Culture and Morality Revisited

In a review essay on morality and culture, Mary Douglas pointed out that there exists little communication between anthropologists writing on morals and the (Western) moral philosophers. According to Douglas, the greatest responsibility for this division arises from the unwillingness of the moral philosophers to take anthropological data seriously. How this should be done remains unsolved but I do not think it to be surprising. As things stand now, it is impossible that it could ever happen and Douglas herself hints at this possibility. I would like to defend the claim that moral philosophy, at least for now, should not try to incorporate the findings of the anthropologists because there is not much to learn from them. This might appear provocative because it seemingly carries the suggestion that anthropologists should accommodate themselves to moral philosophy. This is not entirely true. My second claim is that cultural anthropologists, for the moment, should not try to incorporate the findings of moral philosophy either because they too have nothing to learn from latter