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2018 Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics (1/3): Dementia and the Social Scaffold of Memory

Series
Uehiro Lectures: Practical solutions for ethical challenges
Lecture 1 of 3. Who we are depends in part on the social world in which we live. In these lectures I look at some consequences for three mental health problems, broadly construed: dementia, addiction, and psychosomatic illness.
Loss of memory is a central feature of dementia. On a Lockean picture of personal identity, as memory is lost, so is the person. But the initial effect of dementia is not the simple destruction of memory. Many memories can be recognized with suitable prompting and scaffolding, something that thoughtful family and friends will naturally offer. This suggests a problem of access. More radically, if memory itself is a constructive process, it suggests a problem of missing resources for construction - resources which can be provided by others. This applies equally to procedural memories—to the practical skills likewise threatened by dementia. This leads us away from a narrowly Lockean approach: the power to recognize a memory, or exercise a skill, may be as important as the power to recall; and contributions from others may be as important as those from the subject.

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Uehiro Lectures: Practical solutions for ethical challenges

2017 Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics (3/3) Obligations to the Needy: Some Empirical Worries and Uncomfortable Philosophical Possibilities

In this final lecture, Professor Temkin considers possible negative impacts of global efforts to aid the needy, and reviews the main claims and arguments of all three Lectures
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Uehiro Lectures: Practical solutions for ethical challenges

2018 Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics (2/3): Addiction, Desire and the Polluted Environment

Lecture 2 of 3. Who we are depends in part on the social world in which we live. In these lectures I look at some consequences for three mental health problems, broadly construed: dementia, addiction, and psychosomatic illness.
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Episode Information

Series
Uehiro Lectures: Practical solutions for ethical challenges
People
Richard Holton
Keywords
Dementia
memory
locke
identity
Department: Uehiro Oxford Institute
Date Added: 05/06/2018
Duration: 00:59:45

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