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Rastegar Zhaleh S. Analysis and Criticism of Ethical Principles in Contemporary Theory of Monument Conservation with a Deconstructive Approach. KCR 2026; 9 (1) :16-25
URL: http://journal.richt.ir/kcr/article-1-268-en.html

The idea behind the principle of sustainability - which has shaped the entire body of contemporary conservation ethics- is to consider future users when making decisions and interventions. This principle tries to prevent extreme decisions based on taste and prejudice or interventions based on current knowledge. Ethical principles such as "reversibility" and "least intervention" have been shaped by different theoretical approaches and are widely used in conservation literature today. However, these fundamental principles, as influential variables in ethical and technical decision-making, have become a subject of debate and criticism in contemporary conservation thought. The aim of the present study is to address these criticisms from the perspective of sustainability in contemporary conservation by using the method of "deconstruction". Deconstruction is a critical thinking that examines variables in detail with the aim of showing gaps and contradictions. Having a critical approach means examining the causal relationships of issues and revealing what has remained hidden. Therefore, deconstruction does not want to destroy the truth, but rather restores it. Therefore, this research aims to reveal challenges such as the "subject of conservation", "reasons", "objectives" and "method" that have made the ethical principles of conservation contradictory, opaque and sometimes impossible, and also to criticize and deconstruct the principles that were accepted as axiomatic and unquestionable in classical conservation, trying to denaturalize what has always been natural. The present study has gone to the deconstructionist approach in order to examine the criticisms because it believes that with the deconstructionist approach, firstly, the real thing or, in other words, the "thing in itself" in the sense of pure truth, independent of human perception and senses, does not exist; secondly, theorists such as Marcuse (1988) and Nietzsche (1992) believe that what is known as truth within a culture is a form of communication and social peace contract between people. All moral standards are created by specific conditions (such as culture) and are solely related to these conditions. In this thinking, awareness of indeterminacy and uncertainty is the most real characteristic and truest characteristic of cultural and artistic phenomena. An issue in which moral standards and valuation do not remain in the monopoly of fixed principles and predetermined functions and roles and do not accept a fixed definition, but rather act as a fluid and changing factor in their cultural and situational context. The result is that contemporary ethics, with greater flexibility. Ethics are not applied as static and mechanical principles at the time of intervention, but are prepared to face unpredictable behavior by "adaptation" and "compatibility" and are considered as added values, that is, they are not mandatory in any case and can be ignored depending on the circumstances. Ethical principles and criteria such as minimal intervention, reversibility in interventions, similarity of materials and conservation techniques to the original part.