ANT215H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Moral Agency, Harry Frankfurt
Morality and the Concept of the Person
• What makes one person more valuable than another?
is it Race, age, ability
?
• It shouldn’t matter that is more valuable
• None of these things makes anyone more valuable than anyone else. Reject such
criteria like rage, sexuality, gender, etc.
• Gahuku-Gama no contact with Western (outside) world before 1930
• Eastern highland (rolling hills, mountains and forest) in Papua New Guinea
• People practiced horticulture, still had permanent settlements. Villages ranged
from 70-700 people
• Lives were organized and governed exclusively through kinship (marriage and
descendants); no overarching government
• Aggressive tone to life, rewards go to excessively strong individuals and
dominance
• Goroka Show: a competitive feasting and show off costumes, dance and sing to
mark membership in each group (outside appearance is important)
• Morality: (judgements of what is good/bad or right/wrong)
• They don’t have rules that would be applied for all situations and all people;
”
the individual is not bound to all his fellows in like degree
”
• i.e. if the person is not a member of your tribe, then the rules do not apply
• outside the tribe, anything goes. There is no morality that applies outside
your tribe, but as a moral agent the responsibility of morality is
distributive morality
• depends on (who the person is) the position they occupy within a system of
inter-personal and intergroup relationships
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Document Summary
It shouldn"t matter that is more valuable: none of these things makes anyone more valuable than anyone else. Reject such criteria like rage, sexuality, gender, etc: gahuku-gama no contact with western (outside) world before 1930. Eastern highland (rolling hills, mountains and forest) in papua new guinea. Lives were organized and governed exclusively through kinship (marriage and descendants); no overarching government. Aggressive tone to life, rewards go to excessively strong individuals and dominance. Goroka show: a competitive feasting and show off costumes, dance and sing to mark membership in each group (outside appearance is important: morality: (judgements of what is good/bad or right/wrong) They don"t have rules that would be applied for all situations and all people; The individual is not bound to all his fellows in like degree i. e. if the person is not a member of your tribe, then the rules do not apply outside the tribe, anything goes.
