Anthropologies of Social Life and the Critique of Relations of Inferiority

Abstract

In this paper I will argue that Niko Kolodny, in The Pecking Order: Social Hierarchy as a Philosophical Problem, provides necessary but not sufficient theoretical tools to distinguish between legitimate and objectionable relationships of hierarchy, due to the tacit individualistic anthropological assumptions underlying his approach. I will therefore highlight the unilaterality of an individualistic anthropological paradigm and emphasize the need for a relational account of human subjectivity in order to further problematize the nature and the persistence of oppressive relationships of social hierarchy.