人們在各種節日交換禮物，但是卻鮮少有人在收送禮物時思考禮物的本質。禮物的收送是自然產生的人際互動模式嗎？或者在送往迎來的過程中，禮物的收送自有一套運作的道德法則？究竟有沒有一套理論可以解釋禮物的收送？有沒有辦法充分從禮物的收送當中釐出一套人際互動的規範與道德標準？ 本文將由大海嘯之後世界各國慷慨救助的行為來重新思考法國人類學家牟斯（Marcel Mauss）的禮物理論，討論牟斯所說的送禮、收禮、回禮的義務，並嘗試分析牟斯與後續學者所開啟的禮物研究，為何會形成一種「牟斯式禮物經濟」（Maussian model of gift economy）。本文並將簡述各家學者對於「牟斯式禮物經濟」三種主要的批評，亦即，簡化禮物的收受為一種同質性的社會行為，批判牟斯所謂的回禮義務並顛覆牟斯的禮物理論，以及對於禮物與商品二元對立的閱讀，並嘗試從這三個角度探索牟斯的禮物理論。本文也將點出牟斯理論在適用上的侷限，並由德希達（Jacques Derrida）與布爾迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的理論提出禮物對話性游移的本質，嘗試思考禮物理論的可能。

People give and receive gifts in their daily lives, on Christmas, on birthdays, on anniversaries. But, few people think about why people give and take gifts. Do we just take this practice for granted? Or, do we give and take gifts following a moral standard? Is there a theory of gift giving? Is there any principle that guides this pattern of human interaction that could lead to the construction of ethics and moral standards in our society? Marcel Mauss poses his theory of the gift and the relationships maintained in ancient North American Indian and Polynesian tribes by gift giving, receiving and reciprocating. This paper explains why Mauss and critics after him propose an entity of a Maussian model of gift economy. This paper indicates that there are mainly three approaches of critiques on Mauss: the simplified reading that takes the gift and social relationship as homogeneity; the ontological critique on the obligation to reciprocate and a subversion of the essence of Mauss’s gift; and the dichotomy of the gift and the commodity. Moreover, this paper offers a critique of Mauss for the inapplicability of his theory of the gift. Consequently, with reflection on the essence of Jacques Derrida and Pierre Bourdieu, this paper attempts to depart from Mauss and his theory of the gift and tries to depict a possibility of a dialectical theory of the gift.