Exclusion as cultural and moral problem

Abstract

The subject of this text is the attempt to present the problem of exclusion in a broad cultural and moral context. The author connects the problem of exclusion with various forms of discrimination, relating them to the general categories of “foreign” (“alien”) and “other”. Looking at the history of moral theories, she divides the discussed problem into two trends: one is related to the worldview recognizing hierarchy, and thus justifying inequalities and exclusion with “world order”, “nature”, “God's will”, and the other egalitarian-progressive, which treats equality as an important moral postulate. However, philosophers of this trend are tainted with “anthropological blindness”, which consists not so much in consciously excluding others and strangers, but in not noticing their existence.