ABSTRACT
People draw varying boundaries for their moral communities, which define the limits of who counts morally. They also define in differing ways the community of those who participate, those on whom the moral obligations are binding, or for whom the moral ideals are relevant. Moral principles are based on the practices of one's own ancestors, the dictates of one's own culture heroes, the tabus of one's own religion—not of other peoples'. Criticism or condemnation of others on moral grounds is clearly irrelevant. The line of those toward whom one has moral obligations and moral concern—those who count—is also drawn rather sharply by many people, around the boundaries of the self-contained community: the village or the kin-group or the tribe. There is what stands out as the qualitative aspect, that each man is regarded as a person, an individual possessing dignity or worthy of respect, and in principle capable of participation in the moral community.
