“Tradition” is a vital concept for anthropology, framing cultural and ethical life in the present as a field of inherited possibilities. The work of Alasdair MacIntyre yields useful means for understanding the concept, but certain of his postulates concerning the necessary coherence of moral traditions may be queried and loosened. I explicate this argument with evidence drawn from a fragmentary...

This qualitative research study was undertaken, in part, in an effort to develop an understanding of decisions experienced as moral conflicts by women who have experienced abuse by an intimate partner. Eighteen rural women who had been or were currently in an abusive relationship with a male partner participated in the study. An adaptation of the Real-Life Moral Conflict and Choice Interview (L...

"safety first" as an underlying family motive, rather than the more complex versions sometimes nuanced. Perhaps the most difficult part of asylum or institutional history is style in writing. Should one be safe and routine, avoiding flights of convoluted prose? Should words like "routinization" be included? MacKenzie's rhythm is staid and generally clear and coherent, but trying to balance out ...

It is sometimes said that certain hard moral choices constitute tragic moral dilemmas in which no available course of action is justifiable, and so the agent is blameworthy whatever she chooses. This paper criticizes a certain approach to the debate about moral dilemmas and considers the metaethical implications of the criticisms. The approach in question has been taken by many advocates as wel...

Morality—judging others’ behavior to be right or wrong, as well as behaving in a right or wrong manner towards others—is an essential component of social life. Morality depends critically on our ability to attribute minds to entities that engage in moral actions (towards ourselves and others) and the entities that experience these actions (our own actions and others’). The cognitive capacities ...

Alice is a moral responsibility abolitionist. She firmly believes that no one (including herselO is ever morally responsible, that rewards and punishments can never be justified on the basis of just deserts, and that blaming people for vicious character traits and vile acts is never morally justified. One day, Barbara, Alice's dearest friend, confides to Alice a special secret: a secret Barbara...