Memory and Dignity. Can We Stay Human?

Paul Ricoeur’s studies have left us with a significant legacy of reflections on memory, identity and history. Today, this legacy can help us uphold a fundamental moral value: dignity. Building on reflections on the dual nature of dignity as “active” and “passive”, this contribution considers the narrative construction of individual and collective memory, particularly with regard to the attribution of memories and dignity to the moral subject. The vanished squares of medieval Rome, Ajax in Sophocles’ tragedy, the protagonist of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four who cannot forget a particular gesture: these are the figures we turn to in order to explain how we can save human dignity. Finally, we aim to establish whether the concepts of dignity and memory, as interpreted by Ricoeur, can still serve as ethical guides when faced with the challenges posed by biomedical technologies and robotics.