Moral Philosophy
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Description
Moral philosophy and anthropology are each wide-ranging and diverse; and there are surely many ways in which each can illuminate the other’s concerns. In the last half-century or so, in particular, there have been many philosophical discussions in which evidence and arguments from anthropology have played a significant role. An essay that aims, from a philosophical perspective, to engage with anthropological thinking, cannot adequately address all of these discussions, or even all the most important ones. Nevertheless, I shall try, at the start, to sketch the main ways philosophers writing in English over the last half-century or so have engaged with anthropology. That way you will see the broad background against which the issues I focus on are arrayed. I shall then take up in more detail just one area—the discussion of moral relativism. In part, as you will imagine, this is because it is the discussion that I find most interesting . It is also, I think, the most obvious point of disciplinary intersection, one that arises again and again (as we shall see) in many of the other debates. And it is, finally, an especially important issue because it is one where these two fields can usefully enrich public reflection. In debates about foreign policy—in discussions, say, of the issue of what role a concern for human rights should play in framing relations between nations—assumptions about moral universality and relativity are sometimes in the foreground and almost always in the background. There are similar ways in which questions of relativism arise in debates about multiculturalism (Taylor 1994). If there is to be progress in discussion of these questions, I think lessons from both fields will be helpful.
Source Publication
A Companion to Moral Anthropology
Source Editors/Authors
Didier Fassin
Publication Date
2012
Recommended Citation
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, "Moral Philosophy" (2012). Faculty Chapters. 120.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/120
