Locke on Personal Identity

Jennifer Dabbs

One of the most difficult struggles in philosophy is the battle against language. Every concept introduced must be carefully defined for the merest misstep (in the way of a misunderstanding) can completely skew an idea. Even then these proffered definitions are over scrutinized and critics pounce triumphantly onto unintended nuances, turning a peaceful questing for enlightenment into a raging battle of words.

None-the-less, this is necessary. One cannot simply assume that all others have had such similar experiences in life as to result in them sharing the same meanings for a word in all its subtleties. This defining of words is necessary because we acknowledge the existence of personal identity, and in his examination of personal identity, defining words is exactly how Locke starts out.

First off, it’s important to realize that there exists a difference between what Locke terms a person and what he terms a man. Thomas Reid credited Locke for providing us with the following definition of a person: “an intelligent being, endowed with reason and with consciousness, which [is] inseparable from thought.” Reid then rode this thought a bit farther and theorized that as long as the being continued to exist with intelligence he would remain the same person. (Reid 113)

Then there is the word ‘man’, which, astounding our plebeian minds, turns out to have some other meaning than the one held by ‘person’. The term ‘man’ deals more with the physical aspect of a being: All the parts that make up its appearance, (the material features of it) and then the soul-substance, or the thinking part. (Brandt 183)

The full implications of these differences might not be apparent at first, but John Jenkins uses a charming example to help clarify the distinction. He hypothesizes that there exists a parrot whose thought processes are identical to that of a man. He is intelligent, has emotion, is able to use logic, and yet is confined to the body of a parrot. Conversely, there exists a being with the shape of a man, but whose manner of thinking is more comparable to that of a parrot. (He is bird-brained, if you will).

Despite the remarkable intelligence of the bird, we continue to call it a parrot, and the being with the body of a man will be termed a man, though a rather dull one. “On this basis, Locke claims to have shown that neither the persistence of the same soul nor the display of rationality is essential to our concept of a man” (Jenkins 110).

Let me regress a bit to Thomas Reid’s earlier theorizing that continued intelligence was necessary in order to remain the same person. First of all, it would be beneficial to examine some characteristics of intelligence, thinking and consciousness, in order to fully understand what is needed to remain the same person, (or in other words, retain one’s personal identity).

It was Locke himself who pointed out that the very act of thinking produces consciousness. This consciousness is what establishes personal identity by allowing us to perceive our ‘self’ as being separate and different from everything else (Locke 90).

The true difficulty arises in trying to determine if what we call self now is the same self that existed five minutes ago. Is there continuity in personal identity? Aside for being an important question for curiosity’s sake alone, there is also the issue of punishment. There would be no justice if the self that committed a crime were not the same self that was punished for it.

Locke claims that all parts of one’s life are tied together by consciousness, and that “to be conscious of a past action is to conceive of it as performed by oneself” (Yaffe 120).

Once again the defining of words becomes crucial. Reid obligingly steps in to provide us with clarification stating that consciousness is “immediate knowledge of the present” and that memory (a new, but important term) is “an immediate knowledge of the past” (Reid 115). In and of themselves, neither of these terms are complex, though complexities arise around them.

Let’s now focus on the idea that consciousness produces the awareness of self. Any action you are performing or thinking, you are aware that it is you that are thinking or performing said action. Simply being conscious of your existence confirms your personal identity in that moment in time. Summed up nicely by Mr. Jenkins, “consciousness is both a necessary and sufficient condition for personal identity;” and then to a point that I shall tackle in due course, “continuity of immaterial substance is neither necessary nor sufficient” (Jenkins 114).

Memory, as already stated is “immediate knowledge of the past.” The logic flowing from this idea is that if consciousness confirms personal identity moment to moment, then memory is proof of continuity in personal identity. Locke’s metaphor: “consciousness functions in very much the same way as the thread connects the beads on a necklace. Just as the thread is what makes the beads into one necklace by running through all of them, so consciousness, by linking together a number of actions, events, feelings, and so on, makes these into one person” (Jenkins 111).

In response to this, Reid brings up an interesting problem called the Gallant Officer Paradox. He hypothesizes a young boy who stole from an orchard and was flogged for it. As a young man he became a soldier and captured an enemy standard. Then, in his advanced age, he was promoted to an officer. The young man remembers being the boy. The old man recalls the young man, but because of his advanced age does not remember the incident with the orchard.

The first complexity in this situation is that the old man does not recall the boy. The ‘necklace’ has been broken, and in theory should now form two necklaces, or identity. The old man is not the same person as the boy.

The second complexity is that the young man does remember the boy, and the old man remembers the young man. According to the idea of transitivity, (A=B. B=C. Therefore A=C) the old man is the same person as the boy. Now it seems possible that you may, and at the same time, may not be, the same person that performed an action (Jenkins 114).

Imagine the consequences of this thought in terms of punishment. Is it unjust to punish someone for something they do not remember doing? It is possible that the person you would punish is not the same person that committed the crime (Jolley 131, Dunn 68).

While the above may be unjust, it is impossible for a court to determine whether they are punishing the right person. We are only responsible for actions that we are conscious of, but should there be some eyewitness that can identify a culprit, even though the culprit himself does not recall the crime, he may still be punished. “In this case humans courts would justly punish the man and not the person” (Jenkins 189).

The courts realize the changing the exterior appearance does not change the identity (i.e. cosmetic surgery). Still, we may physically identifying something as being the same, despite small changes, simply because we can confirm that it has at no time stopped existing and returned to exist (Cope 51). While the courts are unsure if the person they are punishing is the same, they are able to identify the man who committed the crime, and thus some form of justice is able to be upheld.

Reid then brings up a point that would make any sort of just punishment impossible. “Our consciousness, our memory, and every operation of the mind are still flowing like water of a river, or like time itself. The consciousness I have this moment can no more be the same consciousness I had last moment, than this moment can be the last moment… Consciousness, and every kind of thought, are transient and momentary, and have no continued existence” (Reid 116). To sum this all up, we are never the same person from moment to moment. Though possible for our consciousness to be identical to our consciousness at some other point in our past, it will never be the same consciousness because of the separation of time.

There is no continuity of personal identity. There only exists the continuity of the same kind of identity.

Works Cited

Brandt, Reinhard. John Locke: Symposium Wolfenüttel 1979. New York: de Gruyter, 1981.

Cope, Kevin L. John Locke Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999.

Dunn, John. Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Jenkins, John J. Understanding Locke. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1983.

Jolley, Nicholas. Leibniz and Locke. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.

Locke, John. The Philosophy of Locke. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1906.

Reid, Thomas “Of Mr. Locke’s Account of Our Personal Identity.” Personal Identity Ed. John

Perry. London: University of California Press, 1975.

Yaffe, Gideon. Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency. New Jersey: Princeton

University Press, 2000.