To What Extent Do People Have A Moral Obligation To Respect And Preserve Places
Do People have a moral obligation to respect and preserve places and things that have symbolic importance to others but not to them?
People have a moral obligation to respect and preserve places and things that have symbolic importance to others but not to them. Moral obligation is performed on the basis of what right and wrong, and the notion that people have a requirement to do what they know is right. (1) Respect in this case is intended to mean acknowledging that the symbol is important to others and treating it as though it was important to you. To preserve something is to protect it from harm, alteration, or damage. (2) Places and things of symbolic importance are significant the people of in a religious, cultural, societal, …show more content…
or historical sense, or if it has importance or use for mankind as a whole.
This issue has become quite important to many people during times of war because it is during these times that the most destruction, harm, and alteration occurs to places and things.
The nature of war almost directly conflicts with the focus of preservation. Theft of these items and resell to private collectors can rob the world of these treasures. Construction and Industrial progress can also destroy these items and sites if it is deemed to be “for the greater good”.
War being such a destructive force has been the cause of much of the loss when it come to things of symbolic importance for all of written history to this day. One good example of this is the great crusades, when european armies invaded the middle east to conquer jerusalem they destroyed thousands of texts and scrolls with world history written on them and stole or defaced important religious monuments and artifacts to the local people, these are irreplaceable losses to all of mankind.
When muslim armies took the city back they did the same to the thousands of religious and historic items left behind by the europeans and again mankind lost the knowledge of these texts. This was not the first time jerusalem had been the site of lost items of symbolic importance, the romans took the city and tore down many temples and religious sites and destroyed what they considered to be barbaric documents. what is truly shocking is that jerusalem is still being damaged and fought over to this
day.
The looting of the iraq museum is another example of the lose of knowledge from a more recent time, in 2003 during the iraq war the museum in baghdad was left abandoned with a seemingly endless number of priceless items of religious, historical, and scientific importance that can not be measured, including Sumerian Cuneiform Clay Tablets which were part of the set from the earliest written history known to man. If this items were respected as of such importance that removal of them would be robbing all of mankind perhaps they would still be safe and available for research to further mankind's understanding of this most early culture. (3)
When an item of symbolic importance is no longer useful in a religious, historical, cultural, or scientific way, It has outlived its purpose and no longer needs to be protected even if there are small groups who feel it should be. That being said one must also consider if the desire to preserve something might be itself making it a thing of symbolic importance, but if the good to the removal of the item outweighs the desire to preserve it, then it can be destroyed if it is for the greater good.
There have been times where destruction of historical or religious sites have been justifiable, this occurred often during world war II, as germans started to identify and set up offensive and defensive positions that were less likely to be bombed because they were of importance to local people and the world community as a whole.
In order to save lives the allied forces had to destroy those sites or damage them. If in order to save lives you need to risk damage to an irreplaceable item, it is them morally permissible if there are no viable alternatives to then destroy that item of symbolic importance in order to save those lives.
This had been done countless time throughout history and will be done again whenever the need arises for it. People as a whole like to create and therefore need to sometimes destroy, however in progressing in our existence we must be sensitive to those who hold different beliefs and who values things we may not and show respect to each other’s sense of importance, because in order for us to be a able to live good lives in this international and diverse world we live in, understanding one another starts with learning to respect what others value, even if we do not and items and places of symbolic importance is the easiest place to begin this.
People have a moral obligation to respect and preserve places and things that have symbolic importance to others but not to them. Moral obligation is performed on the basis of what right and wrong, and the notion that people have a requirement to do what they know is right. (1) Respect in this case is intended to mean acknowledging that the symbol is important to others and treating it as though it was important to you. To preserve something is to protect it from harm, alteration, or damage. (2) Places and things of symbolic importance are significant the people of in a religious, cultural, societal, …show more content…
or historical sense, or if it has importance or use for mankind as a whole.
This issue has become quite important to many people during times of war because it is during these times that the most destruction, harm, and alteration occurs to places and things.
The nature of war almost directly conflicts with the focus of preservation. Theft of these items and resell to private collectors can rob the world of these treasures. Construction and Industrial progress can also destroy these items and sites if it is deemed to be “for the greater good”.
War being such a destructive force has been the cause of much of the loss when it come to things of symbolic importance for all of written history to this day. One good example of this is the great crusades, when european armies invaded the middle east to conquer jerusalem they destroyed thousands of texts and scrolls with world history written on them and stole or defaced important religious monuments and artifacts to the local people, these are irreplaceable losses to all of mankind.
When muslim armies took the city back they did the same to the thousands of religious and historic items left behind by the europeans and again mankind lost the knowledge of these texts. This was not the first time jerusalem had been the site of lost items of symbolic importance, the romans took the city and tore down many temples and religious sites and destroyed what they considered to be barbaric documents. what is truly shocking is that jerusalem is still being damaged and fought over to this
day.
The looting of the iraq museum is another example of the lose of knowledge from a more recent time, in 2003 during the iraq war the museum in baghdad was left abandoned with a seemingly endless number of priceless items of religious, historical, and scientific importance that can not be measured, including Sumerian Cuneiform Clay Tablets which were part of the set from the earliest written history known to man. If this items were respected as of such importance that removal of them would be robbing all of mankind perhaps they would still be safe and available for research to further mankind's understanding of this most early culture. (3)
When an item of symbolic importance is no longer useful in a religious, historical, cultural, or scientific way, It has outlived its purpose and no longer needs to be protected even if there are small groups who feel it should be. That being said one must also consider if the desire to preserve something might be itself making it a thing of symbolic importance, but if the good to the removal of the item outweighs the desire to preserve it, then it can be destroyed if it is for the greater good.
There have been times where destruction of historical or religious sites have been justifiable, this occurred often during world war II, as germans started to identify and set up offensive and defensive positions that were less likely to be bombed because they were of importance to local people and the world community as a whole.
In order to save lives the allied forces had to destroy those sites or damage them. If in order to save lives you need to risk damage to an irreplaceable item, it is them morally permissible if there are no viable alternatives to then destroy that item of symbolic importance in order to save those lives.
This had been done countless time throughout history and will be done again whenever the need arises for it. People as a whole like to create and therefore need to sometimes destroy, however in progressing in our existence we must be sensitive to those who hold different beliefs and who values things we may not and show respect to each other’s sense of importance, because in order for us to be a able to live good lives in this international and diverse world we live in, understanding one another starts with learning to respect what others value, even if we do not and items and places of symbolic importance is the easiest place to begin this.