Author(s)

Qiu Keyi ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Faculty of Foreign Languages, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, China

Corresponding Author

Qiu Keyi

ABSTRACT

In contemporary debates on cultural appropriation, "understanding" is frequently seen as a moral defense. This paper argues that such appeals are conceptually and structurally insufficient for moral justification. Conceptually, I argue that moral evaluation must distinguish between the quality of an agent's motivation and the normative status of the act. To ground this claim, I turn to deontological ethics, particularly Kant's insight that an action has moral worth only if done from duty, not merely in accordance with it. From this perspective, understanding is an empirical motive that falls short of the demand to act out of respect for moral law. Consequentially, I situate this analysis within real-world conditions of structural inequality, showing how a focus on individual understanding often diverts attention from systemic harms, such as epistemic injustice and unequal cultural benefit. The paper concludes that treating epistemic virtue as sufficient for moral justification involves a category mistake in applied ethics, and that clearer distinctions are needed in evaluating cultural practices under conditions of social inequality.

KEYWORDS

Cultural Appropriation; Moral Justification; Structural Injustice; Cross-Cultural Exchange

CITE THIS PAPER

Qiu Keyi. The Sufficiency of Understanding for Moral Justification in Cultural Appropriation. Philosophy Journal (2026). Vol. 5, No.1, 49-63. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/phij.2026.050108.

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