Course Description

In a time when the representation and treatment of groups of people—often those historically marginalized or discriminated against—is front and center in the news and at the heart of new social movements fighting injustice, it has become glaringly clear that definitions of moral or “right” behavior are widely variable. Understanding the ways that people define themselves and others as moral subjects becomes even more vital if we are to live together and converse with each other in a world where contact with difference is a given.

Even though anthropologists have studied moral behavior all along as part of the work of studying how people live together, it is only in the past couple decades that the discipline has begun to think critically about the nature of morality as a cultural phenomenon. This course will introduce students to the theoretical and philosophical background of the relatively new field of inquiry called the anthropology of morality. Focusing on theories of morality and ethnographic case studies from around the world, students will explore the diverse ways that morality is embodied and experienced across fundamental domains of social and cultural life—including family, politics, religion, healthcare, migration, and more—to understand how people shape themselves, in dialog with others, into moral persons.

In particular, we will explore how morality shapes how different cultures address the age-old question: what does it mean to be human? We will look at how national and international law, human rights discourses, national politics, and legacies of colonialism shape approaches to this question. And, in the latter half of the course, we will examine the ethics of deploying technical solutions to human problems such as human reproduction, social interaction, disability, and surveillance, and discuss how tech can both positively address and negatively reinforce the marginalization and dehumanization of particular people.