Abstract

The authors seek to remedy a double defect: the neglect by philosophers of relevant anthropological material for ethical reasoning, and the neglect by anthropologists of the ethical dimensions of culture. Aware of man's frequent tendency to moralize rather than to be moral, the authors are cautious about endorsing either cultural relativism or the view that varying moral codes each express in local concepts the same underlying morality. This is a tentative study, raising problems and specifying inquiries rather than offering conclusions. Includes an extensive bibliography of the current literature.--L. S. F.