Victims of wrongdoing are frequently encouraged to forgive in order to move forward in peace. Victims who keep reminding the perpetrators of the past wrongdoing might be accused of not having forgiven at all. Arguably, real healing will be achieved by victims who let bygones be bygones, who forgive and forget. However, victims of extreme wrongdoing are also regularly encouraged to participate in memorials and collective acts of remembrance which repeatedly pull them back to condemn the past wrongdoing. We are told that remembrance is part of the vigilance required in order to protect against wrongs of this kind being perpetrated again. These victims are told that they should forgive but never forget. In this talk I will ask whether we can resolve the tension between these two claims by thinking more carefully about the conceptual relationship between forgiving and forgetting, and about the moral function of remembrance.
