[ETHICAL PRINCIPALS AND A POSTERIORI JUSTIFICATIONS]

It is difficult to conceive that the human being, while being the same everywhere, could be cared for in such different ways in other societies. Anthropologists acknowledge that the diversity of cultures implies a diversity of moral values, thus that in a multicultural society the individual could draw upon different moral frames to justify the peculiarities of her/his demand of care. But how could we determine what is the moral frame that catalyzes behaviour while all we can record are a posteriori justifications of actions? In most multicultural societies where several moralframes coexist, there is an implicit hierarchy between ethical systems derived from a hierarchy of power which falsifies these a posteriori justifications. Moreover anthropologists often fail to acknowledge that individual behaviour does not always reflect individual values, but is more often the result of negotiations between the moralframes available in society and her/his own desires and personal experience. This is certainly due to the difficulty to account for a dynamic and complex interplay of moral values that cannot be analysed as a system. The impact of individual experience on the way individuals give or receive care could also be only weakly linked to a moral system even when this reference comes up explicitly in the a posteriori justifications.