Abstract

ABSTRACT The question that this paper seeks to answer is that of whether the resistance to change that characterizes the conservative temperament has any rational basis. More precisely, my question is whether we have good grounds for accepting any version of the principle that if something exists then we need a reason to change it but don’t need a reason to keep it. The paper defends a version of this principle whose scope is restricted to familiar traditions and customs on the one hand, and aging artifactual objects (houses, cars, toasters, and the like) on the other. The argument for that principle is that our current traditions and artifacts stand in various relations to the purposive activities of past agents—a different relation in each case—that give rise to presumptive but easily overridden reasons for their preservation.