Locke Flashcards
Man is a living, organised body
P1: Experience and observation support the idea of man that we have in our minds.
P2: The idea of man in our minds is nothing else but of an animal of such a certain form (living, organised body).
C: Man is a living, organised body.
Continuity of consciousness is sufficent criteria for establishing personal identity over time, or the coninuity of self.
P1: A person is a thinking, conscious being who has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself.
P2: Consciousness accompanies thinking and is therefore the means by which one distinguishes himself from all other things
P3: Self resides in consciousness, not in matter.
P4: (Minor conclusion): It is this alone (consciousness) which constitutes personal identity.
P5: If consciousness is continuous, it is the same person.
C: Continuity of consciousness is sufficient criteria for establishing personal identity over time, or the continuity of the self.
Personal identity is not dependent on sameness of matter
P1: Our body (substance) is united to our thinking, conscious self only in that we are aware of it.
P2: A change in substance (for example, through an amputation) does not impact on the existence of consciousness or the self (implied: only the contents of consciousness are impacted upon).
P3: Substance, whereof a personal self consisted, can be varied without a change in identity.
C: Personal identity is not dependent on sameness of matter.
The same immaterial substance without the same consciousness does not make the same person.
P1: Continuity of consciousness is required for someone to be considered the same person.
P2: The doctrine of transmigration (pre-existence) holds that the soul has no remaining consciousness of what it did in the pre-existent state.
P3: Personal identity reaches no further than consciousness reaches.
C: The same immaterial substance (soul) without the same consciousness, does not make the same person.
Personal identity follows our consciousness, not our body or soul
P1: If the consciousness of one man A were transferred to second man B, then the person A would be located in the body of B.
P2: Consciousness of man A is transferred to man B.
P3: Person A is in the body of man B.
C (implied): Personal identity follows our consciousness, not our body or soul.
We can only be personally responsible for what actions we can admit as our own
P1: Personal responsibility is linked to personal identity.
P2: Personal identity extends as far as consciousness.
P3: If the same man is not conscious when aware of what he did when asleep, he was two different people.
C: We can only be personally responsible for what actions we can admit as our own.
It is past doubt that the same man at different times would make different persons
P1: If it be possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousness at different times, then it is past doubt that the same man would at different times make different persons.
P2: (Implied): It is possible for the same man to have distinct, incommunicable consciousness.
C: It is past doubt that the same man at different times would make different persons.
We are only deserving of punishment for those actions which we are conscious of.
P1: Person is a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit.
P2: The term only belongs to those intelligent beings capable of law and happiness and misery.
P3: This personality (‘person’) extends itself across time via consciousness through which it becomes concerned and accountable and ‘owns’ past actions.
P4: (minor conclusion) Action-ownership depends on consciousness.
P4: The concern for happiness is the concomitant of consciousness.
P5: Whatever past actions a person cannot reconcile to their present self (or is not conscious of) is of no concern to the person.
P6: If a person is not conscious of an act, he is unconcerned and not the same person, and so it makes no sense to punish him for that which he is not conscious of, it is the equivalent of being ‘created miserable’.
C: We are only deserving of punishment for those actions which we are conscious of.
Man is a living, organised body EVAL
Seems legit.
Continuity of consciousness is sufficient criteria for establishing personal identity over time, or the coninuity of the self EVAL
Brave officer
In linking memory to identity, Locke is making a epistemological claim (memory reveals identity) for a metaphysical claim (memory is identity).
Memory is fleeting and unreliable, with moments of discontinuity. Yet Locke agrees that perosnal identity constitutes an existence over time.
If we were created five minutes ago but with all the memories of a lifetime, did we exist beyond the five minutes? Bertrand Russell
Personal identity is not dependent on sameness of matter EVAL
The material brain impacts on consciousness.
Third person perspective, same body over time.
The same immaterial substance without the same consciousness does not make the same person. EVAL
Yeah.
Personal identity follows our consciousness, not our body or soul EVAL
Yeah.
We can only be personally responsible for what actions we can admit as our own EVAL
We can agree with him in that identity is linked to responsbility in that if we make a conscious choice we are responsible for its outcomes.
But does our memory of the action entail action-ownership? We are still considered deserving of punishment.
It is past doubt that the same man at different times would make different persons EVAL
as memory is unreliable, should we consider a lapse in memory as a criteria for a change in persons?
