ABSTRACT
All codes or statements of professional responsibility are products of the times in which they were written, reflecting the peculiar contexts, concerns, and circumstances informing and in some respects constraining their creation. The intent of the current principles was therefore different from the outset, and was designed to provide easily recalled principles that could inform and guide a range of decisions and choices in the daily lives of practicing anthropologists. But the changes were not merely didactic, as some elements of past codes were not specifically included in the new principles. The most important and most controversial element that was not carried forward from past statements is the assertion that the primary obligation of anthropologists is to the people they study. "Do no harm" is not intended as a naive exhortation to purity and universal beneficence, but as an expectation that anthropologists will deliberately weigh the consequences of their actions and the harms that might result from them.
