This book presents the results of an experiment in
interdisciplinary collaboration to clarify theories of morality and
anthropology and philosophy, showing how each may be enriched by
borrowing from the other. Pooling the resources and methods of
their respective fields-anthropology and philosophy-May and Abraham
Edel examine the wide range of moral differences in the world "to
establish 'coordinates' for the more systematic mapping of
particular moralities, to explore more explicitly the relations of
morality to cultural patterns and social processes, and to see how
philosophic issues of ethical theory become refined and
reformulated when their cultural content is made manifest."
The book contains an implicit suggestion that the
anthropologist should focus on morality as an independent area of
study and that the philosopher should stop treating morality in
isolation. Anthropology tends to include morality as an incidental
part of other inquiries. Philosophy, on the other hand, tends to
cut morality off from the framework of psychological and cultural
processes; the result is a kind of deadlock in ethical theory. The
Edels observe that to develop a working concept of morality at
least as well developed as that furnished for religion,
anthropology can benefit from philosophic methods of analyzing
concepts and from philosophical ways of conceptualizing problems of
ethical theory. On the other hand, philosophy can use the methods
of anthropology, to approach morality in more meaningful terms.
This study is not addressed only to professionals; its aim, rather,
is to "provide an orientation to morality itself in a world in
which human problems are becoming extremely complex and have to be
confronted directly as moral."
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