Who Owns Up to the Past? Heritage and Historical Injustice

Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (1):87-104 (2018)
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Abstract

‘Heritage’ is a concept that often carries significant normative weight in moral and political argument. In this article, I present and critique a prevalent conception according to which heritage must have a positive valence. I argue that this view of heritage leads to two moral problems: Disowning Injustice and Embracing Injustice. In response, I argue for an alternative conception of heritage that promises superior moral and political consequences. In particular, this alternative jettisons the traditional focus on heritage as a primarily positive relationship to the past, and thus offers resources for coming to terms with histories of injustice.

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Erich Hatala Matthes
Wellesley College

Citations of this work

Objectionable Commemorations, Historical Value, and Repudiatory Honouring.Ten-Herng Lai - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (1):37-47.
Vandalizing Tainted Commemorations.Chong-Ming Lim - 2020 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 48 (2):185-216.
Racist Monuments: The Beauty is the Beast.Ten-Herng Lai - 2025 - The Journal of Ethics 29 (1):21-41.

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References found in this work

The sources of normativity.Christine Marion Korsgaard - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Onora O'Neill.
Value in ethics and economics.Elizabeth Anderson - 1993 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
The Sources of Normativity.Christine Korsgaard - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196):384-394.

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