RIGHTLY OR FOR ILL: THE ETHICS OF REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING By Alison Nicole Crane Reiheld A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Philosophy 2010 UMI Number: 3435221 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, If material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Dissertation Publishing UMI 3435221 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 1 7, United States Code. ProQuest® ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT RIGHTLY OR FOR ILL: THE ETHICS OF REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING By Alison Nicole Crane Reiheld Forgetting a birthday, a wedding anniversary, a beloved child's school play or a dear colleague's important accomplishments is often met with blame, whereas remembering them can engender praise. Are we in fact blameworthy or praiseworthy for such remembering and forgetting? When ought we to remember, in the ethical sense of 'ought'? And ought we in some cases to allow ourselves to forget? These are the questions that ground this philosophical work. In fact, we so often unreflectively assign moral blame and praise to ourselves and others for memory behaviors that this faculty, and moral responsibility for it, deserve careful philosophical attention. These questions of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness for memory do not pertain only to individual memory behaviors. Collective memory behaviors may also be morally blameworthy or praiseworthy. Consider the matters of how South Africans go about remembering apartheid, how Bosnian Serbs and Albanian Muslims go about remembering their conflicts, or whether and how Americans "never forget" September 11,2001. In fact, individual and collective memory are not as separate as you might think. Though individual memory is based in the individual's biology—the functions of the brain—individuals are members of collectives; our individual memories are both shaped by social interaction to a surprising degree and major loci of collective memory. Thus, determining moral blameworthiness or praiseworthiness for memory behaviors is a complicated philosophical endeavor. To address these issues, I set myself three tasks. First, to analyze the nature of both individual and collective memory using philosophical, neuropsychological, sociological sources. This reveals that both individual and collective memory are best conceived as constructions, not necessarily inaccurate, but certainly not perfect recordings of events. Individual memory constructions are influenced not only by our choices, but also by neurological and social determinants. Individuals are one locus for collective memory storage—others include memorials, books, songs, and national holidays—and are agents for collective memory construction. My second task is to analyze moral responsibility, specifically what makes us praiseworthy and blameworthy. Ultimately, I reject libertarian conceptions of moral responsibility and adopt Nomy Arpaly's influential reasons-responsiveness which holds that the moral worth of an agent depends on the moral desirability of an action and the degree of moral concern with which she pursues it. My third task is to apply this analysis to both individual and collective memory behaviors. In doing so, I generate a preliminary set of twelve rules for both individual and collective memory behaviors, each defeasible under conditions that change whether, and the degree to which, moral agents should be held praiseworthy or blameworthy. I intend that these twelve rules and their attendant considerations of application and defeasibility provide not only philosophers but moral agents more generally with useful tools for a reflective ethics of memory. By such means may we all remember and forget rightly, and not for ill. Copyright by ALISON NICOLE CRANE REIHELD 2010 I dedicate this work to my husband Bert and my sons Robbie and Alexander who have supported me as I dedicated myself to the task of researching and writing this dissertation; for Robbie in particular, whose memory for the trivial and important is a joy, and whose memory for transgressions—real or perceived—keeps me on my toes; and for wee Alexander, who will see far more of me now. We are who we are because of what we remember and have forgotten about the world. ? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the specific support of a number of folks. To them, I offer my gratitude and appreciation. To the Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University—staff, faculty, and administrators—whose material and moral support during the early stages of the writing provided a place for me to work, equipment and supplies with which to do so, and the encouragement to complete the task. To my colleagues at in the Department of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville who supported me as I began a new position while completing this work and have welcomed me as a peer. And last but by no means least, to my dissertation committee—Tom Tomlinson, Tamra Frei, Rob Pennock, and Jim Nelson—whose own work and their expectations of mine have prompted me to achieve what I hope is one of the best versions of this work in all the possible worlds in which I have completed it. Vl TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 . 1 Motivation for the Project and Framing 2 1 .2 Memory as Morally Significant 7 1.3 Cases 9 1 .4 Moral Worth and Moral Desirability 15 1.5 What This Dissertation Is Not and What It Is 20 CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF MEMORY 24 2.1 Early Philosophical Investigations of Memory 26 2.2 Memory in Science, Psychology, and Sociology 33 2.2. 1 Memory in individual humans 35 2.2. 1 .A Declarative Memory 36 2.2. 1 .B Non-Declarative Memory 43 2.2.1 .C O Memory! Thou fond deceiver: Errors in Declarative Memory.. ..46 2.3 When Individuals and Collectives Interact 57 2.4 Individual Memory Beyond the Brain 62 2.5 Collective Memory 65 2.5.1 Some Mechanisms of Collective Memory 77 2.5.1 .A Screen Memories 77 2.5.1 .B Distanciation 80 2.5.1 .C Instrumentalization 83 2.5.1 .D Narrativization 85 2.5.1 .E Cognitivization and Conventionalization 87 2.5.1 .F Testimony and Tribunal 89 2.6 Summary of Individual and Collective Aspects of Memory 91 2.7 The Ontology of Memory 92 2.8 Conclusion 97 CHAPTER 3 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY, PRAISE, AND BLAME 101 3.1 The Principle of Alternate Possibilities: A modern version of the classically appealing choice-based autonomous theory of moral responsibility 1 05 3 .2 Beyond Volitional Accounts of Moral Responsibility 121 3.2.1 Nomy Arpaly's Distinction Between Moral Desirability and Moral Worthl21 3.2.2 Reasons-Responsiveness and Moral Worth: The Key to Responsibility.... 126 VII 3.2.3 What We Are Responsible For 131 3.2.4 Blameworthiness and Praiseworthiness Are About Warrant, Not Whether It Is Desirable to Blame or Praise 135 3.2.5 Different Degrees of Praiseworthiness and Blameworthiness Exist 137 3.3 The Upshot 139 CHAPTER 4 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR MEMORY 141 4.1 Moral Desirability, Moral Worth, and Moral Saints with Respect to Memory. 143 4.2 Moral Blameworthiness and Praiseworthiness for Individual Memory 149 4.2.1 What Came Before: literature on the ethics of memory 1 49 4.2.2 The Moral Desirability and Worth of Individual Memory 1 57 4.3 Moral Blameworthiness and Praiseworthiness for Collective Memory 1 87 4.4 Conclusion 205 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 208 5.1 The Story So Far 208 5.2 Implications for Other Matters 209 5.2.1 Neuroethics 209 5.2.2 The Ethics of Ethical Expertise 213 5.2.3 Some Ethical Dimensions of Social and Political Philosophy 214 5.3 Toward a Reflective Ethics of Memory 218 BIBLIOGRAPHY 219 VlIl Chapter 1: Introduction We are the sum ofthe stories we tell ourselves, and those stories are necessarily rooted in our experience, and by how we choose to interpret the experiences ofothers. These mechanics ofmemory create a new, present reality that then determines thefuture... the future and the past and the present are all mixed up together. What we choose to remember is critical, since the narratives thatplay in our heads shape everything. — John Meacham, "The Stories We Tell Ourselves" (my emphasis) This dissertation deals with moral responsibility, blame, and praise for both individual and collective memory. The two are not as separate as you might think, for though individual memory is based in the individual's biology—the functions of the brain—it is also the case that individuals are members of collectives and that our individual memories are shaped by social interaction to a surprising degree. Once we begin considering how collectives influence individual memory, it is a very short path to asking how individuals influence collective memory and to considering collective memory in and of itself. This makes moral agency for memory—whether individual or collective—a very complex thing. Thus, determining moral blameworthiness or praiseworthiness for memory behaviors also becomes complex. I intend to perform a task with regard to individual memory and moral responsibility that philosophers generally do quite well. That is, to take something we have thought to be quite simple or unremarkable, to reveal that it is complicated, and then 1 to make some headway towards resolving those complications. When I do this for non- philosophers in teaching or in scholarship, they often say, "You're making it harder than it has to be." My response is, "You're making it simpler than it is." And while persons often get away with making things simpler than they are, it is a spectacularly bad idea to try when dealing with matters of import such as health care, justifications for war, or subjects for which we commonly blame and praise each other unreflectively, such as memory.