WESTERMARCK, MORAL BEHAVIOUR AND ETHICAL RELATIVITY

Abstract

Edward Westermarck is known but scantily in the modern anthropological consciousness. His name appears, if it does at all, usually in a passing comment or perhaps a footnote, often rather disparagingly. This, I would argue is quite wrong, all the more so as he fits in precisely with the topic of our conference. He is, I would say, an unheralded bridge between the Scottish Enlightenment and modern anthropology, a person whose work far from being played out, deserves to be at the absolute centre of our understanding of the development of our discipline. Who then, was this Westermarck?