Anthropological practitioners, teachers and researchers are members of various communities with their varying morals and codes of ethics. Anthropologists bear moral obligations as members of diverse groups like families, communities, religions as well as professions. They also have the duties to the society and culture, the human species, and their environment (Frink 24). Furthermore, they can develop some close relationships with people and animals that may require them to generate additional levels of ethical considerations. In these fields of complex involvements and obligations, it becomes inevitable that conflicts and misunderstandings can arise (Kersel, Morag & Janet 180). The anthropologists, therefore, are responsible for handling such difficulties and try to resolve them with the use of the ethical codes.
The ethical codes provide the American Anthropological Association (AAA) members with guidelines for making ethical choices in making various decisions in their fields. In the Witness to Murder case, a lady called Mary Thompson had been in South Asia for her fieldwork. Her house was situated at the edge of the plaza where she could observe anything happening around that building. Near her place of residence was a business area where a gathering of men and women at night. One night when Thompson was busy doing some statistical work, she heard some noises, and she went out to investigate what was going on. She saw some men in a group of five arguing and one of them in anger raised his machete and stabbed the other one named Tom to dead. The rest of the three men watched the injured man bleed to dead and the fled off. The people came to the spot in response the groaning man and carried them to his home as they mourned.
The family and the villagers organized the funeral and during the burial, the man who killed Tom attended the send-away. A few days later, the police officers came to the village to investigate what killed Tom. They sought to arrest any person whom they suspected to have involved in his death. Thompson has put down every detail about the incident on her notebook. The police came asking every villager in an attempt to get the evidence (Kersel, Morag & Janet 181). Thompson decided to hide the diary that the description of the killings was recorded under the bed. When the police officers came to question her, she denied having knowledge of that evening’s incidence. The officers accepted her statements and did not bother to search for her field notebook.
According to the code of epilogue, human actions pose choices for the anthropologists to collectively bear ethical responsibility. It holds that since the anthropologists are members of various groups with diverse moral codes, their choices must be presented in ethical codes that incur other statuses (Frink 25). If this is followed, the collective actions can provide the general guidelines for the ethically responsible decisions. Therefore, it would have been morally sound for Thomson to reveal her recordings to the investigators. The lady did not make her ethical obligation according to AAA code of ethics (Kersel, Morag & Janet 182). She should have reported what she recoded to the police so that justice could be done for the deceased and his family. Thompson feared getting arrested, but her action is immoral according to the ethical codes. She would have volunteered to assist the police officers so that the murderer is brought to face the law for his criminal act.
Works Cited
Kersel, Morag M., and Janet E. Levy. "American Anthropological Association (AAA) and Ethics." Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (2014): 180-182. Print.
Frink, Lisa. "Perspectives on the AAA Code of Ethics." Anthropology News 50.4 (2009): 24-25. Print.
