Memory, Responsibility, and Identity

Ross Poole Memory, Responsibility, and Identity ONE OF THE TASKS OF MEMORY IS TO MAKE AVAILABLE TO US KNOWLEDGE th at we have acquired in the past. Let us call this aspect of m em ory cognitive memory. This kind of memory clearly plays a crucial role in our life—as becomes apparent on those occasions w hen it lets us down. But by and large, and perhaps surprisingly, m ost of its tim e it does its job and the right piece of inform ation comes to m ind m ore or less w hen we need it. Cognitive m emory has been o f special concern to philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists, who have fruitfully investigated how it works, how and w here the inform ation is stored, and how reli­ able it is. My concern in this paper will be different. There is another aspect of memory that is of equal importance: its role of transm itting responsibilities and com m itm ents from the past. If cognitive m emory tells us what we have learned in the past in order that we may better pursue our current projects, this aspect of memory—I will sometimes call it conative m em ory—constrains our pursuit of current projects. If cognitive m em ory is, by and large, good news, conative m em ory is, all too often, bad news. It rem inds us of responsibilities that we have acquired and com m itm ents that we have made, of th at we ought to have done and did not, and it directs us tow ard certain actions that we have to do even though they conflict w ith our current desires and projects. In the first part of this paper, I w ant to look more closely at this notion of conative memory, and examine its role in individual life. My m ain protagonists will be John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche. Locke social research Vol 75 : No 1 : Spring 2 008 263 is significant for his recognition of the intim ate relationship between memory, responsibility, and identity. W hile he did not form ulate a conception of conative m em ory as such (although he came close), I will argue th at his account of responsibility and identity requires it. Nietzsche was probably the first explicitly to recognize this concept w hen he argued th at we need w hat he called a “real m em ory of the will” if we are to have “the right to make promises.” In the second part of the paper, I extend the account of conative m em oiy from the indi­ vidual to collective memoiy, and argue that if we understand the role of collective m em ory in term s derived from Locke and Nietzsche, we will understand its role in the form ation of collective identities and the transm ission of collective responsibilities. Collective m em ory is in part cognitive; but we m ust also recognize it conative role—that is, its role in forming the present will. I will take this opportunity to engage with the im portant work ofJan Assmann. MEMORY OF THE WILL: FROM LOCKE TO NIETZSCHE In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, two chapters deal w ith memory. The first (Locke, 1975: 149-55) was concerned w ith w hat was to become a familiar them e: the way in which ideas from the past are transm itted to the present. The second (Locke, 1975: 328-348) was only added in the second edition and had a rather different agenda: w hat is now, largely because o f Locke, know n as the problem of personal identity. A hint of Locke’s agenda is given by his choice of the term “person.” This was, for Locke and just about everyone else in the seven­ teenth centuiy, “a forensic term , appropriating actions and their m erit” (Locke, 1975: 346; em phasis added). The problem of our identity as persons, as against our identity as organic beings, collections of cells, or whatever, is to specify the conditions under which we m ight properly be held legally and, as Locke makes clear, morally accountable for...