U3 AoS 2 - Personal Identity (Locke & Hume)

Question 1

What is John Locke’s paper?

Answer 1

John Locke: Of Identity and Diversity

Question 2

What is David Humes paper?

Answer 2

A Treatise of Human Nature (Book 1: Of the Understanding)

Question 3

What distinction does Locke make between man and person?

Answer 3

A man is a human (i.e. the body) while a person is any thinking thing that can recognise oneself as oneself. - Principle of Individuation

Question 4

What does Locke say in section 8 (Same Man)?

Answer 4

• Animals are different to inanimate objects. An animal is the same continued life communicated in different particles of matter
• Humans are not special in nature and are just animals. A parrot that discusses philosophy is still a parrot.

Question 5

What does Locke demonstrate with the parrot analogy (Section 8. Same Man)

Answer 5

Locke demonstrates the principle of individuation. Man and person are distinct. A parrot regardless of not being human, can be considered a person if it is a rational thinking thing.
If a parrot discussed philosophy with us, it is still a parrot.
Effectively, anything can be considered a person.

Question 6

What does Locke posit a person to be? (section 9)

Answer 6

A person is a thinking intelligent being that can recognise oneself as oneself and has memories of past awareness of oneself.

Question 7

What does Locke believe creates personal identity? (section 10)

Answer 7

Locke explains his theory that memory is what creates personal identity. It is not the substance of the person that must persist, but instead of the memory of being the person. As Locke puts it, “the same consciousness [unites] distant actions into the same person.”

Question 8

What does Locke say about changes in substances and how this effects our identity? (section 11)

Answer 8

Essentially, Locke explains that we are not just our body. Every atom of our body can change, yet if we still have a continued consciousness (memory of our past), we are still considered the same person.

Question 9

What does Locke mean by continued consciousness?

Answer 9

Put simply, continued consciousness to Locke means one, who is aware of oneself, has a memory of ones past actions and being aware of those actions.

Question 10

How does Locke answer this: if someone forgets everything, are they are different person? (section 14)

Answer 10

He answers rhetorically, if you were x previously, but had no memory of being x, how were you x?
He demonstrates this through an analogy of someone believing they were Socrates in their past life. Locke states that sharing a soul does not constitute being the same person, as through what means could we say that they are the same person, if they have no memory of being Socrates.
“The same immaterial substance, without the same consciousness, no more making the same person by being united to any body, than the same particle of matter, without consciousness united to any body, makes the same person”

Question 11

In sum, what does Locke say personal identity lies in?

Answer 11

Since consciousness always accompanies thinking and it is what distinguishes us from one another, it must follow that consciousness alone consists personal identity, not anything physical.

He also suggests that our identity is our consciousness as far as it can be extended back to any past action or thought ie. We are the summation of our memories.

Question 12

What objections does Locke anticipate in section 10?

Answer 12

Locke anticipates an objection that could be raised against his argument that identity=memory. There is the issue of memory loss, sleeping, and not being able to view all your memories and one point, yet it would be absurd to say that the person who can remember, and the one that can’t are two separate persons.

Question 13

Why does Locke say the objections in section 10 don’t matter?

Answer 13

They can still be the same man or living organism, but they are indeed separate persons. It doesn’t matter if memory is interrupted because regardless of the substance (ie. physical body), it is your consciousness that identity depends on.

Essentially, he is saying that you always are your memories, and if you forget some, they simply aren’t a part of your identity anymore.

Question 14

What does Locke demonstrate with the prince and the cobbler thought experiment? (section 15)

Answer 14

Locke aims to demonstrate that identity follows consciousness. If the consciousness of the Prince enters the Cobbler, the Cobbler is now the same person as the prince. This is regardless of the fact that everyone else would think there was no change and the cobbler was just acting different.

Locke says that because identity is in consciousness and memory, not the sameness of a living organism the prince is still the cobbler and the cobbler is still the prince, because although they now have different bodies, the prince still has the memories of the prince, and vice versa.
There is still a living life force that changes, but the identity does not, because it resides in MEMORY. The third person perspective is irrelevant, the memory is what is important and is what defines memory.

Question 15

What does the little finger analogy demonstrate? (section 17)

Answer 15

The self is the conscious thinking thing, whatever substance it be made of. Anywhere the consciousness goes, the identity follows.

Locke explains this further through this analogy. If the consciousness of Mr Hawke was in his little finger, and that little finger were separated from the rest of the body. The rest of the body would not be considered Mr Hawke, but instead the little finger.

Question 16

Locke’s definition of the same person

Answer 16

If x & y are persons, then x = y iff x has memories of being y or y has memories of being x.

Question 17

What is Locke’s Socrates sleeping analogy?

Answer 17

If Socrates awake and Socrates asleep have different memories and consciousness, they are not the same person.
If Socrates committed a crime while asleep and then woke up and doesn’t remember it, then we should not punish Socrates awake. To do so would be akin to punishing a twin for something his twin brother did just because they look the same.

Question 18

What does Locke respond to the question of memory loss? what does he say about the term ‘I’?

Answer 18

The question arises if I lose the memories of a whole part of my life, am I not the same person that did those actions? Locke’s reply would be that we are conflating the difference between man and person (I in the sense of the question conflate the two definitions that he has laid out)
Essentially, he is saying that if we forget parts of our life, we are the same MAN who did those actions, but not the same PERSON.

Question 19

What is Locke’s analogy of the mad man and what does he say about our language?

Answer 19

Human laws do not punish a mad man for the sober man’s actions, nor a sober man for a mad man’s actions, thereby making them two distinct persons.

This distinction is also somewhat explained by our language. People often say phrases like ‘he is not himself’, which is suggestive that the same person is no longer in the same self.

Essentially he is saying it’s interesting that we don’t punish sober man for mad man’s actions, and have phrases like that, yet will still say that a person who forgets stuff is the same person and should be treated accordingly.

Question 20

What is Locke’s thought experiment of the drunk and sober man?

Answer 20

Locke uses a thought experiment of a drunk man and a sober man. To Locke, they are not the same person, as the sober man does not have any memory of the drunk man’s actions. Neither is conscious of the actions of each other.
But legally we are not able to determine if there is continuity of consciousness so the courts will use the identity of a man (not the person) to pass judgement.

Question 21

What does Locke say at the end about heaven?

Answer 21

Locke posits that on judgement day, the sentence of going to Heaven or Hell will be determined by what is attached to your consciousness.

Question 22

What is Reid’s thought experiment about the general and the boy?

Answer 22

A boy as a child is flogged for stealing an apple by the orchid owner. Then, as a young man he becomes a brave army officer, and at this point he still has a strong memory of stealing the apple from the orchid. Then, as an old decorated general, he still remembers being a young officer, however, he doesn’t remember being the young boy who stole the apple from the orchid.

Question 23

What is Reid objecting in his general and boy thought experiment?

Answer 23

Reid points out a flaw in Locke’s argument as it does not align with the axiom of transitivity. According to the axiom of transitivity then A=B (boy = young officer), B=C (young officer = old general), and C=A (general = boy), however, Locke would argue that C does not equal A because C has no memory of A, thus Locke is breaking the axiom.

Question 24

What is Butler’s circularity objection to Locke?

Answer 24

Locke argues that continuity of memory is a necessary criterion for personal identity. However, Butler argues that personal identity is a necessary criterion for having continuity of memory – it is not possible to speak of memories without presupposing a person who has those memories.

Question 25

What is the psychological continuity objection to Locke?

Answer 25

Locke is arguing that something is only a part of our identity, but what about times where you forget a memory but it still has an effect on your psychological states. Ie. if as a child you were attacked by a chicken, so now you feel fear whenever you see a chicken, yet you don’t actually remember being attacked by the chicken. Forgotten memories can still have an effect on your current psychological state.

Question 26

What does Hume believe is required to gain an understanding of the self?

Answer 26

Hume believes there must be some aspect of the self that is fixed and simple which we can experience. He is an empiricist.

Question 27

What is Hume’s distinction between ideas and impressions?

Answer 27

Ideas are what we see, sense, or experience, while impressions are what we extrapolate from ideas.

I see a chair (idea) I think I can sit on it (impression).

Question 28

Upon introspection what does Hume believe we can find instead of finding the self?

Answer 28

Hume believes upon introspection we simply find a bundle of different perceptions. Each perception distinct that can be considered separately. None of which are invariable and constant, thus, there is no aspect of our mind which is fixed that could be considered the self.

Question 29

What is Hume’s argument against identity in standard form?

Answer 29

P1 – All ideas are derived from impressions.
P2 – So the idea of a persisting self is derived from impressions.
P3 – No impression is a persisting thing.
C – There cannot be a persisting idea of the self.

Question 30

Why does the bundle of perceptions theory defeat the idea of a self?

Answer 30

A bundle of perceptions is a collection of “variable and interrupted” parts which cannot compose something stable, continuous, and persisting, such as a “self.”

Question 31

What does Hume demonstrate by the mind as a theatre analogy?

Answer 31

Humes aims to explain our strong inclination to call one thing the same thing, even after it has changed (e.g. an oak tree and a sapling). He compares the mind toa kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance. This succession of perceptions leads us to infer causation and subsequently an identity, however, this is fictitious, as unlike an actual theatre, there is nothing the is invariable and constant. Our memory is key to this inference, for it is how we infer the causation.

Question 32

What does Hume demonstrate through the republic/commonwealth analogy?

Answer 32

On this analogy, Hume suggests that like people, members of a Republic are constantly changing with new leaders, members, policies, and yet, the Republic maintains its identity. Similar to how people may alter their character or dispositions, and or his impressions and ideas, we too maintain our identity. As such, while certain aspects constantly change, our relational principle of causation remains, linking together to create a coherent whole. However, as we have no rule to demonstrate this relation as sufficient to retain identity, all disputes on identity are products of the imagination.

Question 33

How does memory discover identity to Hume?

Answer 33

Memory doesn’t create identity, but memory helps us discover a fiction which we think is identity by showing casual links that seem to create a whole or self.