Tainted political symbols ought to be confronted, removed, or at least recontextualized. Despite the best efforts to achieve this, however, official actions on tainted symbols often fail to take place. In such cases, I argue that political vandalism—the unauthorized defacement, destruction, or removal of political symbols—may be morally permissible or even obligatory. This is when, and insofar as, political vandalism serves as fitting counter-speech that undermines the authority of tainted symbols in ways that match their publicity, refuses (...) to let them speak in our name, and challenges the derogatory messages expressed through a mechanism I call derogatory pedestalling: the glorification or honoring of certain individuals or ideologies that can only make sense when members of a targeted group are taken to be inferior. (shrink)

The recent explosion of philosophical papers on Confederate and Colonialist statues centers on a central question: When, if ever, is it permissible to admire a person? This paper contends it’s not just Confederates and slavers whose reputations are on the line, but also pacifists like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daisy Bates whose commitments to pacifism meant they were unwilling to save others using defensive violence, including others they talked into endangering themselves for the sake of racial equality. Other things (...) being equal, that’s gravely immoral if pacifism is false, and we shouldn’t admire people guilty of grave immorality. So, it appears that we shouldn’t admire Bates or King, which is counterintuitive. To solve this problem, I explore several possibilities: that only selective traits of Bates and King are admirable, that Bates and King are admirable despite their grave immorality, and that Bates and King are admirable by virtue of their integrity. However, each of these proposals fails: the first because it inadequately captures our moral phenomenology (we admire people, not just their traits), the second because it ignores the extent to which gravely immoral commitments are constitutive of a person’s moral character, and the third because we ought not to admire people for acting on their immoral beliefs. The paper concludes, first, that either pacifists like Bates and King aren’t admirable or they are, and the latter presupposes the truth of pacifism. Second, I borrow from Vanessa Carbonell’s ratcheting-up argument from moral sainthood to argue that pacifists like Bates and King provide epistemic defeaters to the objection that pacifism is unreasonably costly. Thus, not only are pacifists admirable only if they’re right—they are right. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

What should we do about “tainted” public commemorations? Recent events have highlighted the urgency of reaching a consensus on this question. However, existing discussions appear to be dominated by two naïve opposing views – to remove or preserve them. My aims in this essay are two-fold. First, I argue that the two views are not naïve, but undergirded by concerns with securing self-respect and with the character of our engagement with the past. Second, I offer a qualified defence of (...) vandalising tainted commemorations. The defence comprises two parts. I consider two prominent suggestions – to install counter-commemorations and to add contextualising plaques – and argue that they are typically beset with difficulties. I then argue that in some circumstances, constrained vandalism is a response to tainted commemorations which effectively adjudicates the demands of the two opposing views. (shrink)

Art can be addressed, not just to individuals, but to groups. Art can even be part of how groups think to themselves – how they keep a grip on their values over time. I focus on monuments as a case study. Monuments, I claim, can function as a commitment to a group value, for the sake of long-term action guidance. Art can function here where charters and mission statements cannot, precisely because of art’s powers to capture subtlety and (...) emotion. In particular, art can serve as the vessel for group emotions, by making emotional content sufficiently public so as to be the object of a group commitment. Art enables groups to guide themselves with values too subtle to be codified. (shrink)

Suppose two people are about to drown. We are in a position to save only one, so the other will have to die. One of the two has just culpably killed an innocent person, but has no intention of killing anybody else and there is no reason to expect that he will. Everything else being equal, should we give them an equal chance of being saved by flipping a coin? In this paper I argue that we should not. I argue (...) that the implications of a person's moral culpability for (recent or prospective) harm to a particular victim should transfer to other conflict situations in which the wrongdoer might find him or herself. This requires establishing the extent to which a person's contributing to harming another person — and his moral culpability for that harm — impinges on our decision making in situations where it is possible only to assist either the wrongdoer or some other person that is not his victim. (shrink)

Much light can be shed on events which characterize or underlie scandals at firms such as Enron, Arthur Andersen, Worldcom, ImClone, and Tyco by appealing to the notion of ethical distance. Various inquiries have highlighted the difficulties in finding or identifying particular individuals to blame for particular events, and in the context of situations as complex as these it can sometimes be helpful to investigate the comparative ethical distance of various participants in these events. In this essay I offer a (...) characterization of ethical distance in terms of moral responsibility, and in doing so I describe and illustrate the rough inverse correlation between moral distance and degrees of moral responsibility. I urge that the concept of ethical distance is capable of shedding light upon situations in which several people are involved in bringing about a state of affairs. I then argue that moral responsibility cannot do justice to all situations involving ethical distance. When the distance between a person and a state of affairs grows sufficiently large, a different type of treatment is called for, and I introduce the notion of moral taint to describe the moral status of agents in these situations. (shrink)

In hyper-modern society, food has become a source of endemic discontent. Many food products are seen as ‘tainted’; literally, figuratively or both. A psychoanalytic approach, I will argue, may help us to come to terms with our alimentary predicaments. What I envision is a ‘depth ethics’ focusing on some of the latent tensions, conflicts and ambiguities at work in the current food debate. First, I will outline some promising leads provided by two prominent psychoanalytic authors, namely Sigmund Freud and (...) Jacques Lacan. Subsequently, I will elucidate why our chronic dependency on high-tech food production apparently fails to meet consumer needs, focusing on some scenarios of escape, such as anorexia, cultured meat and ersatz food. And I will use ‘genres of the imagination’ to flesh out how food consumption has become a podium for enacting cultural symptoms, moral outcries, provocative identities and practices of the Self. Notably, I will discuss a story by Franz Kafka, a painting by Pablo Picasso and a food novel by Margaret Atwood. (shrink)

Moral taint occurs when one’s personality has been compromised by the introduction of something that produces disfigurement of the moral psyche. While taint may be traced to vicarious liability for our voluntary associations, the thought that we might be responsible for taint and that taint is something we must confront and make amends for becomes problematic when taint is acquired by circumstantial luck. I argue that the idea of circumstantial taint—for example, the idea that people can be morally compromised by (...) their heritage—is coherent. In such cases, although taint is not due to a deficient level of care or to an unsavory quality of will, shame is the appropriate affect and atonement the appropriate response. The concept of moral taint is helpful in assisting our comprehension of more vexing cases of responsibility and blame where shame and a need for atonement exist. (shrink)

This article addresses debates around the fate of antiquated symbols of colonial domination in postcolonial societies. The handling of apartheid material culture still generates controversy more than 15 years after the country’s first democratic elections. Built in 1949 to commemorate the Great Trek into the interior of the country, the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria has stood as the embodiment of Afrikaner nationalism and mythology. A number of factors prevented the demolition of the site, including the spirit of national reconciliation. In (...) order to remain relevant and to secure state funding, staff members at the Voortrekker Monument have attempted to map onto the original exclusionary imagery a more inclusive narrative that hinges on the protection of ‘minority rights’ to cultural preservation. This case study sheds light on the way political transitions create openings for the interrogation of colonial monuments – whether they should be destroyed, revised or left untouched – and the development of a postcolonial memorial landscape. (shrink)

This is a short reply to Dan Demetriou's "Ashes of Our Fathers: Racist Monuments and the Tribal Right." Both are included in Oxford University Press's Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us.

In this chapter we focus on the debate over publicly-maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the US (chiefly regarding the over 700 monuments devoted to the Confederacy), but to some degree also in Britain and Commonwealth countries, especially South Africa (chiefly regarding monuments devoted to figures and events associated with colonialism and apartheid). After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist, (...) and neutrally categorize removalist and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating, and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)

This essay reflects on the role academic journals like the JRE can play in facilitating and addressing tainted legacies. As an institution in religious ethics, the journal not only determines whose work is important, but it also replicates such judgments, passing certain sets of issues, concerns, and methods down from the past to the present, shaping future work. Journals highlight the systemic, structural elements of legacies that we often neglect in heated debate over how to respond to them. Consequently, (...) they illuminate the complexity of the problems tainted legacies present. I first discuss three ways a journal like the JRE facilitates the structural features of tainted legacies in religious ethics. I then suggest how the JRE might implement a position I call the “reformer” in response to such legacies. This position emphasizes practices of moral repair designed to challenge the systemic injustices that underlay tainted legacies. (shrink)

A century after the World War I, studies on the politics of memory and commemoration have grown into a vast and vital academic field. This book approaches the theme "monument and memory" from architectural, literary, philosophical, and theological perspectives. Drawing on diverse sources - from Augustine to Freud, from early photographs to contemporary urban monuments - the book's contributors probe the intersections between memory and trauma, past and present, monuments and memorial practices, religious and secular, remembrance and forgetfulness. (...) (Series: Nordic Studies in Theology / Nordische Studien zur Theologie - Vol. 1) [Subject: Philosophy, Religious Studies, History]. (shrink)

This is the first book on practical philosophy of science and how to practically evaluate scientific findings that have life-and-death consequences. Showing how to uncover scores of scientific flaws -- typically used by special interests who try to justify their deadly pollution -- this book aims to liberate the many potential victims of environmentally-induced disease and death.

This essay is concerned with the means by which individuals, especially in the context of group based harm, reconcile the gross inconsistency inherent in upholding moral standards within one's own group while at the same time rationalizing why such moral standards do not apply to certain others. The term moral taint is employed to describe the undesirable condition of one's character that can result from certain group affiliations or memberships. On this view, the vehicle by which one's character becomes (...) class='Hi'>tainted is the intemalization of certain narratives that serve to truncate the moral community and are used in attempts to justify group-based harm. I argue that individuals in some such circumstances need to re-describe both the story of their group and their own personal narrative to begin to take responsibility for group based devaluing practices. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the means by which individuals, especially in the context of group based harm, reconcile the gross inconsistency inherent in upholding moral standards within one's own group while at the same time rationalizing why such moral standards do not apply to certain others. The term moral taint is employed to describe the undesirable condition of one's character that can result from certain group affiliations or memberships. On this view, the vehicle by which one's character becomes (...) class='Hi'>tainted is the intemalization of certain narratives that serve to truncate the moral community and are used in attempts to justify group-based harm. I argue that individuals in some such circumstances need to re-describe both the story of their group and their own personal narrative to begin to take responsibility for group based devaluing practices. (shrink)

What do we do when a beloved comedian known as "America's Dad" is convicted of sexual assault? Or when we discover that the man who wrote "all men are created equal" also enslaved hundreds of people? Or when priests are exposed as pedophiles? From the popular to the political to the profound, each day brings new revelations that respected people, traditions, and institutions are not what we thought they were. Despite the shock that these disclosures produce, this state of affairs (...) is anything but new. Facing the concrete task of living well when our best moral resources are not only contaminated but also potentially corrupting is an enduring feature of human experience. In this book, Karen V. Guth identifies "tainted legacies" as a pressing contemporary moral problem and ethical challenge. Constructing a typology of responses to compromised thinkers, traditions, and institutions, she demonstrates the relevance of age-old debates in Christian theology for those who confront legacies tarnished by the traumas of slavery, racism, and sexual violence. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Rather than being a neutral phenomenon, the authors propose that medical school donations should be viewed as a social good for advancing education and improving healthcare. Seen in this light, they aim to offer a framework for analysis that will be useful to medical institutions and their stakeholders in addressing proposed donations from contentious or divisive sources, and in managing those donations that subsequently appear controversial.

Les monuments de Délos et d’Athènes célébrant le pancratiaste et lutteur Ménodôros fils de Gnaios font l’objet d’une analyse conjointe, qui débute par la restitution de leurs bases et la reconstitution du groupe statuaire que portait le premier d’entre eux ; suit un nouvel établissement du texte des inscriptions (ID 1957 et 2498 à Délos, Agora XVIII, C196 / IG II/III3, 4.1, 599, à Athènes), doublé d’une étude des couronnes composant le palmarès de l’athlète. Les données prosopographiques amènent à (...) dater les deux monuments des années 120‑110 et à les situer à l’intersection des chronologies attique et rhodienne. On examine ensuite leur position dans l’histoire du mouvement agonistique et leur environnement topographique. Ces diverses approches aboutissent à des résultats cohérents sur les plans historique et archéologique. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the significance and meanings of faces within monuments and memorials. The presence of faces in monuments and memorials transcends cultures and spans throughout history. Faces serve as vital components of public statues, conveying the emotions of depicted characters and establishing communicative connections with observers. Moreover, they are employed within memorials to commemorate the deceased. Memorial museums frequently feature corridors adorned with portraits of those who perished in wars, terrorist attacks or natural (...) disasters. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to develop a theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of faces in monuments and memorials, drawing upon the cultural semiotics of Juri Lotman as well as theories proposed by Algirdas J. Greimas and Umberto Eco. Secondly, to construct a typology that elucidates the various ways faces are utilized within monuments, memorials, and commemorative practices. A historical roadmap of the facial presence in monuments and memorials is then presented. By achieving these aims, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the meanings of faces within monuments and memorials in particular and memory politics in general. (shrink)

When does art history begin? Art historiographers typically point to the Renaissance (Vasari) or, alternatively, to Hellenism (Pliny the Elder). But such origin stories become increasingly disconnected from contemporary disciplinary practices, especially as the latter try to rise to the challenge of conducting art history in a more diversified and global way. This essay provides an alternative account of art history’s origin, one that does not try to alleviate the sense of disconnect, but rather develops a global, non-Eurocentric account. The (...) account focuses less on genealogy and more on what necessitates something like an art-historical awareness or attention in the first place. Relying on examples from ancient Mesopotamia, it argues that art-historical thought can be identified whenever and wherever material objects are attended to or produced for their potential to manifest visibly and over time their meaning. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Monuments and statues are forms of commemoration. They typically pay tribute to people or events and aim to serve as a permanent marker, a link between present and past generations, committing them to memory and assigning them with importance and meaning. While commemorations can be beneficial in terms of recognising a legacy of the past and helping foster relationships between opposing groups, they can also be divisive and painful, failing to acknowledge other dimensions of historical fact and further hardening (...) the boundaries between groups in conflict. Essentially, what we choose to commemorate reflects what we as a society actually value. This paper focuses on the unsettled fates of the Captain Cook statue that stands with prominence in Hyde Park, Warrane, and other colonial monuments in Australia. It also discusses the emotionality surrounding such commemorations. We question whether Cook’s actual achievements constitute the notoriety that has been bestowed upon him. A range of commentators have put forward ideas around what to do about the Cook statue which we discuss while also considering what the future might look like if the truth of colonial history is known and open conversations can be had. (shrink)

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī. By Konrad Hirschler. Edinburgh: EdinBurgh University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 624, illus. $130.

In this chapter, we focus on the debate over publicly maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the United States and South Africa. After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist and neutrally categorize removalist and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating and that when concerns of civic sustainability (...) are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s laconic observation about self and history elicits thought about the interventions of history into our private consciousness. Although “the world” may end with the end of my consciousness, I could hardly claim that my consciousness exhausts the world, or that there are no presences, realities, objects, and events that do not come into my consciousness from elsewhere, creating for me a distinct ever-present awareness of mine and other, inner and outer, recollection and recognition. A plaintive refrain, similar to that (...) in Wittgenstein’s reflection, appears in much modern criticism that sets itself the task to understand and interpret works of art. Among such efforts there are theories whose main assumption is that a particular art, such as poetry, may indeed put forward a claim to the truth of an assertion, but it is not necessary to poetry as poetry that it asserts anything at all, and therefore it is irrelevant to poetry as poetry to be tested by reference to the world, to history, through the canons of verification and the principles of plausibility relevant to empirical inquiry. We might rewrite Wittgenstein’s aphorism this way: “What has poetry to do with the world? The poem is the first and only thing.”. (shrink)

Clinical trials in developing countries are often beset by ethical problems that would be considered unresolvable in countries like Australia and the U.S. Nevertheless, such trials continue to go ahead throughout Asia, Africa and South America, and are often conducted in ways that could be considered to be unethical. In this article I discuss two issues, focussing on an HIV preventative trial of a vaginal gel, the Nonoxynol 9 phase three trial being held in Kenya. The first of these is (...) what makes such a trial unethical given that it has approval from the WHO and seemingly conforms with acceptable standards of consent. The second issue involves using material from such trials, if we accept that they were conducted unethically. (shrink)

In Sophocles' Ichneutai Silenos reproaches the Satyrs for their cowardice. Among other things that he says to them, he contrasts their current attitude to his own bravery in youth; in lines 154-155 he speaks of many monuments of bravery, which he has left in the homes of the nymphs. After illustrating the syntax of these lines and offering a new translation, the author goes on to investigate the possible reference of these "monuments of bravery" and hence of the (...) (alleged) exploits of Silenos. (shrink)

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a (...) monument divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

A particularly important, pressing, philosophical question concerns whether Confederate monuments ought to be removed. More precisely, one may wonder whether a certain group, viz. the relevant government officials and members of the public who together can remove the Confederate monuments, are morally obligated to (of their own volition) remove them. Unfortunately, academic philosophers have largely ignored this question. This paper aims to help rectify this oversight by moral philosophers. In it, I argue that people have a moral obligation (...) to remove most, if not all, public Confederate monuments because of the unavoidable harm they inflict on undeserving persons. In the first section, I provide some relevant historical context. In the second section, I make my unique harm-based argument for the removal of Confederate monuments. In the third section, I consider and rebut five objections. (shrink)

The Black Lives Matter campaign has forced a reassessment of monuments that commemorate historical figures in public spaces. One of these, a statue of General Lord Roberts, stands in Glasgow, once the Second City of the Empire. A critical reading of this monument as a memorial text in a landscape of power contrasts the intended heroic depiction of Roberts with the excluded histories of those who were on the receiving end of his actions. I consider possible courses of action (...) in determining what should be done with this memorial, recommending against its removal. Keeping the monument in its privileged public space without further action will not do. Arguing that the Roberts memorial is educationally valuable, despite and because of its celebration of Roberts as a hero of Empire, I defend its potential role in postcolonial and postimperial education. (shrink)

This article addresses the dilemma facing an editor when he or she has to decide whether or not to publish a manuscript that describes unethical research. I will explore three options the editor may follow: a) publish the unethical research; b) publish it with an explicit condemnation of the methods used; c) reject the article on moral grounds. I will consider the importance of deterring unethical research, why the deterrence argument has been overlooked and the relevance it has in developing (...) countries which seem to be more exposed to morally tainted experiments. I will suggest a combined policy. For cases in which the ethical problems are serious — where basic human rights are not respected, where consent has been given without complete or proper information or voluntary participation by subjects, or where deceit has been practised — I would support the strong policy of rejecting the article on moral grounds. For dubious cases, where the risk assessment can be doubted or where there are suspicions of ethical problems, I argue for a policy under which the article is published along with a serious discussion of the ethical problems suspected, allowing a rebuttal by the authors. In this way, while maintaining a strong deterrent policy, we recognize that sometimes it is not so clear if a research project was unethical, and only in such cases (where the ethical problems are dubious), the article may be published with an editorial. (shrink)

Comments on two recently published tripod bases. — Modifications to the slope of the Acropolis above the Theatre of Dionysos: stair-heads cut into the rock, choregic columns dating from the 4th or 3rd c. BC (and not the Roman period), Thrasyllos Monument and Chapel of the Virgin. — Lysicrates Monument: the tripod rested on the roof of the monument (and not on the finial which crowned it). — As an appendix: The Lysicrates Monument and France, the role of the Capuchin (...) fri- ars in the welcome to travellers and the protection of the monument, the interchange of correspon- dence between the French and Greek governments and the religious authorities according to the archive documents. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been renewed controversy about monuments to the Confederacy: these monuments, their detractors insist, are instruments of white supremacy—and, as such, ought to be lowered immediately. The dialectic is by now familiar: though some insist that these monuments are mere sites of memory, others note the relevant memory is that of the Confederacy—and that, because of this, the monuments are inevitably racist. Worse, the monuments were raised by racist individuals for racist (...) ends; no surprise, then, that so many experience them as racist—that is, as instruments of white supremacy. For all of these reasons, the monuments ought to be lowered. -/- And probably it is so. But what does one do when the instrument of white supremacy is a mountain? What does one do, moreover, when it is less than clear whether that mountain is an instrument of white supremacy? What does one do, in other words, when that mountain is a monument to a regime only ambiguously racist? What does one do when it was raised by a racist individual for a racist end—but has since that time come to be seen as a monument to precisely the opposite ideals? What does one do, in other words, when it is experienced by most not as a symbol of white supremacy but as a symbol—indeed, as the symbol—of freedom and equality? -/- What does one do, in short, with Mount Rushmore at this moment—that is, in the wake of the Charleston shooting and the Charlottesville rally? And can the experience of those who saw the mountain prior to its status as a monument—that is, the Lakota—illuminate this question? In this essay, I examine these monumental questions. I ask them—and try to answer them—first as a consequentialist, second as a deontologist, and third as a virtue ethicist. (shrink)

How can philosophers incorporate the Digital Humanities into their classrooms? And why should they? In this paper, I explore answers to these questions as I detail what I have dubbed “The Monuments Project'' and describe how this project engages with Digital Humanities and teaches students to connect theoretical philosophical concepts with their lives. Briefly, the Monuments Project asks students to apply concepts discussed in our philosophy class (in my case, a Global Aesthetics class) with a monument in their (...) environment. Instead of a traditional paper, students upload MP3s of their observations, pictures and/or drawings of the monument, and text-based responses. The goal of the Monument Project is twofold: to get students to connect what they have learned to a sense of place - the place where they live, and to introduce them to the Digital Humanities. (shrink)

: The aim of the eugenics movement in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century was to prevent the degeneration of the white race. A central tactic of the movement was the involuntary sterilization of people labeled as feebleminded. An analysis of the practice of eugenic sterilization provides insight into how the concepts of gender, race, class, and dis/ability are fundamentally intertwined. I argue that in the early twentieth century, the concept of feeblemindedness came to operate (...) as an umbrella concept that linked off-white ethnicity, poverty, and gendered conceptions of lack of moral character together and that feeblemindedness thus understood functioned as the signifier of tainted whiteness. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 1 Seiten: 159-186.