## 1. What is Cultural Heritage?



Cultural heritage is a broad and nebulous concept, and discussions
often assume an understanding meant to capture its heterogeneity. For
instance, a representative definition reads as follows:



> 
> 
> Heritage encompasses a broad and overarching term: "it" is
> something that someone or a collective considers to be worthy of being
> valued, preserved, catalogued, exhibited, restored, admired. (Kersel
> & Luke 2015: 71)
> 
> 
> 



However, although a commonplace understanding of cultural heritage is
assumed in many discussions, attention to these conceptual assumptions
can also yield criticisms with moral and political implications. The
following subsections cover some of the conceptual questions that are
raised about what precisely cultural heritage is.


### 1.1 What is Culture?



Discussions in the literature generally assume a broad understanding
of culture that is often not explicitly defined (e.g., Thompson 2003;
Young 2007), but those definitions that do appear typically take the
form of open-ended lists: culture is the product of human activity,
particularly those things that are socially transmitted, including
beliefs, practices, objects, etc. (Appiah 1994: 111-112;
Scheffler 2007: 107). Culture is thus generally taken to be a
descriptive term that does not carry with it the evaluative and often
elitist connotations of culture as implying a certain kind of
"civilization" (Appiah 1994: 111-114). This
"anthropological" definition of culture is sometimes
criticized as overly broad, failing to discriminate between those
practices (e.g.) that are worthwhile and those that are not (Logan
2007: 37), but it remains the general touchstone in the literature.
Indeed, culture is often treated as a "good" thing in the
context of the cultural heritage literature, despite the fact that
some cultural practices are subject to serious moral objections (Okin
1997; Brown 2005: 50-51). In any event, though this anodyne
definition of culture in general may be readily accepted, defining any
particular culture tends to be difficult and contentious (Scheffler
2007; Appiah 2006; Narayan 1998). Proponents of cultural preservation
or integrity are often accused of making misguided assumptions about
cultures as static, bounded wholes that are empirically and
normatively flawed (e.g., Benhabib 2002; Mezey 2007). Indeed, these
criticisms surface in many arguments concerning heritage ethics, as
will be discussed in subsequent sections (see in particular
 4.2.3).


### 1.2 What is Heritage?



At its core, the concept of 'heritage' is typically taken
to mean the inheritance of something from the past (in the case of
cultural heritage, culture; Harrison 2009: 9; Prott &
O'Keefe 1992: 311). Increasing attention to the range of ways
that heritage is employed and interpreted in contemporary contexts has
led to an emphasis on the use of the past for present purposes as an
integral aspect of the definition of heritage itself (Harrison 2013:
14; Smith 2006: 44; Ashworth, Graham, & Tunbridge 2007: 3).
Recognition of this facet of heritage has opened up avenues for
critique and reinterpretation of the concept of heritage (Lowenthal
1998). By making manifest how heritage is used for present purposes,
we can identify tacit evaluative assumptions that may have gone
unremarked upon in the past. In particular, scholars have come to
distinguish between "official" and
"unofficial" heritage (Harrison 2013: 14-15).



The idea of "official heritage" has been shaped in
particular by Laurajane Smith's analysis of what she calls the
Authorized Heritage Discourse (Smith 2006). This is the presentation
of heritage familiar to us from museums, national monuments, and other
institutionally endorsed understandings of heritage, such as the
UNESCO World Heritage List. "Official heritage" is thus
often used by governments and cultural institutions to cultivate a
sense of national or cosmopolitan identity around some aspect of the
past. As Smith summarizes:



> 
> 
> This dominant Western discourse stresses materiality, monumentality,
> grandiosity, time depth, aesthetics and all that is 'good'
> in history and culture. (Smith 2010: 63)
> 
> 
> 



Official heritage on the global scale of UNESCO is typically presented
as having a universal value that transcends local attachments (Cleere
1996; Omland 2006; Matthes 2015). According to Smith's critique,
the material focus of official heritage impedes recognition of the
fact that heritage is best understood as a process of interpretation
that is ongoing, in contrast with the pre-digested lists and museum
displays presented by the official line.



> 
> 
> Heritage... is a cultural process that engages with acts of
> remembering that work to create ways to understand and engage with the
> present, and the sites themselves are cultural tools that can
> facilitate, but are not necessarily vital for, this process. (Smith
> 2006: 44)
> 
> 
> 



Thus, in contrast with the "top-down" nature of
"official heritage", "unofficial heritage" is
characterized by the "bottom-up" ways in which individuals
sort out their relationship to, and uses of, the past, which may be in
tension with, or at least unrecognized by, official characterizations
of heritage (Harrison 2009: 8).



> 
> 
> Examples include local festivals that are not recognised as of
> interest to the state, or the heritage of migrant groups or the
> working class. (Harrison 2013: 16)
> 
> 
> 



This critique also draws our attention to "intangible"
forms of heritage, in contrast with the material focus of the
traditional line, discussed further in
 section 2.5.



Though the distinction between official and unofficial heritage is
useful both for drawing attention to how heritage is subject to
constant reinterpretation and for challenging dominant historical
narratives, some might be hesitant about the extent to which certain
understandings of heritage that emphasize process do so at the expense
of the traditional material concerns of official heritage. For
instance, one might think there is something significant
(aesthetically, ethically, etc.) about the kinds of old material
values that official heritage tends to endorse (e.g., Korsmeyer 2016;
James 2013; Saito 2007), even if these values should also be
challenged and supplemented from other cultural perspectives.



As noted above, heritage (and official heritage in particular) tends
to be associated with positive evaluations of the past (Harrison 2013;
Weiss 2007), though not universally so (Smith 2017). Indeed,
"the word for 'heritage' in many language has an
overwhelmingly positive public connotation" (Macdonald 2009: 9).
This makes the identification of sites of injustice and atrocity as
heritage a particularly fraught affair (often referred to as negative,
difficult, or dissonant heritage) raising questions about how to
reconcile the positive associations of the heritage concept with sites
that people experience as traumatic (Meskell 2002; Macdonald 2009,
2016; Tunbridge & Ashworth 1996; Sandis 2014a). These tensions can
bring to the fore competing conceptions of national identity or
historical narrative, especially in the context of regime change or
civil war.


### 1.3 Cultural Heritage vs. National Heritage



It is important to note a distinction between cultural heritage and
national heritage. As the discussions of official heritage and
difficult heritage reveal, heritage can play an influential role in
cultivating a sense of national identity around a national culture
(Ireland & Schofield 2015: 2; Weiss 2007). However, it is
important not to conflate the idea of a national culture with the
empirically false claim that nations are culturally homogeneous:
indeed, the intranational diversity of cultures is the fact from which
the political problem of multiculturalism arises (see entry on
 multiculturalism).
 There is of course significant cultural diversity in cultural
groupings of many kinds, nationalistic or not. This topic is discussed
further in
 section 2.2.


### 1.4 Heritage vs. History



Consonant with the idea that heritage is inherently concerned with the
use of the past for present purposes, some commentators are at pains
to point out the difference between a more political understanding of
heritage in contrast with a more scholarly understanding of history
(e.g., Lowenthal 1985). They emphasize in particular heritage's
lax relationship with the truth:



> 
> 
> History seeks to convince by truth and succumbs to falsehood. Heritage
> exaggerates and omits, candidly inverts and frankly forgets, and
> thrives on ignorance and terror. (Lowenthal 1998: 121)
> 
> 
> 



However, one might worry that this statement contrasts an ideal of
historical scholarship with a caricature of heritage at its worst.
Historians, too, are subject to concerns about how their narratives
portray and map onto the record of past events (Trouillot 1995; entry
on
 philosophy of history).
 We might think that heritage, too, should be constrained by the
truth, even when it operates in the service of nationalism (Abizadeh
2004).


### 1.5 Cultural Heritage vs. Natural Heritage



Culture has historically been distinguished from nature, but that
dichotomy has come under attack in many disciplines: the study of
heritage is no exception (Harrison 2015). A sharp distinction between
the two seems particularly ill-placed in cultural contexts where
nature figures prominently, as is the case in many indigenous and
aboriginal cultural contexts. For instance, if relationships with the
land (Figueroa & Waitt 2010) or particular plant and animal
species (Whyte 2017) are of particular cultural significance, then a
dichotomy between natural and cultural heritage can fail to accurately
represent the beliefs and practices of these cultures. Moreover, some
endeavor to illuminate theoretical approaches to the value of cultural
heritage via conceptual tools from work on the value of nature,
arguing that we should treat heritage conservation like nature
conservation, importing common thinking about the intrinsic value of
nature into our thinking about cultural heritage (Harding 1999).
However, dissolution of the contrast between natural and cultural
heritage is also subject to objections. For instance, discourse
surrounding nature can bring with it methods and understandings that
reintroduce problems into discussion of cultural heritage, such as the
elevation of cultural heritage to a "universal" value
(discussed further in
 section 2.2)
 that can disenfranchise or displace local cultural communities
(O'Neill 2002), or as a non-renewable resource on par with
common thinking about the value of nature, leading to state
intervention (Meskell 2011). As a consequence of the collapse between
these two domains, some argue



> 
> 
> that the legacies of enclosure, eviction and salvage that developed
> around sites of natural value have indelibly informed our
> understanding and management of cultural places. (Meskell 2011:
> 23)
> 
> 
> 


## 2. Cultural Property


### 2.1 What is Cultural Property?



At a basic level, the concept of "cultural property"
captures the idea that something (an artifact, artwork, style, place,
etc.) can be the property of a cultural group (Appiah 2006: 118;
Thompson 2003: 252), and thus entail some set of collective rights
concerning ownership, access, and use, even if title to the property
is held by a particular individual. The concept thus raises a number
of difficult philosophical questions concerning cultural groups, the
nature of property, and the relation between them.


### 2.2 The Scope of Cultural Property Value



One fundamental question about cultural property concerns who has a
reasonable interest in it. Only members of a particular culture?
Members of a nation that many cultural members call home? All of
humanity? Insofar as legal institutions of property are meant to
protect our moral property interests, an answer to this question has
the potential to in turn shape legal norms governing cultural property
(see entry on
 property and ownership).
 An influential approach in the cultural property literature is to
distinguish between cultural nationalist and cultural internationalist
positions concerning how broadly a reasonable interest in cultural
property should be construed (Merryman 1986).



According to cultural internationalists, each particular culture
contributes to an overarching human culture, and thus everyone has an
interest in cultural property (Merryman 1986; this view is often
labeled "cosmopolitan" as well (Appiah 2006)). Proponents
of cultural internationalism typically uses claims about the universal
value of cultural heritage to argue against nationalist restrictions
on its export and sale, as well as against many repatriation claims
(discussed further in
 section 3;
 Merryman 1986, 1994; Appiah 2006). This position finds support in
various aspects of international law and policy, including the Hague
Convention of 1954 (Merryman 1986) and the criterion of
"outstanding universal value" in the 1972 UNESCO World
Heritage Convention (Cleere 1996; Omland 2006). These claims about the
universal evaluative scope of cultural property are often predicated
on a metaphysical claim about the constitutive relationship between
particular cultures and Human Culture: that it is precisely because
each culture is a component of Human Culture that each individual
culture therefore has a universal value in which everyone has a
reasonable interest. However, even independently of the strength of
this claim, one might think that individual cultures can secure a
universal value in other ways. For instance, according to one line of
argument, there are a diversity of grounds for valuing a particular
culture (such as ancestry, citizenship, geography, study, etc.) such
that most everyone could have a reasonable interest in a particular
culture (Matthes 2015).



According to the cultural nationalist position, on the other hand,
nations have a "special interest" in their cultural
property that "implies the attribution of national character to
objects" (Merryman 1986: 832). This position also has support in
international law and policy, in particular, the 1970 UNESCO
Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit
Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
(Merryman 1986). Proponents of cultural nationalism typically use
claims about the special national character of cultural heritage to
argue in favor of nationalist retention policies that restrict or
limit the export or sale of cultural heritage (discussed further in
 section 3.1.1;
 Moustakas 1989). It is worth noting that the dichotomy between
cultural nationalists and internationalists faces a significant
limitation in that it does not leave an obvious place for the claims
of intra-national cultural groups such as Native American tribes
(Watkins 2005). Although cultural nationalism might in principle
account for the claims of sovereign indigenous nations, it has in
practice focused on the interests of independent nation-states.
Moreover, although indigenous cultural property claims have received
increasing attention in both policy and scholarship (discussed further
in sections
 2.3
 and
 3),
 appeals to nationalist and internationalist claims remain common in
practice, and indeed, the interests and claims of intra-national
groups can be in tension with the nationalist identity-building that
nation-states often promote through cultural heritage (Watkins
2005).



One way to read the dispute between cultural nationalists and
internationalists is as a dispute over which kind of value-claim
should be prioritized: a proponent of each position could recognize
the value claims made by both camps, but think that their own should
trump the other (Thompson 2003: 258). Alternatively, one might think
that claims about universal human value call into question the
applicability of some of the traditional bundle of property rights.
For instance, one might argue that the universal value of cultural
heritage entails that it should not be excludable in the manner that
property typically is (Thompson 2004: 545-546). Or, in a similar
vein, one might argue that we should prioritize the preservation of
such objects to the exclusion of any claims to holding them as
property (Warren 1989: 22). This is a move toward a
"stewardship" as opposed to "ownership" model
for thinking about cultural property, which is subject to its own set
of objections, and will be discussed below in
 section 2.4.


### 2.3 The Problem of Cultural Continuity



If cultural property belongs to a cultural group, then this seems to
require some grasp on who constitute the members of the group (Young
2007: 112). However, defining cultural group membership is a
notoriously difficult task (Killmister 2011). For one, it confronts
problems concerning cultural essentialism (discussed in
 section 4.2.3
 below). But moreover (and relatedly), it presents questions
concerning cultural continuity over time (Appiah 2006: 119). On what
basis, for instance, can the contemporary nation of Egypt claim the
art and cultural artifacts of ancient Egypt as their cultural
property, given the profound cultural differences between contemporary
and ancient Egyptians? The same question can be raised for many of the
cultural property claims made by contemporary nations. However,
although there may not be strict cultural identity (in the sense of
sameness) between cultural groups over time, due in part to the
dynamic nature of culture, one might question why this kind of strict
identity should be thought so important. For instance, we might
instead appeal to cultural lineages, analogous to the links of
psychological connectedness that some think can secure a relevant
understanding of personal identity over time (Parfit 1984; entry on
 personal identity).
 For instance, an overlapping chain of practices, traditions, norms,
and beliefs could be used to justify the claim that a culture at
*t1* is "the same culture" as the culture at
*t0*, even if it has undergone significant changes. Indeed, one
might think that a degree of change is in fact essential for the
preservation of cultural identity over time (Coleman 2006: 167).
Granted, this may lead to a plurality of cultural descendants that
would make cultural property claims difficult to adjudicate in
practice, but it is worth noting that the assumption in favor of a
strong understanding of cultural identity over time as a necessary
condition for cultural property remains largely undefended in the
literature.



That being said, there are additional moral objections to nations in
particular making cultural property claims. Nations need not be
culturally homogeneous, and thus nationalist cultural property claims
might objectionably run roughshod over strong intra-national cultural
property claims, for instance, those made by colonized indigenous
cultural groups (Thompson 2003: 252; Watkins 2005). From the opposite
direction, one might worry about how nationalist cultural property
claims would restrict the exchange of cultural property around the
world, an objectionable consequence if one embraces the influential
idea (mentioned in
 2.2
 above) that cultural property has value for all of humanity (Merryman
1986, 1994).



Moreover, there is a worry that the competing natures of
"culture" and "property" generate a
paradoxical relationship when they are combined in the purported
concept of cultural property.



> 
> 
> Property is fixed, possessed, controlled by its owner, and alienable.
> Culture is none of these things. Thus cultural property claims tend to
> fix culture, which if anything is unfixed, dynamic, and unstable.
> (Mezey 2007: 2005)
> 
> 
> 



So, not only does the dynamic nature of culture raise metaphysical and
epistemological questions about the grounds for cultural property
claims, it is moreover inherently at odds with the bonds and
boundaries with which the concept of property attempts to saddle it.
Thus, cultural property tends to offer a version of fixed cultures
attached to bounded groups that is more amenable to the concept of
property, but consequently offers a distorted and "anemic"
picture of culture (Mezey 2007: 2005-6).



One way to resolve the paradox is to challenge the interpretations of
the core concepts that appear to set them at odds. For instance, one
might argue that the paradox is generated by reading property in a
strict "ownership" sense that prioritizes rights of
excludability (the right to prevent others from use and access) and
alienability (the right to transfer property); see entry on
 property and ownership).
 In contrast, an analysis of property in terms of
"stewardship", which recognizes a broader range of rights
and responsibilities for non-title holders, may relax the perceived
emphasis on property as fixed and bounded, allowing for an
understanding of property that could plausibly avoid the same tensions
with the dynamic nature of culture (Carpenter, Katyal, & Riley
2009: 1022).


### 2.4 Stewardship



As introduced in the previous two sections, one might think that the
concept of cultural property places an emphasis on ownership where
what is really required is stewardship. For instance, one might think
that "cultural property does not really belong to
anyone...that all of us have a duty towards cultural property
because of its relative scarcity and profound significance"
(Harding 1997: 760). This kind of view might be shared by those who
aim to prioritize the preservation of cultural property (Warren 1989;
Merryman 1994) or those who think we have special duties to cultural
heritage grounded either in the virtues (James 2013) or an
inter-generational social contract (Thompson 2000a; though stewardship
should not necessarily be equated with preservation (Harding 1997:
771)).



While the concept of stewardship might solve certain problems
concerning cultural property by uniting contestants over ownership
around a common aim, it is also liable to inherit transposed versions
of some of the same problems. For instance, advocates of stewardship
must contend with what and whose values will guide stewardship
efforts. What exactly should be stewarded, why, and for the sake of
whom? If, for instance, scientific or world heritage values take the
lead, stewardship models can invite the same kinds of objections as
universalist notions of cultural property that leave inadequate room
for the purportedly special relationship between particular cultural
groups and objects, or crowd out alternative value systems or sources
of knowledge (Wylie 2005). These concerns can perhaps be avoided
through a non-monolithic understanding of stewardship that
acknowledges rights and duties for multiple parties with respect to
single objects (Carpenter, Katyal, & Riley 2009), but they remain
concerns that advocates of stewardship models will need to address if
stewardship is to serve as a viable substitute for an ownership model
of cultural property.


### 2.5 Intangible Cultural Property



While the cultural property discourse began with a focus on material
heritage (buildings, artifacts, etc.), it has expanded, particularly
in response to increasing recognition of diverse indigenous cultures,
to include discussion of stories, songs, styles, motifs, practices,
and traditional knowledge (Carpenter, Katyal, & Riley 2009: 1097).
These additional elements, typically referred to as "intangible
heritage", present a further set of puzzles and questions for
the concept of cultural property (Brown 2005).



Centrally, while we have a straightforward grasp on what it means to
own an artwork or artifact, the idea of owning a story or style can
seem relatively obscure, at least in a broadly Western context. Just
as intellectual property law has developed to better account for
ownership of intangibles, the introduction of intangible heritage into
discussion of cultural property has seemed to require appeal to the
category of intellectual property to account for the ownership of
cultural heritage that takes the form of such entities as songs or
styles (Nicholas & Bannister 2004; entry on
 intellectual property).
 However, the application of an intellectual property framework to
intangible cultural property has also generated objections. First, one
might object that the intellectual property framework functions to
commodify intangible cultural heritage, which can have a
"tendency to freeze social life in time", and thus offer
an artificial and inappropriate approach to traditions and practices
that are constantly changing (Brown 2005: 45). Second, general
objections to the suitability of legal property protections for
cultural heritage, whether tangible or intangible (discussed in
 2.3),
 will carry over to the use of an intellectual property framework for
dealing with intangible heritage, either based on the idea that
"culture" and "property" are inherently in
tension with one another (Mezey 2007), or because the category of
property (focused primarily on rights) is inadequate to capturing the
breadth of cultural heritage and our duties with respect to it (Prott
& O'Keefe 1992). Third, the pull towards thinking of
cultural heritage as universally valuable (discussed in
 2.2)
 is arguably stronger in the case of intangible heritage than in the
case of material heritage. For example, if knowledge aspires to be
free to all, then is it acceptable to restrict its flow, even for the
sake of guarding against the exploitation of vulnerable indigenous
communities (Brown 2005)? As discussed in
 section 2.3,
 one might again counter that indigenous claims are more often for
participation than outright control or rights of excludability, and
thus such tensions are resolved if one adopts an alternative model of
property that does not rely on possession of all the rights that
comprise the "bundle" of classic property rights
(Carpenter, Katyal, & Riley 2009: 1111-1112). Indeed, many
objections to the use of intangible heritage move beyond the discourse
of cultural property altogether, as discussed in
 section 4
 on cultural appropriation.



A further puzzle is that it can be less clear what counts as a
particular group's intangible cultural property than it is in
the case of material heritage. For instance, when a museum displays
the cultural artifacts of a particular group, the cultural origins of
the artifacts are often not controversial (though they of course can
be): rather, controversy might surround ownership of the artifact
predicated on a clear understanding of the culture of origin. In
contrast, it can be relatively harder to trace the lineages of
practices and stories, and superficial similarities in cultural
traditions may lead to claims of intangible cultural property that are
more difficult to justify (Brown 2005: 51).


## 3. Repatriation



Repatriation concerns the return of material heritage or human remains
from museums, universities, or other institutions to their culture,
nation, or owner of origin. If an object was clearly stolen or
otherwise unjustly acquired from an identifiable group, then
repatriation can seem uncontroversial (at least from a moral
perspective) on the basis of standard norms of reparative justice, as
would apply to any other stolen item. However, claims for repatriation
can become controversial in cases where 1) the justice of acquisition
is unclear, 2) the source cultural group is unclear or not clearly
contiguous with a contemporary group, or 3) the value of institutional
retention of disputed objects is thought to outweigh competing claims,
especially if these are weakened by the aforementioned concerns.
Arguments that aim to overcome these potential objections are
generally couched in terms of either cultural property (3.1) or
reparations for historical injustices
 (3.2).


### 3.1 Arguments Based on Cultural Property



The general tenor of this approach is to claim that certain objects
qualify as cultural property, and then to argue based on a particular
feature of cultural property that the relevant object should be
returned to a designated group. Given the basic notion that cultural
property is just the property of a cultural group (Thompson 2003: 252;
Appiah 2006: 118), the concept is not necessarily incompatible with
the alienation of particular items under appropriately authorized
conditions of sale or transfer. However, one might appeal to cultural
property as the basis for a repatriation claim if one thinks that the
very concept of cultural property in fact precludes such transfers
 (3.1.1),
 or, rather, if the conditions under which such a transfer occurred
are unclear
 (3.1.2).
 For further discussion of the concept of cultural property, see
 section 2.


#### 3.1.1 Collective identity and the inalienability of cultural property



According to some understandings of cultural property, the tight link
between cultural property and cultural identity renders such property
inalienable. Closer to the idea of what is sometimes called
"cultural patrimony" such property might be described as
"not something owned by a people, but something *of*
them, a part of their defining collective identity" (Cuno 2001:
85). This is one of the categories of objects, for instance, subject
to the U.S. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of
1990, a federal law meant to facilitate the return of Native American
remains and artifacts from federally funded institutions to Native
tribes (Coleman 2010; Lackey 2006; Trope & Echo-Hawk 1992; Harjo
1996). If cultural property is inalienable, then holdings in cultural
property by those outside the cultural group are *ipso facto*
illegitimate.



The idea of inalienable property is familiar from the individual
context, and the link between external objects and identity often
arises in discussion of moral limits on the market distribution of
things such as body parts or surrogacy (Harding 1997: 749; Satz 2010;
Anderson 1995; Sandel 2012). Indeed, the distinction between alienable
and inalienable property is recognized in many languages and does not
divide across "Western" and "non-Western"
cultures (Coleman 2010: 83). The claim of inalienable cultural
property simply extends this concept from individuals to groups
(Harding 1997: 751).



As a basis for repatriation, however, the concept of inalienable
cultural property faces a series of objections. For one, we lack
objective standards for assessing claims that a particular item is
fundamental to group identity (Harding 1997: 751). Second, the
relationship between an object and group identity need not obviously
require possession of the object (Harding 1997: 751; Coleman 2010:
89). Third, we might worry about claims concerning the necessity of
possessing objects for group identity if a group has been separated
from the object for a long time, which is especially common in
repatriation cases (Harding 1997: 752). Such circumstances seem to
present us with a dilemma: either the cultural group has persisted
without the object, in which case the claim for the necessity of its
return is undermined; or the object is essential to group identity, in
which case the claim to be the same cultural group in its absence is
weakened (cf. Waldron 1992). Finally, the idea that cultural identity
might truly be linked with an object inalienably and in perpetuity can
suggest a troublingly static notion of cultural group identity,
especially if such relationships are codified into law (Harding 1997:
752; Coleman 2010).


#### 3.1.2 The inheritance of cultural property



One might claim that a cultural group can inherit cultural property,
and thus use this to ground claims for repatriation, even where the
justice of acquisition is uncertain: by being denied ownership of the
objects, the group is being denied their rightful inheritance. The
success of this approach will depend in part on whether the
inheritance of property is morally justifiable in the first place. The
right to inheritance seems incompatible with a number of theories of
domestic justice (e.g., consequentialism, egalitarianism, desert
theory (Thompson 2002: 109)), though is perhaps more easily
justifiable if one thinks that principles of distributive justice do
not apply internationally: this appears to remove distributive justice
based rationales for denying the right to inheritance that might apply
in the domestic context (Butt 2009: 141-145). Given that many
repatriation claims are often international, this leaves more room for
the applicability of inheritance-based repatriation claims than might
be thought to apply in domestic cases.



However, one might insist that a necessary condition for inheritance
is the existence of testamentary wishes concerning that inheritance,
based on the presupposition "that respect for testamentary
wishes lies at the core of the concept of inheritance (Young 2007:
115). Because it is rarely the case that demonstrable testamentary
wishes regarding cultural property can be identified, one might think
that inheritance is therefore unlikely to provide a basis for cultural
property claims (Young 2007: 113-15; 2006: 18-20).
However, an alternative approach starts by noting that it is generally
assumed that children and spouses should inherit holdings even in the
absence of testamentary wishes (Thompson 2002: 125; Butt 2009: 165).
Thus, one might think that a parallel assumption should be made in the
case of cultural property, especially if the alternative is the
continued possession of the property by a community that unjustly
acquired it from one's own (Butt 2009: 166). In cases where an
object is not already regarded as cultural property, inheritance might
therefore also explain how the property of an individual can become
the property of the state (Butt 2009: 166), or perhaps of a non-state
cultural group.



Moreover, it is worth noting that the assumption that inheritance must
be based on testamentary wishes is in tension with the point (noted in
 section 1.2)
 that inheritance is commonly taken to be the core notion of the
concept of cultural heritage (for further discussion, see Shelby 2007:
172-176). Thus, skepticism about the possibility of inheritance
would seem to undermine the very possibility of cultural heritage, a
conclusion that might seem absurd. Of course, one might counter that
cultural heritage relies on a different notion of inheritance than the
jurisprudential understanding of inheritance most appropriate to
cultural property. However, as with the discussion of the
"paradox of cultural property" above
 (2.3),
 this claim appears to rest on assuming a particularly strong
understanding of ownership that the concept of cultural property may
not require (Carpenter, Katyal, & Riley 2009).


#### 3.1.3 Cultural property and cultural significance



According to some commentators, the significance of an object for a
cultural group is a necessary condition for it to qualify as cultural
property: an insignificant object would not qualify merely because it
was produced by a group member (Thompson 2003: 253). Moreover, though,
the value of an object for a particular culture might be thought to
constitute the strongest basis for a moral cultural property claim.
For instance, according to the "cultural significance
principle" a cultural group's claim on an object
"will be proportional to the value the property has for members
of the culture" (Young 2007: 122) and mitigated by other
competing considerations, including the range of other values
possessed by such objects (including economic, scholarly, etc.; Young
2013). However, the fact that the ownership of cultural property is
often disputed by multiple cultural groups, seems to present this
approach with a serious practical hurdle: insofar as these disputes
tend to arise precisely when objects are highly valued by multiple
cultural groups, the cultural significance principle will have limited
value in resolving these competing claims (Thompson 2013: 89).
Moreover, it may not be sufficiently sensitive to the legitimacy of
other kinds of moral and legal property claims. If the cultural
significance principle is indeed treated as the strongest basis for a
cultural property claim, this suggests that a cultural group simply
valuing an object highly could override the legal claims of legitimate
acquisitions and holdings (Thompson 2013: 89). Granted, the cultural
significance principle is intended as just one principle that must
also be weighed against "the rights of purchasers, finders and
makers" (Young 2007: 122), and it is acknowledged this will
often be a difficult task. But independently of this difficulty, the
principle might facilitate claims by cultural groups that acquired an
object unjustly and/or are themselves culturally distant from its
original maker and cultural context, provided that they value it
highly enough (Thompson 2013: 89). It is in this way friendly to
arguments about how historical injustices can be superseded based on
the role and value that unjustly acquired objects can come to have in
the lives of their current owners (Waldron 1992; entry on
 intergenerational justice).
 Whether or not such outcomes are objectionable will no doubt depend
on further consideration, but might at least be criticized for
upholding the status quo of unjust colonial acquisitions.


### 3.2 Arguments Based on Reparations



Instead of resting claims for repatriation on appeals to cultural
property, one might instead argue that repatriation is required as a
component of reparations for historical injustices: in particular, for
the unjust acquisition of cultural property, and for the unjust
campaigns of colonial occupation and genocide in which such
acquisitions were embedded. Because many repatriation claims concern
objects that changed hands during previous generations, reparations
for unjust acquisition or the unjust treatment of the former owners
can seem to provide a suitable framework for justifying repatriation.
Moreover, because humans remains are typically not considered subject
to private ownership (Bjornberg 2014: 464), reparations might be
thought to offer a more fitting framework for repatriation cases
concerning remains than a cultural property framework. Interestingly,
however, many of the objections that can be raised against the
cultural property approach apply to the reparations approach as well.
This section will focus only on reparative issues that are especially
pertinent to repatriation (for further discussion of reparations, see
entries on
 reconciliation,
 intergenerational justice, and
 black reparations).
 For a general argumentative framework for repatriation as reparations
to be successful, it needs to demonstrate that some entity has an
obligation to correct an historical injustice, that reparations are an
appropriate form of correction, and that repatriation is an
appropriate means of reparations (Bjornberg 2014: 463).


#### 3.2.1 Unjust acquisition



It appears that the first step in a reparative argument will be to
establish that an object was unjustly acquired. Failure to do so would
seem to undermine the reparative basis for a repatriation claim of
such an object: if an object was not unjustly acquired, then a
repatriation claim based on the reparation of an historical injustice
does not appear to apply (Bjornberg 2014: 464). This might be
thought of as an additional burden faced in reparation-based
repatriation cases in particular: more general arguments for
reparation often involve compensation as opposed to restitution (Perez
2011; though notably not in the case of land claims (Simmons 1995)),
since what is being compensated for is typically pain, suffering, and
loss of economic opportunity. However, one might alternatively think
that repatriation could be justified as part of a reparative
obligation to a cultural group even if there is no justifiable claim
to ownership of a particular object, but simply as a form of
compensation for historical injustices against the group in general,
especially given the inextricable relationship between these broader
injustice and the more specific case of cultural property acquisition
(Harding 1997: 739; Ypi 2013: 187; Thompson 2013: 90-91; Ypi
2017; Matthes 2017: 946-950). If this is correct, then the
reparative approach has an important advantage over appeals to
cultural property: it can avoid the problem of establishing unjust
acquisition of a particular object.


#### 3.2.2 "Legitimate descendants" and cultural continuity



A successful case for repatriation as reparations requires a
justifiable account of to whom an object should be returned. In the
context of reparations, this requires identifying the
"legitimate descendants" of the original victims of the
past injustice of wrongful acquisition (Bjornberg 2014: 465;
drawing on Boxill 2003). Although repatriation cases sometimes involve
individuals or families (as in cases concerning the return of items
seized by the Nazis), most repatriation claims addressed in the
literature concern wrongs against, and return to, nations or cultural
groups. Identifying the legitimate descendants of the original victims
might depend on tracing a causal chain of harms from the original
victims (Boxill's "harm argument") or based on the
inheritance of compensation that was owed but never made
(Boxill's "inheritance argument"). One route to
employing the inheritance argument in this context is to appeal to
bonds of common culture in order to identify the relevant inheritors
(Bjornberg 2014: 466). However, this approach raises the same
cultural group problems of cultural continuity
 (2.3)
 and cultural essentialism
 (4.2.3)
 that confront other topics in heritage ethics. Using the harm
argument, on the other hand, or an alternative application of the
inheritance argument, would require appeal to some variety of
continuity, but this would not necessarily be equivalent to cultural
continuity (Matthes 2017: 937). For instance, one might be able to
trace a chain of harms between an original victim group and a later
group, even if the later group has undergone radical cultural
changes.


#### 3.2.3 Value for humanity



Even if the rightful recipients in repatriation claims can be
established, a further objection to reparation-based repatriation may
still be pressed. This is the objection that repatriation is not
justified all things considered because countervailing considerations
(Young 2007: 122), particularly concerning the value of retaining
objects in public and/or academic settings, outweigh the reasons in
favor of it (Thompson 2004). This kind of objection often appeals to
the purportedly universal value of cultural heritage discussed in
 section 2.2.
 In the case of artifacts, this may be construed as an aesthetic,
cultural, or historical value that renders such objects inherently
public (Lindsay 2012). Assuming, for instance, that encyclopedic
museums have an important value, some worry that repatriation would
lead to the gutting of these collections, though whether or not such a
worry is justified, particularly on the basis of slippery slope
arguments, remains questionable (Joyce 2003). In the case of human
remains, this universal value claim often takes the form of scientific
value, as in the much-discussed dispute over the "The Ancient
One" (or "Kennewick Man"; Thompson 2013: 95;
Whittaker 1997; Brown 2003; TallBear 2013). Disputes over human
remains, particularly of indigenous peoples, are thus often framed in
terms of a conflict between religion and science, where it is often
thought that the former should give way to the latter (Thompson 2013:
95-6). However, an alternative framing of the dispute notes that
burials possess a wide range of legal protections, and so Native
American repatriation claims are not based so much on religious
grounds as on pursuit of equality of treatment (Harding 1997: 765).
One might also argue that precisely because many museums are committed
to serving as trustees of universally valuable collections for all
humankind, they should be more concerned with achieving a just
distribution of such cultural resources, in contrast with the
retentionist position that they often take such commitments to support
(Thompson 2004: 558-559; Matthes 2017).


## 4. Cultural Appropriation


### 4.1 What is Cultural Appropriation?



Cultural appropriation is generally understood as the taking or use of
the cultural products of "cultural insiders" by
"cultural outsiders" (Young 2005: 136). Cultural products
can range widely, including stories, styles, motifs, artifacts,
artworks, traditional knowledge, as well as representations of the
members of a particular culture (Young 2008: 4; 2005: 136; Scafidi
2005). Questions about cultural appropriation thus often arise in a
broad array of artistic contexts (in particular, but not limited to,
music and fashion) as well as other non-artistic contexts, such as
costumes, hairstyles, cuisine, and traditional knowledge (Young &
Brunk 2012).



The concept of cultural appropriation can be used in either a
descriptive or normative sense, and so it is important to be attentive
to how it is being employed in a particular context. By comparison,
consider how "exploitation" can have a descriptive or
normative sense (Valdman 2009: 2): you can exploit an opportunity to
get a snack when the food truck unexpectedly arrives without this
implying wrongfulness. Likewise, some writers invoke cultural
appropriation in a descriptive sense that leaves open whether a
particular act of appropriation is wrongful (Young 2008: 18), whereas
others employ the normative sense in order to pick out a particular
kind of wrongful action (Todd 1990: 24).



Disputes over cultural appropriation often have an important racial
dimension, as in discussions surrounding the blues or hip hop (Rudinow
1994; Taylor 1995; Taylor 2005). However, this need not be the case.
For instance, cultural appropriation (whether wrongful or not) could
be thought to arise with respect to cultural groups that cut across
multiple racialized groups, such as cultures surrounding disability,
sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion, as well as arising
within the diverse cultural groups that are circumscribed by a single
racialized category (Matthes 2016a: 356). In whatever context it
arises, it is generally recognized that an essential ingredient in
wrongful appropriation is a background of social inequality between
cultural insiders and cultural outsiders (Ziff & Rao 1997: 5;
Hurka 1999: 184; Hladki 1994). Indeed, given the way in which dominant
cultural groups tend to assimilate minority cultures, it may even be a
category mistake to speak of members of marginalized cultural groups
"appropriating" from dominant ones (Rogers 2006:
480-1). That being said, some commentators argue in favor of
leaving conceptual space for the appropriation of objects or practices
by marginalized groups, though construed in a beneficial as opposed to
harmful light (Walsh & Lopes 2012).



A substantial catalyst for academic and popular discussion of cultural
appropriation (particularly in Canada) was the recommendation in 1992
of an ad hoc committee of the Canada Council to take cultural
appropriation into account in its decisions about the award of arts
grants (Rowell 1995: 138). Concerns about government funding for work
about culturally marginalized peoples made by non-group members are
theoretically consistent with finding cultural appropriation
unobjectionable if it succeeds in the marketplace of its own merits
(Rowell 1995: 141). However, in more recent years, public and
scholarly discussion has shifted beyond this narrower question about
government funding towards more general discussion of whether cultural
appropriation is wrongful.


### 4.2 What Might be Wrong with Cultural Appropriation?


#### 4.2.1 Offense



One potential source of the wrongfulness of cultural appropriation is
that it can be offensive to cultural group members. If this is the
sole explanation of wrongful cultural appropriation, then the case is
relatively weak: the *prima facie* reason for thinking that
appropriation is wrong could be easily defeated by any number of
morally significant countervailing factors. While there may be a
general presumption against needlessly offending others, the fact that
someone might be offended by most anything makes run-of-the-mill
offense seem relatively easy to justify.



The *prima facie* wrongfulness of cultural appropriation
becomes weightier if we think that beyond causing mere offense, it can
cause what Joel Feinberg terms *profound offense*: "an
offense to one's moral sensibilities...[that] strikes at a
person's core values or sense of self" (Young 2005: 135).
Nevertheless, even if cultural appropriation is profoundly offensive,
and thus there is a *prima facie* reason for thinking it is
wrongful, one might still think that it can be morally permissible all
things considered because of other morally relevant features of the
act, such as its social value, the value of freedom of expression, the
time and place of the act, the extent to which it is tolerated by
group members, and how reasonable the offense is (Young 2005). Given
the diversity of values and sensibilities, the potential for profound
offense is substantial across many domains of social life. While it
will be debatable under what circumstances the aforementioned features
defeat the *prima facie* reasons for thinking that profoundly
offensive appropriation is wrong, the range of cases in which it is
often thought that profound offense is outweighed by other values
suggests that cultural appropriation will often be morally
permissible, all things considered (Young 2005: 138). Indeed, one
might think that cultural appropriation is an essential aspect of
cultural development, and in fact a beneficial aspect of cultural
creativity and exchange (Young 2008; Rogers 2006; Heyd 2003).


#### 4.2.2 Harm



In contrast with (or complementary to) the explanation in terms of
offense, one might also think that cultural appropriation can be
wrongful because it can cause harm. Analogously to debates about
harmful vs. offensive speech, if cultural appropriation is harmful,
this would raise the bar for countervailing considerations that would
be sufficient to render it morally permissible: while harm can be
morally justified, there is a strong presumption against causing harm
(see entry on
 freedom of speech).



So what might make cultural appropriation harmful? For one, it might
be thought to be wrongfully exploitative, defined, for instance,
as



> 
> 
> the appropriation of elements of a subordinated culture by a dominant
> culture without substantive reciprocity, permission, and/or
> compensation. (Rogers 2006: 477)
> 
> 
> 



For instance, one might think that when cultural outsiders profit from
the cultural achievements of insiders who are themselves excluded from
such opportunities due to cultural marginalization and socio-economic
inequality, they do so unfairly (Keeshig-Tobias 1990; Root 1996; Brown
2005). Whether or not cultural appropriation is economically harmful
to cultural group members is a difficult empirical question, and
certain cases may suggest that it could be an economic boon (Young
2008: 114-18; Cowen 2002; Shelby 2007: 194). However, even if we
assume for the sake of argument that cultural appropriation increases
economic opportunity for group members, it might still be thought of
as a form of mutually advantageous exploitation: the features of
exploitation identified above could persist even in the presence of a
net gain in economic opportunity. For instance, one common argument is
that cultural appropriation is an instance and extension of
colonialism, sharing in its exploitative extraction of labor and
resources from those with less relative power, and thus does not treat
cultural group members in a way that recognizes their equality and
autonomy: culture can be appropriated in the same way that land was
appropriated by European colonists (Todd 1992, 1990; Coombe 1993;
Rogers 2006; though against the similarity with land and natural
resources, see Shelby 2007: 193-4; for more on explaining the
wrong of colonialism, see Ypi 2013; see also entry on
 colonialism).
 Moreover, given the ways in which colonial powers often mandated the
eradication of cultural practices, especially for indigenous people,
through, for example, outlawing ceremonies and languages and forcing
assimilation through residential schools, the prospect of
simultaneously benefiting from these same cultural products can seem
particularly perverse (Coleman, Coombe, & MacArailt 2012: 178;
Child 1998).



Now, one might think that whether cultural appropriation qualifies as
exploitative in these ways will hinge on the viability of a concept of
cultural property, which, as we saw in
 section 3,
 remains contentious. The thinking is that cultural group members do
not have a right to cultural products (nor to an audience for them,
along with whatever economic boons it might hold) absent a claim to
such products as their cultural property (Young 2008: Ch. 4). It would
thus be no more exploitative to use or profit off of cultural products
than it is to use or profit off of math: no one has an exclusive right
to it. On the other hand, one might think the claim of exploitation is
fitting even in the absence of claims about cultural property.
Building on the colonial narrative, if Urban Outfitters, for instance,
profits off the sale of clothes with Navajo patterns while the people
of the Navajo nation grapple with poverty and its related injustices
(an ongoing case that came to a head in 2012), then we might
characterize this relationship as exploitative even absent a cultural
property claim (though note that, in fact, the Navajo name is
trademarked). This is because the relationship seems to have two
features that are commonly invoked as jointly sufficient for wrongful
exploitation: deriving an unfair or opportunistic gain from a
vulnerable group who cannot reasonably consent (Liberto 2014; Valdman
2009). Granted, questions remain about the application of the
exploitation framework. For instance, we might wonder about the
conditions under which a group could reasonably consent to the use of
cultural products (though see Lackey 2017), or whether the case above
is correctly construed as the kind of transaction to which charges of
exploitation apply (one might claim that Urban Outfitters is not
correctly described as transacting with the Navajo people at all).



A further set of harms often invoked in discussions of cultural
appropriation are the harms of misrepresentation and silencing.
Misrepresentation can take many forms. For instance, it can present a
culture in a false or misleading light. It can traffic in prejudices
and stereotypes. It can also present a small aspect of a culture (even
if accurate) as representative of the whole, creating a caricature, or
present a cultural practice in a context that perverts its meaning
(Coleman, Coombe, & MacArailt 2012). Cultural appropriation can
also silence members of marginalized cultural groups by skewing public
understanding of cultural expertise away from group members and
denying group members opportunities and platforms for cultural
expression (Keeshig-Tobias 1990; Todd 1990; Hladki 1994; Coombe 1993).
These effects can cumulatively lead to the erosion of cultural forms
and cultural assimilation of group members (Coleman 2001). Indeed, in
light of these effects, some argue that cultural group members may
have a political obligation to engage in cultural practices for the
sake of cultural preservation (Jeffers 2015).



The related harms of misrepresentation and silencing can be fruitfully
couched in terms of philosophical work on epistemic injustice and
epistemic violence (Fricker 2007; Dotson 2011; Matthes 2016a; Nicholas
& Wylie 2013). Operating against a broader backdrop of social
marginalization, cultural appropriation can inhibit or deny the
ability of group members to speak for and represent themselves,
offering further support for Loretta Dodd's definition of
cultural appropriation as the opposite of cultural autonomy (Todd
1990). For instance, on this understanding, the disability rights
slogan "nothing about us without us" can be construed as
an objection against appropriation through representation.



However, these accounts of harmful appropriation are subject to
philosophical objections. For instance, we might grant that
misrepresentation can be harmful, but deny that such a harm has
anything to do with appropriation *per se*: misrepresentations
promulgated by cultural insiders can be harmful, too (Young 2008: Ch.
4). Thus the argument that misrepresentation is harmful does not
establish that cultural appropriation itself is harmful. In reply, one
might note that while misrepresenting oneself and being misrepresented
by others could be equally harmful, that does not entail that they
constitute the same kind or degree of wrong. Moreover, we might
question whether it is important to demonstrate that cultural
appropriation is a *sui generis* kind of wrong: indeed, given
that harmful cultural appropriation seems to depend on background
conditions of social inequality, we might think it would be
unsurprising if a fitting explanation of its wrongfulness overlaps
substantially with the explanation of other wrongs that depend on
social inequality (Matthes 2016a).


#### 4.2.3 The problem of cultural essentialism



A further persistent objection to the aforementioned accounts of
wrongful cultural appropriation concerns the problem of cultural
essentialism, the idea that cultural group membership can be defined
in terms of a specific set of necessary and sufficient conditions
(Young 2005). The problem arises because the very concept of cultural
appropriation seems to be predicated on distinguishing cultural group
members from non-members:



> 
> 
> The need to describe a community of insiders and outsiders is implicit
> in most of what has been said about the practice of
> appropriation...some test of group belonging seems required in
> discussions about cultural appropriation. (Ziff & Rao 1997: 3)
> 
> 
> 



The objection to essentialism can take both an epistemic/metaphysical
form and a moral form in the context of cultural appropriation.



First, one might contend that essentialist definitions of culture are
empirically false: cultures do not have rigid boundaries (Patten 2014:
Ch. 2). Even if we granted for the sake of argument that cultural
groups could be carved at the joint, we might doubt our ability to
know what the correct cultural group boundaries are (Young 2005:
136-7). If either of these objections holds, it seems as if the
idea of cultural appropriation is at best inapplicable in practice,
and at worst, conceptually confused.



On the moral front, one might worry that objections to cultural
appropriation reify cultural group boundaries in a way that can
exclude precarious or marginalized group members, or construct
caricatures or even oppressive conceptions of cultural authenticity
(Killmister 2011; Rogers 2006; Shelby 2002: 249-54). This can
generate the same kind of harmful cultural misrecognition as cultural
appropriation itself (Matthes 2016a: 355-358).



These two sets of objections are aptly encapsulated in Alan
Patten's "dilemma of essentialism" for
multiculturalism:



> 
> 
> *Either* culture is understood in an 'essentialist'
> way, in which case multiculturalism is empirically and morally flawed;
> *or* culture is understood in a nonessentialist way, but the
> concept no longer supplies multiculturalism with the means of making
> the empirical judgments and normative claims that matter to it.
> (Patten 2014: 39)
> 
> 
> 



Cultural essentialism generates a similar dilemma for cultural
appropriation. How best to solve this dilemma remains an open
question. The answer will depend in part on how best to address more
general questions about cultural essentialism, and essentialism about
conceptual categories more broadly (see entry on
 essential vs. accidental properties).
 Moreover, given the use of cultural categories in many everyday
contexts, we should be hesitant about inferring from worries about
essentialism that cultural categories do not exist, or should not be
employed, just as objections to racial essentialism should not
necessarily lead us to dismiss all talk of racialized categories,
especially as a tool for accurately characterizing the effects of
racism (see entry on
 race).
 Indeed, such assumptions can generate their own harms, for instance,
by dismissing claims to cultural identity and autonomy on the basis
that they are "essentializing" (Todd 1992). But it can
seem that some theoretically viable understanding of cultural group
membership that can survive the metaphysical, epistemological, and
moral objections mentioned above is essential to a robust defense of
the concept of cultural appropriation. One possible alternative is to
eschew the problem of cultural group membership by shifting our
attention away from determining who counts as a cultural outsider and
toward the background conditions of social marginalization and
inequality that make cultural appropriation harmful (Matthes 2016a:
362-366). However, this approach may be inadequate in certain
cases where identifying specific acts of cultural appropriation is
itself morally important.


## 5. Heritage and Environmental Preservation



Whether or not one favors a distinction between cultural and natural
heritage (see
 section 1.5
 above), the idea of heritage plays an important role in recent
thinking about environmental preservation.



Among the many reasons that one might think that nature is valuable
include the idea that natural things have a certain kind of history,
in particular, a history independent of human intervention (Elliot
1982). This belief leads to the conclusion that, at least with respect
to this particular kind of natural value, environmental restoration is
impossible: one cannot restore a history free of human intervention
through human intervention. Thus, if we want to retain this kind of
value, we need to pursue policies of environmental preservation that
will protect the natural spaces that bear it (Elliot 1982).



The sharp distinction between nature and culture represented in this
view has been criticized from many fronts, for reasons ranging from an
overly narrow perspective on environmental value to minimizing the
actual history, and present extent, of human influence on the
environment (Cronon 1995; O'Neill 2002; Scoville 2013; Heyd
2005). That being said, we might grant that Elliot identifies
*an* important environmental value, provided that we do not
make the mistake of thinking it is the only one (Matthes 2016b). This
will of course significantly temper the power of Elliot's
normative conclusions about the promise of environmental restoration.
But a more nuanced understanding of the distinction between nature and
culture, one that recognizes a broader spectrum rather than a strict
dichotomy, can still provide reasons for cultivating a respect for
nature's self-directedness or "spontaneity" as well
as reason to preserve and protect this natural heritage (Heyd 2005:
345). Other approaches to environmental preservation also leverage the
heritage value of the environment, though emphasizing the cultural
dimensions of this heritage as well as the "natural"
ones.



For instance, one might think that recognizing that the environment is
part of our cultural heritage can ground distinctive reasons or
obligations to preserve it (Thompson 2000a). For instance, viewing
aspects of the environment as part of a cultural inheritance from our
ancestors might offer reason to preserve the environment as part of an
intergenerational social contract (Thompson 2000a,b); or, because
"particular places matter to both individuals and communities in
virtue of embodying their history and cultural identities"
(O'Neill, Holland, & Light 2008: 2-3) we might think
our approach to environmental preservation and decision-making should
be guided in part by the question: "What would make the most
appropriate trajectory from what has gone before?"
(O'Neill, Holland, & Light 2008: 156); or, we might
recognize that



> 
> 
> indigenous peoples have long advocated that the conservation and
> restoration of native species, the cultivation of first foods, and the
> maintenance of spiritual practices require the existence of plants and
> animals of particular genetic parentage whose lives are woven with
> ecologically, economically and culturally significant stories,
> knowledges and memories. (Whyte 2017)
> 
> 
> 



On views like these, despite their differences, to recognize the
heritage-dimension of the environment is to see its value as
consisting, at least in part, in its narrative significance, its role
in stories that connect us to the past and contribute a distinctive
meaning to our lives (Holland 2011; Thompson 2000a; Scoville 2013). To
see environmental preservation as guided by the preservation of
narrative value can thus have significant implications: for instance,
preserving narrative value might in fact entail changes to the
physical landscape required for preserving meaning rather than
material continuity or authenticity (O'Neill, Holland, &
Light 2008: 157; Arntzen 2008).



How best to capture that narrative value in practice is a difficult
question. For instance, in places that have a history of varied use
(what some have called "layered landscapes") how do we
adjudicate among competing narratives (Hourdequin & Havlick 2011,
2016)? Rather than the traditional "baseline problem" for
ecological restoration, according to which any particular historical
benchmark for returning a space to its "natural" state
appears arbitrary (Lee, Hermans, & Hale 2014), we are faced with
the problem of deciding how a plurality of historical values ought to
shape restoration and preservation efforts. Thus, in order to
understand how best to preserve narrative value, it seems we will need
independent standards for adjudicating among the value of competing
narratives (McShane 2012). This is particularly important given the
unequal distribution of power in crafting and promulgating historical
narratives, which is liable to leave many place-narratives untold or
unheard (McShane 2012: 60; Palmer 2011: 355-6).


## 6. Other Topics in Heritage Ethics



The previous sections discussed topics in heritage ethics that have
seen the most engagement to date from philosophers. The following
subsections offer a brief overview of some other topics in heritage
ethics that have been discussed in the literature.


### 6.1 The Ethics of Display



Beyond issues concerning the repatriation of art and artifacts,
further ethical questions arise about how cultural heritage that is
retained in museums should be displayed. These questions play out
against the backdrop of how non-Western artworks have been regarded in
the context of Western art institutions, vacillating between
relegation to anthropological museums that challenged their art-status
to de-contextual display in modern art museums that deprived them of
relevant cultural context (Eaton & Gaskell 2012). Analogous to
debates about cultural appropriation discussed in
 section 4,
 museums are sometimes challenged for misrepresenting non-Western
cultures, or lacking relevant participation from cultural group
members (Brown 2009). Thus questions arise about the relative value of
different kinds of knowledge, how they are prioritized by institutions
claiming to steward the past, respectful display, and to whom these
institutions are accountable (Wylie 2005; Pantazatos 2016, 2017;
Gaskell 2008).


### 6.2 Further Issues in Archaeological Ethics



Some dimensions of the issues discussed above could be considered part
of the field of archaeological ethics (Scarre & Scarre 2006;
Vitelli & Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2006; Scarre & Coningham 2013),
including aspects of the literature concerning cultural property,
repatriation, and cultural appropriation. However, further ethical
issues arise concerning, for instance, the ethics of digging for
recreational, financial, or subsistence purposes (Hollowell 2006;
Wylie 1996), the professional responsibilities of archaeologists
(Scarre 2014), and respect for the dead (Scarre 2003).


### 6.3 The Ethics of Cultural Heritage Protection in War



Some central aspects of the literature on cultural property have
arisen from discussion and policy surrounding the protection of
cultural heritage in war, such as the Hague Convention and the Lieber
Code (Merryman 1986). But further questions concerning the ethics of
cultural heritage protection in war, such as the permissibility of
causing or allowing causalities in order to protect cultural heritage,
or the obligations (or permissibility) of humanitarian intervention to
protect cultural heritage have received only a little philosophical
attention to date (Thompson 2010; Matthes 2018).