Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie that deals with many different ethical issues involving memory loss. The movie is shown in a backwards fashion about the relationship of Joel, and Clementine. Joel and clementine meet (again), after having their memories erased by Dr.Mierzwiak. Joel finds out a few days later after going to Barnes and Noble that Clementine had Joel erased from her memory after a big fight. This in turn caused Joel to want to have Clementine erased from his. The first memories are pretty bad as one would expect, but when the memories of the beginning of the relationship start to show Joel realizes he doesn’t want to lose them. However, since he is asleep during the procedure he can’t wake himself up to communicate to the doctors, which leads to all the memories being erased. Three key examples …show more content…
Mill argued that as long as I am not harming anyone else, my “independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” While his take on utilitarianism was still questioned he also believed that we should maximize utility not case by case, but in the long run. With this practice in place, over time respecting individual liberties would lead to the greatest human happiness. In regards to the same ethical issue of Clementine erasing Joel from her memory, I believe Mill would potentially disagree with the overall procedure. Yes, Clementine is achieving happiness and she is free to do whatever she wants, but in the long run she is hurting Joel. She hurts Joel in a mental way because he had no clue what had happened to her and is upset when he finds out, as anyone would be. It would hurt me knowing I was erased from someone’s memory that I had once cared about. So I cant even imagine how Joel must’ve felt when he did found out about the