ABSTRACT
In both philosophy and sociology there are a variety of theories to, respectively, justify and explain moral data. For Durkheim, morality consisted of rules of conduct perceived as both obligatory and desirable. The process of evaluation involves both cognition and cathexis in the sense that if an object is valued it has at least to be perceived and desired. Within social anthropology the usual form taken by the intuitionists’ argument is that although the scientific and ethical opinions of non-literate cultures may differ radically from our own, we can none the less expect them to be about the same problems and therefore to have the same subject matter. Many philosophers and anthropologists have agreed with Durkheim that one distinctive characteristic of moral rules (prescriptions) as opposed to mores and customs in general is that they constrain; that is, they frequently conflict with the desires and wishes of the person concerned.
