1 Key questions

When is it right to restore something that has been damaged? In 1982, the philosopher Robert Elliot raised this question in regards to the natural environment. However, the issue has wider ramifications, centrally concerned with the key issue of authenticity. The issues of restoration and authenticity raise a number of key questions:

• Can damage ever be made right? Can restoration ever make anything ‘as good as it was before’?
• When a piece of nature or a damaged building is restored, does it become something authentic, or is it a fake? Can nature or buildings ever be restored and not faked?
• Should objects be restored to ‘as good as new’ or only to how they were immediately before they were damaged?
• Is it always better to have an original than it is to have a copy?
• If it is impossible to have the original, is a copy better than nothing?
• What is valuable about originals anyway?