Preserving Culture? On the Moral Foundations of a Contested Political Aim

Abstract

Culture and its preservation frequently motivate political action, yet whether this attribution of normative value is actually justified is highly contested. We outline three positions in this debate with regard to the concept of culture at play as well to as the dimension of normative value that is assigned to its preservation: monolithic preservationism, Heraclitean preservationism, and Heraclitean instrumental preservationism. Proceeding from his ‘Heraclitean’ concept of culture, Joseph Carens claims to argue for normative legitimacy of cultural preservation. However, the normative basis for his claim remains unstated: does he attribute intrinsic or instrumental value to cultural preservation? To justify certain policies that protect particular cultural institutions his arguments draw on the values of individual wellbeing and economic egalitarianism. We want to argue that the application of Carens’s view on further constellations requires him to clarify which kind of value cultural preservation is based upon.