OBJECTIVITY AND MILITANCY - A DEBATE .1. MORAL MODELS IN ANTHROPOLOGY

This paper examines the current trend in anthropology towards the development of a moral discipline with models of the world that contain explicit moral judgments. The current moral model in anthropology, with its emphasis on oppression, demystification, and denunciation, is outlined. Various attacks on science and objectivity also part of the current moral model, are considered, and a defense of objectivity and science is presented. The problems involved in the use of moral models are then considered, both in general and with respect to the current moral model. An argument is made that any moral authority that anthropologists may hold depends upon an objective understanding of the world and to that end moral and objective models should be kept distinct.