LOCKE 3:
PERSONAL IDENTITY
WHO YOU ARE IS DEFINED
BY THE SCOPE
OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS
John Locke (1632 – 1704)
British Empiricist
Primary-Secondary
Quality Distinction
Personal Identity
Political Philosophy
[Background]
Locke was pondering how a person could
survive bodily death (religion).
For Locke, Descartes, etc. (Christianity):
(Same) man = (Same) body + soul.
Body dies, but soul lives eternally.
But all souls have same essence:
thought/consciousness.
So only accidental properties can distinguish
one soul from another:
contents of thought/consciousness
Definition of “Person”
“…thinking, intelligent being, that has
reason and reflection, and can
consider itself as itself, the same
thinking thing, in different times and
places.” (366)
Locke’s Concept of Personal ID
“Consciousness always accompanies
thinking.” (366)
SO: sameness of thinking being
[identity] reaches “as far as this
consciousness can be extended
backwards to any past action or
thought” (366)
Implication 1
It is irrelevant whether a thinking being
has same substance or not (366-7)
[God is a functionalist? Or Locke?]
Analogy:
one life in a changing body
is analogous to
one person in a changing substance
Implication 2
Resurrection is possible:
same person in different body (367).
Note: one will remain same person even
without a body, that is, as a mere soul.
Resurrection refers to the reassembly and
perfection of one’s body
—as a home for ones soul.
Implication 3
Prince’s soul in body of Cobbler
Locke’s thought experiment:
A cobbler comes to have the same
(qualitatively) memories (skills? passions?
Vices?) as a prince.
Locke’s conceptualization:
The cobbler is the same (numerically)
person as Prince, but different man. (367)
Implication 4
What about memory loss?
If your memory of a past action or event
is wholly lost: then you are not same
person who did that action or
witnessed that event.
Problem for Locke’s theory of personal
ID?
What about false memories?