Download Why Anthropology Needs Ethics Chip Colwell

Why Anthropology Needs Ethics
Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh
Curator of Anthropology
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Anthropologists study the social life of others—but anthropology itself is a social enterprise. To
conduct research, anthropologists form relationships with their colleagues and their subjects.
Political agendas shape researchers’ ideas. Legal rights may facilitate or impede research
projects. To travel the world, secure employment, and pay for equipment requires that
anthropology function in an economy of science, and money means power. Anthropology thus
unfolds in a social context: it both influences and is influenced by the world.
The socially embedded nature of anthropology often anchors the discipline’s pursuits.
Anthropologists have significantly contributed to our understanding of such pressing social
needs as better health care in impoverished countries, more effective environmental conservation
programs, and the preservation of global heritage. Anthropologists have helped fight diseases,
expose the impacts of globalization, and advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples.
However, at times, anthropology has been co-opted for uncertain, even dangerous purposes. One
example is the discipline’s long and controversial association with the military and government
spying agencies. As Franz Boas, the “father” of American anthropology, wrote in the wake of
World War I: “A person ... who uses science as a cover for political spying, who demeans
himself to pose before a foreign government as an investigator and asks for assistance in his
alleged researches in order to carry on, under this cloak, his political machinations, prostitutes
science in an unpardonable way and forfeits the right to be classed as a scientist.” The debate
continues today as the US military has sought the assistance of anthropologists in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and elsewhere in its War on Terror.
But where exactly is the line in the sand—the boundary between good and bad research, right
and wrong action? Since anthropology cannot be isolated from, but must be a part of the world,
by what means can anthropologists evaluate how their work affects others?
The work to navigate these questions requires that anthropologists engage with ethics. Here,
ethics is not a simple laundry list of values or a tool to judge others, but the attempt to establish
common virtues, a system of moral principles. Ethics involve the effort to consistently and
correctly answer questions of “ought”—how we ought to live, what course of action we ought to
choose in any given situation.
Ethical commitments can both limit and expand science. They might be limiting when we
recognize that some values outweigh what we may gain from research. Most famously, for
example, we can categorically condemn the kinds of horrific experiments Nazi doctors
conducted during World War II; no research question could possibly justify burning, maiming,
poisoning, freezing, starving, and killing thousands of concentration camp prisoners. In this
sense, ethics are often a “ceiling” for behaviors, restricting scientific practice. But, at the same
time, other discussions of ethics will encourage scientists to more actively consider how their
research will benefit society. For example, many scientists are committed to the principles of
beneficence and justice, which require them not merely to “do no harm” but also to try to do
some good, to consider the interests of science as well as the needs of the individuals and
communities under study.
Over the last century, anthropologists have arrived at some agreed-upon ideals of what it means
to be an ethical scholar. In recent years, different organizations have sought to codify these
norms. The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has its “Code of Ethics,” which
emphasizes the “primary ethical obligation” anthropologists have to the “people, species, and
materials they study and to the people with whom they work.” The Society for American
Archaeology’s “Principles of Archaeological Ethics” emphasize the principle of stewardship but
also accentuates other duties such as avoiding the commercialization of ancient objects and
sharing research results with the public.
Although such codes and principles have sought to give guidelines for behavior, in practice,
these documents rarely provide easy solutions. Abstract ideals of respecting the “well-being of
humans,” as the AAA code mandates, can be difficult to apply in the real world. Who decides
whose well-being? Stewardship sounds great, but what to do when an archaeologist’s beliefs
radically differs from a Native American religious leader about how to take care of an object?
Whose sense of stewardship should prevail?
Despite the difficulties of clarity and consensus on every ethical dilemma, these codes do
provide a language and a structure to consider our professional commitments. Even more, it is
through dialogue and engagement about these responsibilities—as heated as these discussions
may become—we inch closer to a shared understanding of anthropology’s purpose. Ethics in this
way is not a set of easy answers, but a difficult process, a mechanism to think through how
anthropology works in the world. Without ethics, it is all too easy to forget that anthropology
itself is a social beast.