Moral anthropology

This chapter engages in a philosophical and theological critique of thinkers who construe justice and mercy as contradictory norms. It develops a theological account of restorative justice in which mercy is understood as the ‘operative condition’ enabling the pursuit of justice beyond mere retribution. It elaborates this through an account of the moral anthropology inherent in Christian accounts of penance which understand moral agency as a time-bound pursuit of character-formation. Justice is pursued not in meting out a measure of proportionate hard-treatment, but in the merciful gift of the ‘penitential time’ which may enable reform of character and action. It ends with a tentative account of sanctification, desire and desistence and suggests these aspects of theological anthropology might inform a critique of the criminogenic machine of consumerism.

Download Full-text

Moral Anthropology in Contemporary Neokantian Ethics

Freedom and Anthropology in Kant's Moral Philosophy ◽

10.1017/cbo9780511498121.006 ◽

2003 ◽

pp. 68-92

Keyword(s):

Moral Anthropology

Download Full-text

Rising from the ordinary: Virtue, the justice motif and moral change

Anthropological Theory ◽

10.1177/1463499620932058 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 146349962093205

Author(s):

Susanne Brandtstädter

Keyword(s):

Moral Agency ◽

Northern China ◽

The Other ◽

Moral Anthropology ◽

Moral Change ◽

Social Rule ◽

Ordinary Life ◽

Practical Principle ◽

Social Dynamic ◽

Chinese Peasant

Justice understood as a practical principle and virtue has remained an understudied subject in the anthropology of morality. Moral anthropology has explored the moral or ethical as a space of freedom and creativity, whereas justice has often been associated with rule-following or even the law. In contrast, my paper explores justice as a virtue whose social dynamic can initiate moral change in ordinary life. This virtue, as I understand it, comprises not only a disposition to conform to established norms but also a capacity to reformulate these in the pursuit of social justice. My ethnography of Chinese peasant lawyers’ moral agency suggests that their understanding of justice as an essentially social, rule-governed and outcome-oriented virtue can grant new insights into the dynamics of moral innovation that arise in ordinary life. The peasant lawyers of rural northern China pursue moral change through combining moral reasoning about justice with principled action for justice and the provision of benefits for victims of injustice. It is the concern with the consequences of principled action that distinguishes justice as a social virtue from the other virtues, and the justice motif from alternative drivers of social change.

Download Full-text