NCJ Number
187161
Journal
Criminal Justice Ethics Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Dated: Summer/Fall 2000 Pages: 17-31
Date Published
2000
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the concept that an individual has continuing responsibility through time for criminal acts, particularly the role of memory in the assignment of such responsibility; a central argument of the paper is that at the instant a person commits an immoral or criminal act, neither moral nor criminal responsibility should be assumed for all time.
Abstract
The author argues that memories of doing a wrongful act, as well as of one's self and one's life at the time of doing the act, are preconditions for being held responsible for that wrong, and hence liable for punishment. He further argues that loss of memory of these matters relieves a person of moral responsibility for an act, even if he continues to share strong connections with the prior self who committed the wrong. Thus, an offender whose character, personality, and moral beliefs have remained substantially unchanged, and who still has substantial memories of most parts of his prior life, ought not to be liable for punishment if he has suffered a loss of memory with respect to the period of his life during which he committed a particular offense. Many non-reductionists have argued that moral responsibility attaches to an individual at the time of the wrong and does not diminish over time. Exceptions are made only when the individual suffers some form of mental catastrophe that undermines his capacity to have moral responsibility attributed to him. The non-reductionist view does not countenance the possibility that a person may cease to have responsibility for a past wrong simply because an intervening mental accident impaired his memory of his life at the time of the wrong but left his other mental faculties intact. This paper criticizes this non-reductionist view of the irrelevance of memory to liability for punishment. Memory of our past life must be a condition of continuing responsibility for past actions. If a retributivist justification of punishment is to remain coherent, this understanding of the role of memory in continuing responsibility for punishment must be reflected in sentencing practice. 42 notes