Memory- A ToK Essay
Memory
‘Memory – like liberty – is a fragile thing’ – Elizabeth Loftus. What does this statement suggest about memory as a way of knowing in the pursuit of ethical knowledge?
Loftus suggests that memory, like liberty (i.e. freedom), is something that can easily be manipulated due to its delicate nature. The title assumes that we can recall on past events in order to draw reasonable conclusions surrounding ethical issues. In order to understand the question raised in the title more easily it could be rephrased as follows; ‘Is memory a reliable way of knowing when drawing conclusions based on ethical matters?’. There are weaknesses when looking at only one way of knowing because it prevents us from having a comprehensive understanding of a situation and so can lead to unreliable knowledge claims. In reality we need to evaluate a situation using several ways of knowing before it can be understood completely. In this question we are asked to consider memory, however we are not told whether this is a collective or an individual memory. When evaluating ethical issues it would be more useful to look at our collective knowledge because it would give us a better conceptual apparatus and lead to more accurate knowledge claims. This is because when looking at memories from a large group of people you are more likely to get an accurate representation of what actually occurred during an event because you can ‘filter out’ things like false memories (an apparent recollection of an event which did not actually occur). For example, it would be better to use the collective memories of several people when evaluating the ethical issues surrounding WW2. This is because it would be useful to compare the memories of people who had actually experienced the war, for example a solider or prisoner of war, versus those of whom had only heard or read about it, in order to gain a more ‘complete’ understanding of the issues being discussed.
However, using memory as a way of knowing can
‘Memory – like liberty – is a fragile thing’ – Elizabeth Loftus. What does this statement suggest about memory as a way of knowing in the pursuit of ethical knowledge?
Loftus suggests that memory, like liberty (i.e. freedom), is something that can easily be manipulated due to its delicate nature. The title assumes that we can recall on past events in order to draw reasonable conclusions surrounding ethical issues. In order to understand the question raised in the title more easily it could be rephrased as follows; ‘Is memory a reliable way of knowing when drawing conclusions based on ethical matters?’. There are weaknesses when looking at only one way of knowing because it prevents us from having a comprehensive understanding of a situation and so can lead to unreliable knowledge claims. In reality we need to evaluate a situation using several ways of knowing before it can be understood completely. In this question we are asked to consider memory, however we are not told whether this is a collective or an individual memory. When evaluating ethical issues it would be more useful to look at our collective knowledge because it would give us a better conceptual apparatus and lead to more accurate knowledge claims. This is because when looking at memories from a large group of people you are more likely to get an accurate representation of what actually occurred during an event because you can ‘filter out’ things like false memories (an apparent recollection of an event which did not actually occur). For example, it would be better to use the collective memories of several people when evaluating the ethical issues surrounding WW2. This is because it would be useful to compare the memories of people who had actually experienced the war, for example a solider or prisoner of war, versus those of whom had only heard or read about it, in order to gain a more ‘complete’ understanding of the issues being discussed.
However, using memory as a way of knowing can