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A Duty to Remember, a Right to Forget? Memory Manipulations and the Law

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Handbook of Neuroethics

Abstract

Neuroscience might develop interventions that afford editing or erasing memories, changing their content or attenuating accompanying emotions. This section provides an introduction to the intriguing ethical and legal questions raised by such alterations, with a special focus on the report of the President’s Council “Beyond Therapy” and the proposal of a right to freedom of memory advanced by Adam Kolber.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A contemporary review of repression theory; see Erdelyi (2006).

  2. 2.

    There will be many obstacles, especially in targeting specific memories; see, e.g., Levy (2007), Ch. 5.

  3. 3.

    The most famous patient is the recently deceased H.M., c.f. Corkin (2002).

  4. 4.

    For a broad overview c.f. Dresler et al. 2012; for nutrition c.f. Smith et al. (2011), Nehlig (2010); for exercise c.f. Roig et al. (2013), Hötting and Röder (2013); for sleep c.f. Rasch and Born (2013), Genzel et al. (2014); for mnemonics c.f. Karpicke and Roediger (2008), Worthen and Hunt (2010); for brain stimulation c.f. Coffman et al. (2014), Suthana and Fried (2014).

  5. 5.

    For the biological side of PTSD, see Pitman et al. (2012).

  6. 6.

    Some researchers speak of “erasing emotional memories” by which they mean erasure of the emotional aspect only, while ethicists often speak indiscriminately of “blunting” of painful memories. These conceptual ambiguities might lead to misunderstandings and depend on the conception of memory traces. Cf. Holmes et al. (2010). For present purposes, it is only important that emotional and factual contents could, at least to some degree, be targeted and modified independently from each other.

  7. 7.

    The current state of research in humans is less consistent than in animals, partly due to the complexity of interactions between different memory systems during reconsolidation; for a review c.f. Schiller and Phelps (2011).

  8. 8.

    Cf. movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

  9. 9.

    Cf. Parens (2010) who reads the Council as not being opposed to PTSD treatment.

  10. 10.

    In Locke (1979), he wrote of the “sameness of consciousness,” traditionally understood as the memory criterion, but see, e.g., Strawson (2011).

  11. 11.

    For more elaborated treatments on the relation between identity and memory, see Parfit (1984), DeGrazia (2005), Schechtman (2005), Galert and Hartmann (2007).

  12. 12.

    Some memory disorders impair forming a sense of self, e.g., Klein et al. (2004).

  13. 13.

    The “constructive nature of episodic memory is attributable, at least in part, to the role of the episodic system in allowing us to mentally simulate our personal futures,” Schacter and Addis (2007), p. 779, Schacter et al. (2007).

  14. 14.

    In-depth discussions of further ethical aspects are Levy (2007) and Liao and Sandberg (2008).

  15. 15.

    Art. 9 ECHR, Art. 18 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  16. 16.

    Art. 8 ECHR, e.g., Bensaid v. UK, App.No: 44599/98, 6.5.2001.

  17. 17.

    Although not always codified and subject to controversy, human dignity is often understood as the overarching principle of human rights law.

  18. 18.

    A right to remember does of course not entail a duty to remember.

  19. 19.

    In a famous case, the accused confessed the murder of 25 infants after authorities pressured him to remember the events; cf. Levy (2007).

  20. 20.

    A further question is whether third parties – the accused – can bring claims against therapist. In the landmark case Ramona v. Isabella, the court granted a wrongly accused father remedies; see Mullins (1996).

  21. 21.

    Glannon (2010), 240f. The case is taken from TIME, Oct. 15th 2007.

  22. 22.

    The law would probably not accept changes in numerical identity and still consider the person as the same as she was before erasure of autobiographical memory with respect to, e.g., financial obligations. Whether persons can still be punished for crimes committed before is a more intricate question, see, e.g., Dufner (2013).

  23. 23.

    Oath of Buchenwald, April 19, 1945.

  24. 24.

    How to reconcile the duty toward memory with the need to forget is a central theme for Holocaust survivors; cf. the writings of Elie Wiesel, e.g., his Nobel lecture, Dec. 11, 1986 (www.nobelprize.org).

  25. 25.

    See Ricoeur’s (2004), p. 120 discussion of Halbwachs’ ideas who coined the term collective memory.

  26. 26.

    The same can be said about worries to “make the anguish go away”. Is it the anguish of the victim that shall persist or not rather the anguish of noninvolved persons, as an empathic response to the suffering.

  27. 27.

    In special cases, procedural rules recognize painfulness of memories, e.g., in sex-related cases.

  28. 28.

    See Kolber (2006), p. 1589 for a US-specific argument to this end.

  29. 29.

    On occasion, the law might have further interests in unmodified emotions (e.g., in assessing damages), Kolber (2006), p. 1592.

  30. 30.

    Perhaps immediate, taped interrogations to record at least a first unaltered testimony should be developed. But even then some parties have a disadvantage as they cannot cross-examine the witness. Also, in the immediate aftermath it is impossible to predict who will develop trauma, so the interests to be balanced are unclear in the moment in which actions have to be taken. Furthermore, it is often not evident whether memories will be of legal relevance; how long should people wait?

  31. 31.

    Ricoeur (2004) argues that forgiving can be facilitated through forgetting.

  32. 32.

    Furthermore victims have moral claims against perpetrators, e.g., to explain their reasons for actions. Memory erasure could thwart these obligations, which are often not enforceable by law because defendants enjoy privileges against self-incrimination and can remain silent.

  33. 33.

    Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 3.

  34. 34.

    The best analysis is Hammer (2001).

  35. 35.

    Kolber (2006), p. 1621 draws the parallel between physical and emotional wounds. If treating the former raises no worries, why the latter? We suspect because of an (implicit) intuition that soldiers deserve mental torments, which is unconvincing as a general principle.

  36. 36.

    Some countries have mandatory rehabilitation programs for drug users and sex offenders.

  37. 37.

    Cf. § 136a German Code of Criminal Procedure.

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Acknowledgements

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of the first author’s grandmother, Margarethe Bublitz, who passed away during its writing. The work was funded by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Hamburg, Rothenbaumchaussee 33, 20148, Hamburg, Germany

    Christoph Bublitz

  2. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany

    Martin Dresler

  3. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Martin Dresler

Authors
  1. Christoph Bublitz
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  2. Martin Dresler
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Correspondence to Christoph Bublitz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Jens Clausen

  2. The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Neil Levy

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Bublitz, C., Dresler, M. (2015). A Duty to Remember, a Right to Forget? Memory Manipulations and the Law. In: Clausen, J., Levy, N. (eds) Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_167

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_167

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  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4706-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4707-4

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