My Take on Locke's Personal Identity Argument

This was my midterm paper for my philosophy class. I reconstructed Locke's argument on personal identity (using everyday language so you can actually understand what he's saying lol). It's about what it means to have a self and what makes something a person.

Locke on Personal Identity

Locke forms the criteria for personal identity and establishes a consequent framework for judgement of one’s actions. His criteria for a person requires an intelligent, self-aware being whose personal identity rests within consciousness over time connected through memory. Locke’s argument rises above its objections and proves itself valid.  

Locke’s definition of ‘person’ (interchangeable with his use of ‘self’) is “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection” which endures through time with consciousness and self-awareness (2.27.9). The ‘person’ grasps self-understanding and is aware that he himself exists and experiences. Emotions, thoughts, desires, sensations, intentions etc. all construct one’s consciousness. The ‘person’ holds memories and expectations. Someone who remembers going to church every Sunday of their life and expects to go to Heaven is a ‘person’. The ‘person’ feels accountable for moral responsibility and merits corresponding punishment or reward. However, Locke distinguishes the meaning of ‘person' from that of ‘man’. His definition of ‘man’ is the body as a biological organism. Locke would refer to an alien’s physical body as ‘man’. If this alien was “sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery” (2.27.17) and self-aware of its existence, Locke would approve that it is a ‘person’ . In contrast, a fetus who isn’t tied to a first-person point of view of itself, lacks reason, and has no ability to think therefore cannot be rewarded or punished, would not fall under Locke’s category of a ‘person’. Surviving through time as an organism is inadequate for having a sense of ‘self’. The criterion requires one to be a self-aware conscious being, even if the being is a three-eyed green monster from Uranus. 

Locke believes the thinking that accompanies self-awareness creates a unique person of each being which “distinguishes himself from all other thinking things”, thus creating personal identity (2.27.9). Locke’s requirement for personal identity is the continuity of consciousness through memory. 

This collection of consciousness, in each point through time, is connected by one’s memories and forms their personal identity. Locke argues that as far as you can remember earlier stages of consciousness is as far as your personal identity stretches. If a person took a trip to Africa 5 years ago, and can reminisce on that trip in the present using his memories, his personal identity has persisted through time. If the African tourist went game hunting on his trip, he would be held responsible for his actions 5 years later because he is the same person, with knowledge of his actions, enduring through time. However, in the span of the 5 years, if a piano fell on his head and he lost all memories, including the hunting trip, he would not be held responsible. Locke argues that after the memory loss, he becomes a new ‘person’ and can no longer be held responsible for the actions of the previous ‘person’. Personal identity is the accumulation of self-consciousness registered within the memory of the person in each time stamp over the timeline of their life. 

As materialists and dualists argue over what sort of thing personal identity consists in, Locke takes a step back and watches them quarrel. Materialists believe that personal identity across time rests in the continuous existence of the self-aware being that is doing the thinking in a physical material sense, such as a living brain. They believe persons are simply matter in motion, unassociated with the soul. However, Dualists believe a collaboration of the physical organism and the spiritual soul is necessary for personal identity to consist through time. For Locke, it doesn’t matter whether it is the material body, immaterial substance, or the collaboration of both. He approaches the issue with an empirical point of view and states there is no evidence to prove if personal identity lies within brain particles or the spirit. Your understanding of yourself is supported by things that are available to you, which are factual experiences engraved within memory. Memories and consciousness are apparent to ourselves whereas metaphysical theses remain unknown to us. Why would we debate over obscure concepts when we have tangible understanding of our personal identity? Locke’s thought experiment says imagine the detachment of your little finger. If your consciousness exited out along with your little finger, your self would now be captured in this tiny figment. The rest of your body would be a selfless material object. Therefore self follows wherever the consciousness resides. Locke’s claim for personal identity proves itself valid when we apply it to cases in which our intuitive judgment comes out. When Lindsay Lohan switches identities with her mother in the movie Freaky Friday, we as the viewers find it extremely awkward when Lindsay’s identity (within her mother’s body) has to get married to her mother’s boyfriend. Our intuition understands that identity follows continuity of consciousness independent of sameness of the body. 

Locke disposes the idea that personal identity consists in sameness of the immaterial soul. He argues that the intelligent soul must be equipped with memory and knowledge in order to have personal identity. Leibniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics demonstrates why “this perpetual subsistence common to all substances” (the soul) is worthless if it lacks collection of past experiences (1686). Suppose a genie from a bottle promised he would insert your soul into anyone you wished to be forever, but at the expense of all your memories. You said you wished to be Kylie Jenner, the youngest female billionaire in the world. You woke up the next day in her mansion but you were unaware of the previous events which led you there. How is this any different than someone killing you and resurrecting you as Kylie Jenner but without past knowledge of who you were? The thought of having all her money and fame might have sounded desirable to you at first, but if you never knew what it meant NOT to have her money and fame, does it still have value to you? Assume that resurrection is a real thing. Perhaps you were someone else in your past life and your soul belonged to another being from centuries ago. It doesn’t make any difference to who you are today if you can’t remember what your soul endured hundreds of years ago. Locke declares it is not enough for the thing (soul or material substance) to endure for it to be YOU. In order to be YOU (a.k.a. your personal identity), you need to have memories or else it’s just a recycled brain or spirit. 

According to Locke’s claim, personal identity is active as long as one is conscious and self-aware. Therefore they can only be held accountable for their actions and rewarded or punished if they were conscious. The objection against his claim here is the case of people who unconsciously commit crime. If someone who is belligerently drunk, completely lacking self-knowledge and consideration of moral responsibility, gets behind the wheel and kills someone in a car accident, will they not be punished for their actions because they were unconscious? At the end of the day, they committed murder. If we presume Locke’s argument for personal identity, an unconscious man is unaware of his actions therefore does not merit punishment. Technically he is as unrelated to the accident as a witness walking down the street, because he is a different ‘person’. Locke explains that the punishment is annexed to the person even if he is drunk because the facts show he is guilty, but “consciousness cannot be proved for him.”. He believes there is no way the drunk driver can prove he wasn’t self-aware, therefore a different ‘person’. Locke argues that all will be made right on the Day of Judgement and the ‘falsely’ punished drunk man will receive his well-deserved justice (2.27.22). This argument seems like an easy way out. Why must we wait for God to provide justice? What was the point of determining what personal identity consists of in order to determine appropriate reward or punishment, if Locke was going to leave it all to God in the end? In addition, the arguments he makes in relation to the puzzle cases are abstract and unrealistic as mental changes cannot occur without material changes within the man as well. A psychological replacement of one’s persona with another's would require reorganization of the neurological patterns within the structure of the material brain. Perhaps Locke has to reconsider his argument that personal identity isn’t entirely connected to material or immaterial substances. 

Locke might try to reply to this by tweaking his statement about why the drunk man is being punished. In his proposition, Locke could argue that the punishment for drunk crimes isn’t directly a punishment for the unconscious person, but rather the conscious person who chooses to get drunk knowing he can put others at risk. By choosing to get drunk, the conscious person loads the responsibility on himself. If a minor decides to go bungee jumping (which is a potentially dangerous action that we can compare to getting drunk), the responsible and knowledgeable parent has to sign a waiver taking responsibility for anything that might take place during the action. When someone with a low credit score wants to lease a car (a potentially risky commitment similar to getting drunk), a person with a higher credit score has to be the guarantor and take responsibility over the other’s potential irresponsible decisions. Getting drunk is a paradox within itself and must be evaluated as an exception: the conscious person decides to get unconscious, therefore, the very decision of losing himself is made when he is himself. For example, we cannot compare the unconsciousness of sleep walking with that of being drunk. If someone got in their car while sleep walking and killed someone, our intuition would be against him being judged the same way as a drunk driver who kills someone. We would prefer the sleepwalker to be treated in an institution rather than locked up in a prison. Locke can conclude, the unconscious driver lacks personal identity therefore can’t be punished; however the conscious person is taking on responsibility for their unconscious actions by willingly putting himself in that position. 

Given this objection and withholding his puzzle case examples, Locke’s argument cannot be sunk. The sameness of the rational being consists of past experiences which creates memory. Memory weaves together consciousness which holds expectations. Throw all of these ingredients into a melting pot, season it with emotions and moral responsibility, serve with a side of reward and punishment (whichever you deem appropriate) and you have personal identity. Bon appetit.