Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories

Description

The human propensity to take an ethical stance toward oneself and others is found in every known society, yet we also know that values taken for granted in one society can contradict those in another. Does ethical life arise from human nature itself? Is it a universal human trait? Or is it a product of one's cultural and historical context? Webb Ke

Webb Keane is the George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter and Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society.

"A book that masterfully interweaves insights from philosophy and the natural and social sciences."--Max Hayward, Times Literary Supplement "This far-reaching discussion of ethical life and moral systems by anthropologist Keane aspires to combine the traditions of what he calls 'natural history' with those of 'social history'... This rich and original study will certainly fascinate anyone with an intellectual interest in morality and ethics."--Choice "Ethical Life is an extraordinary book. It is broad in its scope, careful and reflective in its elaboration of a theoretical vocabulary, it deals with basic issues for the humanities and the social sciences and manages to produce genuine and thought-provoking new insights."--Ethical Theory and Moral Practice "An extraordinary achievement that deserves a wide readership way beyond anthropology. In short, Keane has given social scientists a theoretically informed way in which to approach ethics as an empirical phenomenon and he has provided scholars usually working within moral philosophy new challenges with his invitation to think of ethics as socially engrained--all the way down."--Klaus Hoeyer, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice