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The Gift as Sufficient Source of Normativity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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Daniele Hervieu-Léger and Marcel Gauchet explain that today the hold that the religious dimension has always exerted over human societies is, of very recent date but definitely, slackening; that it is becoming ‘hollow’ and ceases to inspire collective action, leaving henceforth wide open the question of knowing in which name we should attempt to take our destiny in our hands and base the norms of collective being. This question at once summons up another, implicitly contained in the latter: is every ethical norm (or moral norm, for we are not making a distinction between the two concepts here) ultimately religious in origin, as is most often supposed, or can one in fact conceive of sketching the outlines of a moral code that is immanent within the social relationship, a moral code that is sufficiently coherent and self-consistent to do without, at least in theory, a religious-type transcendence? Here, I should like to make a case for the second response by emphasizing that religion - whatever meaning one bestows on this notion, still undefined today - does not constitute the primary, irreducible social and historical fact that is most often supposed, but that it should itself be interpreted as the formulation of a more original and more universal formulation: the threefold obligation of giving, receiving, and repaying distinguished by Marcel Mauss in his famous Essay on the Gift. Of course, I shall not claim here to do more than sketch a few possible lines of argument. But even before formulating them, I must call to mind two prejudicial objections that my argument has encountered.
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Footnotes
*
M. Mauss (1990) The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. W. D. Halls (London and New York, Routledge), p. 96.
References
Notes
1. See especially our recent exchange in (2000) La Revue du MAUSS semestrielle, 15 (Éthique et économie: l'impossible (re)mariage?), semester 1 (Paris, La Découverte): C. Arnsperger, Mauss et l'éthique du don: pour un altruisme méthodologique, pp. 99-119; A. Caillé, Don et altruisme: réponse à Ch. Arnsperger, pp. 120-126; C. Arnsperger, Réponse à A. Caillé, pp. 127-132.
2. Michel Callon and Bruno Latour (1997) ‘Tu ne calculeras pas' ou comment symétriser le don et le capital, La Revue du MAUSS semestrielle, 9 (Comment peut-on être anticapitaliste?), semester 1 (Paris, La Découverte), pp. 45-70; A. Caillé, Brève réplique à M. Callon et B. Latour, ibid., pp. 71-76.
3. This putting of oppositions into generalized perspective, standard in M. Mauss or Karl Polanyi, between interest and disinterestedness, or between monetary and non-monetary, is very widely used today. It lies at the heart of the works of Maurice Bloch, Jonathan Parry, or Viviana Zeliser.
4. See e.g. B. Latour (1999) Politiques de la nature: pour faire entrer les sciences en démocratie (Paris, La Découverte).
5. For further details, see A. Caillé (2000) Anthropologie du don: le tiers paradigme (Paris, Desclée de Brouwer).
6. I owe this analysis to Camille Tarot (1993) Repères pour une brève histoire de la naissance de la grâce, La Revue du MAUSS semestrielle, 1 (Ce que donner veut dire: don et interêt) (Paris, La Découverte), semester 1.
7. As is demonstrated in the book by Jacques T. Godbout (with A. Caillé) (1992) L'esprit du don (Paris, La Découverte) [The World of the Gift (Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press), 1998, paperback edition 2000].