forms of ethical thought, feeling, and practice in the ethnographic record. The chapter also gives a brief overview of the thematic parts of the volume, and the chapters.

Keywords

ethics morality dark anthropology power Morality System

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Ethics , pp. 1 - 32

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108591249.001 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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Book contents

1 - Introduction

Summary

Keywords

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References

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