Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Sexual ethics wikipedia , lookup
Aristotelian ethics wikipedia , lookup
Cosmopolitanism wikipedia , lookup
Morality and religion wikipedia , lookup
Compliance and ethics program wikipedia , lookup
Thomas Hill Green wikipedia , lookup
Clare Palmer wikipedia , lookup
Medical ethics wikipedia , lookup
Arthur Schafer wikipedia , lookup
Declaration of Helsinki wikipedia , lookup
Jewish ethics wikipedia , lookup
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.