LOCKE’S IDEA ON PERSONAL IDENTITY
BY
MUOGBO
MICHAEL IZUCHUKWU
SS/PP/2368
TERM
PAPER:
JOHN
LOCKE ON PERSONAL IDENTITY
Being a Term Paper submitted to the
Department of Philosophy, Seminary of
Saints Peter and Paul, Bodija, Ibadan, in Affiliation with the
University of Ibadan, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Award
of the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy (B.A. HONS.).
COURSE
INTRODUCTION
TO METAPHYSICS
COURSE
CODE
SS/PHL/104
LECTURER
FR.
DAMIAN ILODIGWE
DATE:
MAY, 2013.
PERSONAL IDENTITY
INTRODUCTION
John Locke is a British empiricist
philosopher, who lived from 1632 to 1704. Locke has written many essays of
which his essays on human understanding and the two treaties of government are
counted among the most important.
Personal
identity is a topic or issue philosophers, precisely the metaphysicians has
been addressing right from the eighteenth century. The problem of identity also
is worth giving attention in this our contemporary time. [1]The
problem is about change: if a thing changes, then is it really the same thing
after the change? And if it is not, how can we even sensibly talk about it? [2]Essays
by different philosophers on personal identity are relevant not only for the
evaluation of the doctrines of immortality, but also to address the problems of
mortality, responsibility and punishment.
Many philosophers had written many
works on personal identity, defining personality and identity in their own
different terms. Some of such philosophers include: Locke, Hume, Derek Parfit,
Joseph Butler etc. [3]the
questions tagged to these works are what is a person? Are we persons at all
times at which we exist? Is it possible for a person to retain his identity
over a period of time? What is particular about a person?
This term paper is specifically
subjected on Locke’s essay and argument on personal identity, his thoughts and
ideas about a person and his identity.
LOCKE’S ACCOUNT OF PERSONAL
IDENTITY
Part of Locke’s essay that has
exerted much influence and has been taken as subjects of subsequent discussions
in the early eighteenth century and the late twentieth century is his chapters
on “identity and diversity”. This essay of Locke has a subjective discussion on
the problem of personal identity. These problems are as a result of the
question of what makes the human person the same after a long period of time in
which the person must have undergone serious and significant changes bodily and
psychologically. The argument on this essay is subjected in identifying what is
responsible for the retaining of personality in the human person.
[4]The
approach Locke gave to this question in his essay is based on a discussion of
three separate but related questions: the constituents of the sameness of a
person? What makes someone to remain the same man at a later date? What makes someone
to remain the same person at a later date? Locke distinguishes mere masses from
organisms or things with a particular structure; he rejected the Cartesian idea
that what makes a person the same is the sameness of immaterial substances,
spirit or soul.
A thing according to Locke is said
or referred to have remained the same if the composite particles or substances
are still intact and has not undergone any changes. For instance, it is quite
obvious that this never happens to living organisms, just as they undergo metamorphosis,
some of their parts are lost, and others are renewed.
Locke stipulated in this essay that,
the physical sameness of a substance is not useful in determining the personal
identity of a human being, since no human being can be perfectly same in terms
of physics of periods of life time and human formation, [5]rather,
a person feels continuity with his own past, and anticipates continuity with
the future; what gives a person a sense of continued existence is the
consciousness of his own past.
According to Locke, man is a particular
belonging to the species known as the Homo sapiens. Locke subjected to a
logical example (which is more like an argument) saying, “an Oak tree remains
the same as it was twenty years back despite the fact that it has doubled its
size and also shed its leaves twenty times. It is not the same substance but it
is the same Oak in the virtue of the continued function of its living parts.
Locke also asserted that in the same way, a man remains the same after ten
years of both physical and psychological changes which may be noticeable.
Locke in the course of his thinking
on personal identity tried to separate the identity of a man from that of a
man’s personal identity. This attempt to separate these concepts by Locke,
calls for a question: what exactly is a
person if it is not the same as a man? According to Locke, “a person is a
thinking intellectual being, that is rational and reflective and can identify
itself as itself, being thoughtful about things in different times and places”.
[6]What is particular about a person? It
includes those qualities that distinguishes one person from another and the
consciousness of one’s own being or identity.
Locke asserted in his statement that
not all human beings are rational and thoughtful when he said, [7]“a
person isn’t simply a member of our specie, since some human beings lack the
power of reason and self-consciousness” and as an implication, he aver that
some non-human creature can be identified as persons. He referenced a report of
a rational Parrot that was able to give detailed answers to questions in a
convincing way. The criterion for referring or considering this Parrot as a
person is only if it had the appropriate level of rationality and self
consciousness.
The criterion for personal
identification according to Locke is not just a bodily continuity since it does
not guarantee the sameness of a human person. Rather personal identity is
synonymous to consciousness; it is the memory to recall and recognize the being
associated with one’s past actions, and that is the condition for a personal
identity. If a person can remember his past actions and is able to identify
them as he’s, then he can be referred to still have retained the same person he
was.
A better example was cited by Locke
to help him explain in details the summary of this essay: “imagine that one day
a Prince wakes up to find that he has all the memories of a Cobbler, and none
of his own, but his physical or bodily appearance remains the same (unchanged).
On the other side, that same morning a Cobbler wakes up to find that he has all
the memories of a Prince and none of his own.” Throwing more light to this
example, Locke avers that the Prince is physically the same man, but the fact
remains that he is not the same person that he was before he went to bed, that
is, he is a Cobbler in terms of person (personality), so it will be unfair to
hold the physically bodied Prince who has lost his memories as a Prince
responsible for the formal actions of the Prince, since he can no longer
remember ever doing them.
The collection of these detailed
examples by Locke is aimed at bringing out the significant and important
difference between the terms or the concept of being a ‘man’ and a ‘person’.
EVALUATION
Since
it is possible that there are events before one’s second birthday one cannot
remember, can it be justified according to Locke’s account that it was the same
person that existed before his second birthday and not another person?
What
does this imply in the case of loss memories? This in Locke’s account of
personal identity cautions that people should not be penalized for things they
cannot remember doing, since they are logically not the same person. This also
implies that a murderer who cannot remember killing should not be penalized.
But is it not possible that people can claim to forget while they actually have
not forgotten?
In Locke’s view of the case of loss
memory, it tends to assume that if the man who performed an action is
identified, then probably it must be the same person who committed them and
must be punished because it is difficult for people to prove their ignorance about
what they did. For me it is right because the laws are to be practical, so in
the case of loss memory is not convincing enough to be an excuse.
Locke
essentially was saying that a ‘man’ is different from a ‘person’ and that
memory makes a person, that is , only if you can remember your past and
identify it to be yours, then you are not the same person. This implies that it is not the physic that
makes a person but the memories. With this I can conclude that Locke’s
definition of a person and his identity is basically subjected on the ability
of the person to retain memories of past actions and events of one’s own self.
CONCLUSION
This
essay by Locke is addressing many issues especially the issue of who is
responsible for actions performed, a question of whether it is the man or the
person. If it s the case that the person is to be responsible, how do we
identify the person, just as in the case of loss memories? Locke in this essay
has more or less reduced the problems associated with identity, which is the
crisis of identity.
This
essay addressed the question of who a person is, and what makes a human being
the same person over a period of time. This work covered Locke’s idea on what
it is to be a person and what makes a person who he is. With reference to what
Locke has written, I would conclude that actions are associated with the person
and not the physical man because bodily the man may remain the same but
necessarily he may not be the same person.
In
conclusion Locke is saying that responsibility should be given to the person
and not to the man.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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[2]
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[3] What is this thing called
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[4]
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[6]
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[7]
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