CONCURRENT SESSION PAPERS

John Locke on Personal Identity Namita Nimbalkar* *PhD. Head, Department of Philosophy; Director, Gandhian Studies Centre, Birla College, Kalyan Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

John Locke speaks of personal identity and survival of death. A criterion of personal identity through time is given. Such a criterion specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the survival of persons. John Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. He considered personal identity (or the self) to be founded on consciousness (viz. Memory), and not on the substance of either the soul or the body.

Key Words Personal Identity; Consciousness; Self; Memory; Survival after death

INTRODUCTION mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas. The issue of personal identity and its determents has been always an issue of concern for a lot of philosophers. Questions Locke creates a third term between the soul and the body - are raised as to what does being the person that you are, from and Locke’s thought may certainly be meditated by those who, one day to the next, necessarily consist in? Personal identity following a scientist ideology, would identify too quickly the theory is the philosophical confrontation with the most brain to consciousness. For the brain, as the body and as any ultimate questions of our own existence: who are we, and is substance, may change, while consciousness remains the same. there a life after death? This sort of analysis of personal identity Therefore personal identity is not in the brain, but in provides a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the consciousness. However, Locke’s theory also reveals his debt identity of the person over time. In the modern philosophy of to theology and to Apocalyptic “great day”, which by advance mind, this concept of personal identity is sometimes referred excuse any failings of human justice and therefore humanity’s to as the diachronic problem of personal identity. The miserable state. The problem of personal identity is at the synchronic problem is grounded in the question of what center of discussions about life after death, and immortality. features or traits characterize a given person at one time. In order to exist after death, there has to be a person after There are several general theories of this identity problem. In death who is the same person as the person who died. this paper the views of John Locke and criticism of his theory of personal identity will be examined. Consciousness can be transferred from one soul to another AGAINST CARTESIAN THEORY Locke holds that consciousness can be transferred from one John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was one of soul to another, and that personal identity goes with the philosophers who were against the Cartesian theory that consciousness. In section 12 of the Chapter of Identity and soul accounts for personal identity. Chapter XXVII “On Identity Diversity he raises the question: “…if the same Substance and Diversity” in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) which thinks be changed, it can be the same person, or has been said to be one of the first modern conceptualization remaining the same, it can be a different person.” Locke’s of consciousness as the repeated self-identification of oneself answer to both of these questions is affirmative. Consciousness in which Locke gives his account of identity and personal can be transferred from one substance to another and thus identity to the second edition of the Essay. Locke holds that while the soul is changed, consciousness remains the same personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. Arguing and thus personal identity is preserved through the change. against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful And on the other hand, consciousness can be lost as in utter and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately forgetfulness while the soul or thinking substance remains knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an “empty” the same. Under these conditions there is the same soul but a

136 Seminar on Mind, Brain and Consciousness, Jan 2010 Namita Nimbalkar :John Locke on Personal Identity different person. These affirmations amount to the claim that my memory of an experience that makes it mine; rather, I the same soul or thinking substance is neither necessary not remember it only because it’s already mine. So while memory sufficient for personal identity over time. can reveal my identity with some past experiencer, it does not make that experiencer me. What I am remembering, then, Though the distinction between man and person is insists Butler, are the experiences of a substance, namely, the controversial, Locke’s distinction between the soul or the thing same substance that constitutes me now. which thinks in us and consciousness is even more radical. One answer is that the distinction solves the problem of the Thomas Reid was against Locke’s memory theory and tried to resurrection of the dead. What is this problem? The problem reduce it to absurdity. He criticized his theories for several begins with Biblical texts asserting that we will have the same reasons. Firstly, Reid believed that personal identity is body at the Resurrection as we did in this life. something that cannot be determined by operations, and that personal identity should be determined by something The prince and the cobbler indivisible. Also, he states that Locke’s main problem is Locke explicitly tells us that the case of the prince and the confusing evidence of something with the thing itself. Finally cobbler shows us the resolution of the problem of the Reid introduces the officer paradox in an attempt to reduce resurrection. The case is one in which the soul of the prince Locke’s Memory theory to Absurdity. Suppose that as he is with all of its princely thoughts is transferred from the body stealing the enemy’s standard, a forty-year-old brave officer of the prince to the body of the cobbler, the cobbler’s soul remembers stealing apples from a neighbor’s orchard when having departed. The result of this exchange, is that the prince he was ten, and then suppose further that when he is eighty still consider himself the prince, even though he finds himself years old, a retired general, he remembers stealing the enemy’s in an altogether new body. Locke’s distinction between man standard as a brave officer but no longer remembers stealing and person makes it possible for the same person to show up the neighbor’s apples. On Locke’s account the general would in a different body at the resurrection and yet still be the same have to be both identical to the apple-stealer (because of the person. Locke focuses on the prince with all his princely transitivity of the identity relation: he’s identical to the brave thoughts because, on his view, it is consciousness which is officer, who himself is identical to the apple-stealer) and not crucial to the reward and punishment which is to be meted identical to the apple-stealer (given that he has no direct out at the Last Judgment. memory of the boy’s experiences) . Locke famously called “person” a forensic term, “appropriating Another objection is based precisely on the link between actions and their merit; and so belongs only to intelligent identity and ethics: how can identity — sameness — be based agents capable of a law, and happiness, and misery”. This means, on a relation (consciousness) that changes from moment to then, that an account of the identity of persons across time will moment? A person would never remain the same from one have forensic — normative — implications. And so it does. moment to the next, “and as the right and justice of reward and punishment are founded on personal identity, no man But this interesting border-case leads to this problematic could be responsible for his actions”. But such an implication thought that since personal identity is based on consciousness, must be absurd. And Butler concurs, expanding the point to and that only oneself can be aware of his consciousness, include considerations of self-concern: exterior human judges may never know if they really are judging - and punishing - the same person, or simply the same Both Reid and Butler, then, wind up rejecting Locke’s relational body. In other words, Locke argues that you may be judged view in favor of a substance-based view of identity. only for the acts of your body, as this is what is apparent to all What Butler and Reid retain in common with Locke, though, is but God; however, you are in truth only responsible for the the belief that identity grounds certain of our patterns of acts for which you are conscious. This forms the basis of the concern, both prudential and moral. As Reid puts it, “Identity insanity defense: one cannot be held accountable for acts . . . is the foundation of all rights and obligations, and of from which one was unconscious - and therefore leads to accountableness, and the notion of it is fixed and precise”. interesting philosophical questions and criticisms. What they disagree over is just what identity consists in. So if CRITICS Locke’s view were right, say Reid and Butler, it would require a host of radical changes to our practices of responsibility There are several philosophers who criticized the Lockean attribution and prudential deliberation. But, continues the memory theory, and stated that it is circular and illogical. argument, because making such changes would be crazy — Joseph Butler accuses Locke of a “wonderful mistake,” which we are strongly committed to the correctness of our current is that he failed to recognize that the relation of consciousness ways of doing things — Locke’s view cannot be right. And presupposes identity, and thus cannot constitute it. In other although Locke disagrees that the implications of his view are words, I can remember only my own experiences, but it is not

Seminar on Mind, Brain and Consciousness, Jan 2010 137 Namita Nimbalkar :John Locke on Personal Identity crazy, he does agree to the basic methodology. So while he writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop admits that he has made some suppositions “that will look negative associations. It also led to the development of strange to some readers”, he is also at pains to show that our psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley’s practices are actually already in conformity with the attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism implications of his view, e.g., human law emphasizes the in his Observations on Man (1749). necessity of continuous consciousness, “not punishing the mad man for the sober man’s actions, nor the sober man for CONFLICT OF INTEREST what the mad man did”. And this is a methodological None declared. assumption that has been retained by most theorists on identity and ethics since. DECLARATION Nevertheless, even if this objection to Locke is thwarted, the This is my original, unpublished paper. others remain in force. For one thing, memory does seem to presuppose personal identity, and so cannot constitute a REFERENCES criterion of it. For another, identity is a transitive relation, 1. Baird F.E., Kaufmann W., (2008), From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle while memory isn’t, so the latter can’t be a criterion of the River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 2. Becker C. L., (1922), The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the former. Finally, there is the obvious worry that identity seems History of Political Ideas. Harcourt, Brace. to persist through the loss of memory: it’s hard to believe that 3. Butler J. Of personal identity. In J. Angus, ed. The Analogy of Religion. London. I would cease to exist were I to undergo amnesia. It’s for all 4. Laslett P., (1988), “Introduction: Locke and Hobbes”. Two Treatises on these reasons that contemporary theorists working in the Government. Cambridge University Press. Lockean tradition have had to make significant changes to the 5. Locke J., (1689), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Woolhouse, Roger, London: Penguin, 1997 theory to make it a viable contender for the relation between 6. Locke J., (1996), Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the identity and ethics. Conduct of the Understanding. Eds. Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. 7. Perry J. ed. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. CONCLUSION 8. Reid T., (1975), Of identity. Of Mr. Locke’s account of our personal identity. In: Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Reprinted in Locke’s account of personal identity turned out to be Perry, ed. revolutionary. His account of personal identity is embedded 9. Russell G.A.,(1994), The ‘Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England. Brill Publishers in a general account of identity. Locke also wrote that “the 10. Shoemaker S., (1963), Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity, Ithaca, New little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies York: Cornell University Press 11. The American International Encyclopedia, (1954), J.J. Little have very important and lasting consequences.” He argued Company, New York, Volume 9. that the “associations of ideas” that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are INTERNET CITATIONS the foundation of the self: they are, put differently, what first http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/465714/ mark the tabula rasa. In his Essay, in which is introduced both john_lockes_theory_of_personal_identity.html?cat=38, cited on 11 November, 2009 of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/, citedon 11 November, 2009 http:/ “a foolish maid” convince a child that “goblins and sprites” /plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/index.html#return-1 cited on 11 are associated with the night for “darkness shall ever November, 2009 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/supplement.html cited on 12 afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be November, 2009 so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/personal_identity_(philosophy) cited on 12 November, 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke cited on 13 November, 2009 “Associationism”, as this theory would come to be called, http://mbdefault.org/8_identity/default.asp cited on 13 November, 2009 exerted a powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_(philosophy) cited on 15 particularly educational theory, as nearly every educational November, 2009

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