on behalf of Angela Kallhoff, I cordially invite you to a guest lecture titled
"Protecting
Humankind’s Common Cultural Heritage: The Problem of
Cultural Appropriation"
by Cecile Fabre (All Souls College, Oxford).
Thu Dec. 14th, 2023, 6:30 p.m. in HS 3D (NIG)
For questions, contact sophie.kroiss@univie.ac.at
Abstract:
The thought that there are cultural landmarks which have
universal value is a familiar one. It is at the heart of
UNESCO's and the World Heritage's mission, and is affirmed in
a number of international declarations, not least the
Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and
Natural Heritage. For all its appeal, UNESCO's ideals raise
some deep concerns. In particular, it is not easy to
articulate an account of universal value; and it is not easy
to show why we are under moral obligations in respect of that
heritage. Nevertheless, I attempt to defend those ideals. I
seek to show that the protection of humankind's heritage, qua
humankind's, not only is a moral imperative: more strongly
put, it is a duty of justice. I then address one of the most
important objections to it - namely that it undermines states’
and their citizenries’ legitimate interest in deciding what to
do with landmarks which are located on their territory.
Cecile Fabre a political philosopher, and currently Senior
Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. She is also
Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of
Oxford, and affiliated with the Faculty of Philosophy, the
Department of Politics and International Relations, and
Nuffield College, Oxford. Her research interests are in
theories of distributive justice; the philosophy of
democracy; just war theory; the ethics of foreign policy,
with particular focus on the ethics of economic statecraft
and the ethics of espionage.
She most recently published Spying Through a Glass Darkly:
The Ethics of Espionage and Counter-Intelligence (Oxford
University Press 2022); Economic Statecraft: Human Rights,
Sanctions, and Conditionality (Harvard University Press,
2018), preceded by (among others) Cosmopolitan Peace (Oxford
University Press, 2016), The Morality of Defensive War,
co-edited with Seth Lazar (Oxford University Press, 2014),
Cosmopolitan War (Oxford University Press, 2012).