test 3 (Locke) Flashcards
What is Locke trying to show with his example of the man in the locked room in Book 2, chapter 21, sect 10
He is trying to show that liberty is not an idea belonging to volition, or in other words a human being is free with respect to a particular action A inasmuch as if she wills to do A then she has the power to do A and if she wills to forebear doing A then she has the power to forebear doing A. It seems that he is arguing that people are free but that the will is determined.
according to Locke, it is impossible for two things _________ to be in the same place at the same time
“of the same kind”
- an object is determined by its properties. if two objects have all the same properties, they are the same things. therefore, if two things were exactly the same, then it would be just one. So there wouldn’t be two things at all.
according to Locke, what is a person?
A thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking and essential to it.
- Locke sees persons as not just a physical body but also as a conscious, self-aware entity with the ability to reason and reflect.
What is Locke’s example of dayman/nightman supposed to show
The example shows that two persons can be within a single body so long as they aren’t linked by consciousness. The example is meant to illustrate the separations of persons from bodies.
-from the fact that dayman cannot be held accountable for nightmans actions, Locke concludes that consciousness or memory is the principle of individuation for personhood
-he writes: in this alone consists of personal identity, i.e., the sameness of a rational being. And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person.
what is mereological essentialism
the view that object parts are essential to the existence of the object, an object can’t exist without its essential parts. if an object loses or gains a part, it would effectively cease to exist because it would not be the same object anymore.
what does Locke mean when he says that a person is a forensic term
He means that persons bear moral/legal responsibility for the things they do.
persons are those things that have moral responsibility and which can be held morally blameworthy or morally praiseworthy for their actions.
according to Locke, what are the persistence conditions for persons?
x at t1 is the same person as y at t2 iff x and y are linked by consciousness of an action or ideas. in other words the persistence conditions for persons are that y remembers an action performed by x from x’s perspective.
characterize the difference between numerical identity and qualitative identity.
numerical identity refers to the identity of a thing without change or alteration. Qualitative identity is based on the sameness of properties and qualities. So two things that share the same properties and qualities are equal.
T-shirts are a good example. If you buy a shirt and you love it, it becomes your favorite shirt. You go out and buy the same exact shirt, at the same exact price. You would say that they are ‘qualitatively identical’ because they have similar properties and qualities. However, the original favorite shirt is the only original, so while the other one is close, it is not ‘numerically identical’
