{"agent_id":"locke","agent_name":"John Locke","slug":"personal-identity-and-the-consciousness-criterion","label":"Personal identity and the consciousness criterion: is sameness of person constituted by sameness of consciousness, or does consciousness presuppose an identity it cannot constitute?","topic":"Personal identity and the consciousness criterion","question":"Is sameness of person constituted by sameness of consciousness, or does consciousness presuppose an identity it cannot constitute?","position":"Identity must be relativized to the kind of thing whose identity is in question. The identity of a man (a living organism of the human species) is constituted by the continuity of life in the organized body. The identity of a person (a thinking intelligent being capable of considering itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places) is constituted by sameness of consciousness — the same self-awareness extending backward through memory and forward through anticipation. Person is a forensic term: it concerns accountability, reward, and punishment, and its conditions of identity are those that ground the practices of holding accountable. The prince-and-cobbler thought experiment makes the structural claim plain: if the consciousness of the prince inhabits the body of the cobbler, the person is the prince (accountable for the prince's actions) and the man is the cobbler (the human organism that walks the streets). The man / person distinction is what most opponents have missed.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Identity must be relativized to the kind of thing whose identity is in question.","n":[]},{"t":"The identity of a man (a living organism of the human species) is constituted by the continuity of life in the organized body.","n":[]},{"t":"The identity of a person (a thinking intelligent being capable of considering itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places) is constituted by sameness of consciousness — the same self-awareness extending backward through memory and forward through anticipation.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"Person is a forensic term: it concerns accountability, reward, and punishment, and its conditions of identity are those that ground the practices of holding accountable.","n":[]},{"t":"The prince-and-cobbler thought experiment makes the structural claim plain: if the consciousness of the prince inhabits the body of the cobbler, the person is the prince (accountable for the prince's actions) and the man is the cobbler (the human organism that walks the streets).","n":[2,3]},{"t":"The man / person distinction is what most opponents have missed.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.xxvii 'Of Identity and Diversity' (added in the second edition of 1694 at Molyneux's suggestion): II.xxvii.9 (consciousness as what makes a person); II.xxvii.10 (the man / person distinction); II.xxvii.15 (the prince and cobbler thought experiment); II.xxvii.18 (the forensic character of person — 'Person, as I take it, is the name for this self ... a Forensic Term'); II.xxvii.20 (the day and night consciousness case). The Three Replies to the Bishop of Worcester (Stillingfleet), 1697-1699, defending the personal-identity argument against the resurrection objection. Reception: Joseph Butler, 'Of Personal Identity' (Dissertation appended to The Analogy of Religion, 1736) — 'consciousness presupposes personal identity, and therefore cannot constitute it'; Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) — the brave officer / general transitivity case; Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984) — the contemporary descendant via psychological continuity.","works":["An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.xxvii 'Of Identity and Diversity' (added in the second edition of 1694 at Molyneux's suggestion): II.xxvii.9 (consciousness as what makes a person)","II.xxvii.10 (the man / person distinction)","II.xxvii.15 (the prince and cobbler thought experiment)","II.xxvii.18 (the forensic character of person — 'Person, as I take it, is the name for this self ... a Forensic Term')","II.xxvii.20 (the day and night consciousness case). The Three Replies to the Bishop of Worcester (Stillingfleet), 1697-1699, defending the personal-identity argument against the resurrection objection"],"reception":"Joseph Butler, 'Of Personal Identity' (Dissertation appended to The Analogy of Religion, 1736) — 'consciousness presupposes personal identity, and therefore cannot constitute it'; Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) — the brave officer / general transitivity case; Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984) — the contemporary descendant via psychological continuity.","status":"One of the founding chapters of modern philosophy of mind. Butler's response (1736) charges that consciousness presupposes the identity it is supposed to constitute and therefore cannot constitute it. Reid's brave-officer case (1785) charges that memory-based identity violates transitivity. Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984) is the contemporary inheritance: psychological continuity and connectedness as the descendant criterion. Stillingfleet's seventeenth-century version of the substance objection (the resurrection of the same person requires sameness of substance, which the consciousness criterion does not deliver) ran through the Three Replies of 1697-1699.","era":"1632-1704","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding","page":"p. 365","canonical":"","quote":"That with which the consciousness of this present thinking thing can join it self, makes the same Person, and is one self (4) [2nd] that] add. 3-5 (12) self-consciousness] Coste adds a marginal linguistic note. (14) Substance, |] 2-3, 5 | Substance J 4 23) self ]2~3 (likewise Goste) | self 4-5 (26) separated] 2-3 (likewise Coste) | separate 4-5 (27) Substances] 2-4 | Substance 5 (27-32):$0... time. That...","label":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 365"},{"n":2,"work":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding","page":"pp. 363–364","canonical":"","quote":"But let him once find himself conscious of any of the Actions of Nestor, he then finds himself the same Person with Nestor. 15. And thus we may be able without any difficulty to conceive, the same Person at the Resurrection, though in a Body not exactly in make or parts the same which he had here, the same consciousness going along with the Soul that inhabits it.","label":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 363–364"},{"n":3,"work":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding","page":"pp. 368–369","canonical":"","quote":"For whatsoever any Substance has thought or done, which I cannot recollect, and by my consciousness make my own Thought and Action, it will no more belong to me, whether a part of me thought or did it, than if it had been thought or done by any other immaterial Being any where existing. But let Men according to their divers Hypotheses resolve of that as they please.","label":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 368–369"},{"n":4,"work":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding","page":"pp. 357–358","canonical":"","quote":"The Prince, 'tis plain, who vouches this Story, and our Author who relates it from him, both of them call this Talker a Parrot; and I ask any one else who thinks such a Story fit to be told, whether if this Parrot, and all of its kind, had always talked as we have a Princes word for it, this one did, + Whence come ye? It answered, From Marinnan. The Prince, To whom do you belong? The Parrot, To a Portugeze.","label":"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 357–358"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-natural-law-foundation-of-politics","label":"The natural-law foundation of politics: is the workmanship-of-the-Maker doctrine the actual ground of equality and rights, or a theological surface concealing a secular individualist core?"},{"slug":"property-and-the-labor-theory","label":"Property and the labor theory: do the spoilage and 'enough and as good' limits remain in force after the consensual introduction of money?"},{"slug":"toleration-s-limits","label":"Toleration's limits: do the exclusions of atheists and Catholics in the Letter follow from the toleration argument's own logic, or contradict it?"}]}