John Locke On Personal Identity

Mens Sana Monogr. 2011 Jan-December; 9(1): 268–275.

John Locke on Personal Identity^**

Namita Nimbalkar

^* Head, Section of Philosophy; Director, Gandhian Studies Eye, Birla College, Kalyan, Maharashtra, India.

Received 2010 Dec 8; Revised 2010 December 23; Accepted 2010 December 23.

Abstract

John Locke speaks of personal identity and survival of consciousness after death. A criterion of personal identity through fourth dimension is given. Such a criterion specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient weather condition for the survival of persons. John Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. He considered personal identity (or the cocky) to be founded on consciousness (viz. memory), and non on the substance of either the soul or the body.

Keywords: Personal Identity, Consciousness, Self, Memory, Survival later on decease

Introduction

The result of personal identity and its determents has always been of concern for many philosophers. Questions are raised equally to what does being the person that you are, from one mean solar day to the next, necessarily consist of. Personal identity theory is the philosophical confrontation with the ultimate questions of our own existence, such as who are nosotros, and is there a life after death? This sort of analysis of personal identity provides a set up of necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity of the person over time. In the modern philosophy of mind, this concept of personal identity is sometimes referred to as the diachronic problem of personal identity. The synchronic problem is grounded in the question of what features or traits characterise a given person at once. At that place are several full general theories of this identity problem. In this paper, the views of John Locke and a criticism of his theory of personal identity are presented.

Against Cartesian Theory

John Locke (29 Baronial 1632-28 October 1704) was i of the philosophers who were against the Cartesian theory that soul accounts for personal identity. Affiliate XXVII on "Identity and Diversity" in An Essay Concerning Human Agreement (Locke, 1689/1997) has been said to be ane of the first modern conceptualisations of consciousness every bit the repeated self-identification of oneself, in which Locke gives his account of identity and personal identity in the second edition of the Essay. Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an "empty" mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by experience, and sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas.

Locke creates a third term betwixt the soul and the body, and Locke'south idea may certainly be meditated by those who, post-obit a scientist credo, would place too quickly the brain with consciousness. For the brain, as the body and as any substance, may change, while consciousness remains the aforementioned. Therefore, personal identity is not in the brain, but in consciousness. Nonetheless, Locke'due south theory also reveals his debt to theology and to Apocalyptic "dandy day", which in advance excuses any failings of human justice and therefore humanity's miserable land. The problem of personal identity is at the centre of discussions about life after death and immortality. In gild to be after death, there has to exist a person after expiry who is the same person as the person who died.

Consciousness Can Be Transferred from 1 Soul to Another

Locke holds that consciousness can exist transferred from one soul to another and that personal identity goes with consciousness. In section 12 of the chapter "Identity and Multifariousness", he raises the question, "…if the aforementioned Substance which thinks be changed, it tin exist the same person, or remaining the same, information technology can be a different person" (Locke, 1689/1997). Locke's answer to both of these questions is in the affirmative. Consciousness can exist transferred from one substance to some other, and thus, while the soul is changed, consciousness remains the same, thereby preserving the personal identity through the alter. On the other hand, consciousness can exist lost as in utter forgetfulness while the soul or thinking substance remains the aforementioned. Under these conditions, there is the aforementioned soul but a dissimilar person. These affirmations amount to the claim that the same soul or thinking substance is neither necessary nor sufficient for personal identity over time.

Though the stardom between homo and person is controversial, Locke's distinction between the soul or the matter which thinks in us and consciousness is even more than radical. One answer is that the distinction solves the problem of the resurrection of the expressionless. What is this trouble? The problem begins with Biblical texts asserting that we will have the same body at the resurrection as we did in this life.

The Prince and the Cobbler

Locke explicitly tells u.s.a. that the case of the prince and the cobbler (Feser, 2007, p 66-68) shows u.s. the resolution of the trouble of resurrection. The instance is 1 in which the soul of the prince, with all of its princely thoughts, is transferred from the body of the prince to the trunk of the cobbler, the cobbler'due south soul having departed. The upshot of this exchange is that the prince still considers himself the prince, even though he finds himself in an altogether new body. Locke's distinction betwixt man and person makes it possible for the same person to show up in a different torso at the resurrection and nonetheless still be the same person. Locke focusses on the prince with all his princely thoughts because in his view, it is consciousness which is crucial to the reward and punishment which is to be meted out at the Last Judgment (Uzgalis, 2007). Locke famously called "person" a forensic term, "appropriating actions and their merit; and then belongs only to intelligent agents capable of a police, and happiness, and misery" (Feser, 2007, p70). This means, then, that an account of the identity of persons across fourth dimension will have forensic - normative - implications. And so it does.

But this interesting edge instance leads to this problematic thought that since personal identity is based on consciousness, and that simply oneself can be aware of his consciousness, exterior human judges may never know if they actually are judging - and punishing - the same person, or simply the same body. In other words, Locke argues that y'all may be judged just for the acts of your trunk, every bit this is what is credible to all but God; however, y'all are in truth merely responsible for the acts for which y'all are witting. This forms the ground of the insanity defence: one cannot be held accountable for acts of which one was unconscious - and therefore leads to interesting philosophical questions and criticisms.

Critics

In that location are several philosophers who criticised the Lockean memory theory and stated that it was circular and illogical. Joseph Butler accused Locke of a "wonderful fault", which is that he failed to recognise that the relation of consciousness presupposes identity, and thus cannot constitute it (Butler, 1736). In other words, I can remember merely my own experiences, simply information technology is not my memory of an experience that makes information technology mine; rather, I retrieve it only considering it's already mine. So while memory tin reveal my identity with some past experiencer, information technology does not make that experiencer me. What I am remembering, then, insists Butler, are the experiences of a substance, namely, the same substance that constitutes me now.

Thomas Reid was against Locke's memory theory and tried to reduce it to absurdity (Reid, 1785). He criticised his theories for several reasons. Firstly, Reid believed that personal identity was something that could not be determined by operations, and that personal identity should be determined past something indivisible. As well, he stated that Locke's main problem was confusing evidence of something with the thing itself. Finally Reid introduced the officeholder paradox in an endeavour to reduce Locke'southward Memory theory to absurdity. Suppose that as he was stealing the enemy's standard ("standard" is the food store or nutrient provisions), a 40-twelvemonth-quondam brave officer remembered stealing apples from a neighbour'southward orchard when he was 10 years sometime; and then suppose further that when he was 80 years quondam, a retired general, he remembered stealing the enemy'due south standard as a brave officer simply no longer remembered stealing the neighbour'due south apples. On Locke'southward business relationship, the full general would have to be both identical to the apple tree-stealer (because of the transitivity of the identity relation: he was identical to the brave officer, who himself was identical to the apple-stealer) and non identical to the apple-stealer (given that he had no direct memory of the boy's experiences).

Some other objection is based precisely on the link between identity and ethics: how can identity - sameness - be based on a relation (consciousness) that changes from moment to moment? A person would never remain the aforementioned from one moment to the next, "and as the correct and justice of advantage and punishment are founded on personal identity, no human could be responsible for his actions" (Reid, 1785, p117). But such an implication must exist absurd. Also, Butler concurs, expanding the point to include considerations of self-concern.

Both Reid and Butler, and then, wind upwards rejecting Locke's relational view in favour of a substance-based view of identity (Shoemaker, 2008). What Butler and Reid retain in common with Locke, though, is the belief that identity grounds certain of our patterns of business organisation, both prudential and moral. As Reid puts it, "Identity… is the foundation of all rights and obligations, and of accountableness, and the notion of it is fixed and precise" (Reid, 1785, p-112). What they disagree over is just what identity consists of. And then, if Locke's view were right, say Reid and Butler, information technology would require a host of radical changes to our practices of responsibility attribution and prudential deliberation. Merely, continues the argument, considering making such changes would be crazy - we are strongly committed to the definiteness of our current ways of doing things - Locke's view cannot be right. And although Locke disagrees that the implications of his view are crazy, he does concord with the basic methodology. And then, while he admits that he has made some suppositions "that will look strange to some readers" (Locke, 1694, p51), he is also at pains to show that our practices are actually already in conformity with the implications of his view, for instance, human law emphasizes the necessity of continuous consciousness, "not punishing the mad man for the sober man's actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did" (Locke, 1694, p47). And this is a methodological supposition that has been retained by near theorists on identity and ethics since.

Notwithstanding, even if this objection to Locke is thwarted, the others remain in force. For one affair, memory does seem to presuppose personal identity, and so cannot constitute a benchmark of information technology. For another, identity is a transitive relation, while memory isn't, so the latter cannot exist a criterion of the former. Finally, at that place is the obvious worry that identity seems to persist through the loss of memory: it's hard to believe that I would cease to exist were I to undergo amnesia. It's for all these reasons that contemporary theorists working in the Lockean tradition have had to make significant changes to the theory to make it a feasible contender for the relation betwixt identity and ethics (Shoemaker, 2008).

Concluding Remarks [see also Figures one and 2]

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Flowchart of newspaper - the problem

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Flowchart of paper - the resolution

Locke's account of personal identity turned out to be revolutionary. His account of personal identity is embedded in a full general account of identity. Locke likewise wrote, "the footling and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies take very important and lasting consequences" (Locke, 1996, p10). He argued that the "associations of ideas" that one makes when young are more important than those fabricated after because they are the foundation of the self: they are, put differently, what outset mark the tabula rasa. In his Essay, in which is introduced both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be and so joined, that he can no more than carry the i than the other" (Locke, 1689/1997, p357).

"Associationism", as this theory came to exist called, exerted a powerful influence over eighteen^th-century thought, peculiarly educational theory, as most every educational writer warned parents not to permit their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines, with David Hartley's try to discover a biological machinery for associationism in his Observations on Man (Hartley, 1749).

Have Dwelling house Message

Personal identity for Locke is psychological continuity. But his theory is criticised by both Butler and Reid equally a "wonderful fault" or "reduced to absurdity". However, Locke'southward theory has had a profound influence in the field of educational activity and the development of psychology.

Questions That This Paper Raises

Autonomously from retention or consciousness, can any other trait of personal identity persist after the death of an individual?
How can a link between identity and ethics exist established based on Locke's model of personal identity?
What is the affect of Locke's theory of identity in the field of educational activity and its implications in formulation of education policy in the current scenario?

About the Writer

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Namita A. Nimbalkar, Chiliad.A., Ph.D., is an Banana Professor and Head, Section of Philosophy, and Director, UGC Sponsored Gandhian Studies Heart and Coordinator, Centre for Yoga - Philosophy and Exercise at Birla Higher, Kalyan (G.South.) India. She was awarded Research Fellowship by UGC, New Delhi, and awarded Ph.D. caste in July 2009 by University of Mumbai on "Gandhi's Concept of Organized religion and Communal Harmony". She had been invited as resources person both at National and International level to requite talks on Mahatma Gandhi, Peace and Women Empowerment. She has presented a number of research papers at National and International Seminars and Conferences. She has completed two Research Projects and is working on 2 projects awarded by University of Mumbai and UGC, New Delhi. Under Faculty Commutation Plan, she visited Clayton State University, Atlanta, United states of america, and in 2010 was invited to deliver a talk on Mahatma Gandhi.

Footnotes

Conflict of interest: None declared

Declaration

This is original, unpublished piece of work, non submitted for publication elsewhere.

Commendation: Nimbalkar N., (2011), John Locke on Personal Identity. In: Brain, Mind and Consciousness: An International, Interdisciplinary Perspective (A.R. Singh and S.A. Singh eds.), MSM, 9(1), p268-275.

References

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