The ethical turn in anthropology Promises and uncertainties

Do human beings act morally because they obey socially defined rules and norms as the result of a routine of inculcated behaviors, or an embodied fear of sanction, or perhaps both? Conversely, do they act morally because they decide to do so as a consequence of a rational evaluation, or transformative endeavor, or inseparably both? In other words, do they follow a Kantian ethics of duty or an Aristotelian ethics of virtue? This quandary has recently shifted from the philosophical debate to the anthropological realm. The publication of James Laidlaw's article " For an anthropology of ethics and freedom " (2002) has been a landmark in that regard. The argument went as follows. With few exceptions, such as Malinowski's Crime and custom, ethics has been largely ignored by anthropologists. A major cause was the influence of Durkheim's deterministic vision of the moral fact. An alternative proposition can be formulated on the basis of the writings of Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Bernard Williams. According to this new paradigm, human beings are free ethical subjects even when they appear to follow a moral code imposed by their group or religion. A telling illustration concerns Jain ascetic practices among renouncers as well as lay people, who willingly exercise demanding practices of confession and penance that they have been taught to respect. The subject of virtue (Laidlaw 2014) is a systematic endeavor to extend this pioneering work by developing its theoretical side via a scrupulous philosophical discussion rather than exploring more in depth the empirical material briefly sketched in the initial article.