ABSTRACT
Law and anthropology have shown a natural affinity for one another, sharing a largely beneficial history of using the methods and viewpoints of one to inform and advance the other. Bronislaw Malinowski does not deny the existence of other motives, but argues only that in the calculations of social debt and rewards they find the essential distinguishing element of law as ordinarily experienced. It creates the "definite binding obligation" that is expected of any normative system called "law," and which serves to distinguish it from mere custom; and, because it is a transactional calculus of costs and benefits, it is elastic and adjustable in a way that religious norms are not. Malinowski's choice of law as the conduit for his broader themes was not inevitable, but neither was it unmotivated. Malinowski extrapolates the need to achieve personal goals through cooperative endeavor to account for the psychological motivation to adhere to all cooperative norms, including law.
