Monumental changes: The civic harm argument for the removal of Confederate monuments

Abstract

This article provides a definition of monuments and describes their potential for removalist and preservationist controversy. The authors focus on the example of Confederate monuments in the United States as, on the basis of racist impacts, these monuments are candidates for widespread removal. The authors review influential existing philosophical arguments aimed at clarifying this controversy. In this, they draw attention to an especially promising formulation of a moral harm argument. The authors improve upon this argument by offering an educationally sensitive civic harm argument. In this, they advance a view of limited compatibility between removalist and preservationist aims.

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