Two virtue ethics and the anthropology of morality

Abstract

There has been a recent call for an anthropology of morality and a challenge to anthropologists that they have been insufficiently attentive to moral aspects of social life. The new anthropology of morality involves an attempt to modify the legacy associated with Durkheim and the idea of the moral as confined to unreflective norm following. Out of this has emerged a new interest in virtue ethics. In this paper, I examine points of convergence and crucial differences between a ‘first-person’ or ‘humanist’ virtue ethics and a postructural one inspired largely by Foucault. Despite their many convergences, poststructural and first-person versions of virtue ethics make not only distinct but in some cases irreconcilable claims. Instead of rushing to merge these positions, I would urge that we pause to look at how they differ and see why this debate might matter to our own ethnographic enterprises.

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