Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action

Published by Fordham University Press 2011

Ordinary Ethics

Anthropology, Language, and Action

Edited by: Michael Lambek

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823292318

Overview
Contents

About this book

What is the place of the ethical in human life? How do we render it visible? How might sustained attention to the ethical transform anthropological theory and enrich our understanding of thought, speech, and social action? This volume offers a significant attempt to address these questions. It is a common experience of most ethnographers that the people we encounter are trying to do what they consider right or good, are being evaluated according to criteria of what is right and good, or are in some debate about what constitutes the human good. Yet anthropological theory has tended to overlook all this in favor of analyses that emphasize structure, power, and interest. Bringing together ethnographic exposition with philosophical concepts and arguments and effectively transcending subdisciplinary boundaries between cultural and linguistic anthropology, the essays collected in this volume explore the ethical entailments of speech and action and demonstrate the centrality of ethical practice, judgment, reasoning, responsibility, cultivation, commitment, and questioning in social life. Rather than focus on codes of conduct or hot-button issues, they make the cumulative argument that ethics is profoundly “ordinary,” pervasive—and possibly even intrinsic to speech and action. In addition to deepening our understanding of ethics, the volume makes an incisive and necessary intervention in anthropological theory, recasting discussion in ways that force us to rethink such concepts as power, agency, and relativism. Individual chapters consider the place of ethics with respect to conversation and interaction; judgment and responsibility; formality, etiquette, performance, ritual, and law; character and empathy; social boundaries and exclusions; socialization and punishment; and commemoration, history, and living together in peace and war. Together they offer a comprehensive portrait of an approach that is now critical for advancing anthropological theory and ethnographic description, as well as fruitful conversation with philosophy.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Contributors Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Michael Lambek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part One. Theoretical Frameworks Michael Lambek, Webb Keane and James D. Faubion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
Part Two. The Ethics of Speaking Alan Rumsey and Jack Sidnell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Part Three. Responsibility and Agency James Laidlaw and Steven C. Caton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Part Four. Punishment and Personal Dignity Charles Stafford, Francesca Merlan and Judith Baker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Part Five. Ethics and Formality Shirley Yeung and Justin B. Richland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Part Six. Ethical Subjects: Character and Practice Carlos David Londono Sulkin, Sophie Day, Paul Antze and Nireka Weeratunge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Part Seven. Ethical Life: Encounters with History, Religion, and the Political Donna Young, Naisargi N. Dave, Veena Das and Heonik Kwon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	415
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	451

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 482

eBook

Published: March 24, 2022
ISBN: 9780823292318