ABSTRACT
The chapter maps the normative and ethical implications of the sustainability discourse. In doing so it identifies a number of implicit moral claims regarding the concept of culture especially in the political and academic discourse on cultural sustainability. In that discourse, culture tends to be conceptualized as a means to further sustainability goals. However, as moral claims are usually raised in situations of conflict and therefore regularly challenged, an implicitly morally charged, normative concept of culture will remain exclusive and thus run short of its aims. For that reason, a transdisciplinary concept of culture drawing on insights from cultural philosophy, history, cultural sociology, ethnomethodology and theology is proposed to broaden the scope of cultural phenomena seen as relevant for the sustainability discourse, open the field for normative debates and connect to the cultural memory and imagination necessary to spell out concepts of cultural sustainability.
