John Locke on Personal Identity

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In order to form an opinion on what Locke would do in the case of the 80 year old man who has been charged with war crimes that he genuinely does not remember one has to analyse the complex definitions surrounding identities. This essay will look into Locke’s thoughts and theories and by process of elimination speculate on how Locke would have evaluated the claim.

Why the necessity to fully analyse the definition of identity? Locke believed that the identity of things was not always as readily discernable as what first meets the eye and as a consequence set about defining the identity of all things from physical objects, the identity of living entities and ultimately the identity of man and the identity of person.

Locke viewed the identity of physical objects based on “perfect continued existence of the material body” (Emerson, 1997: 1). An object will remain the same object if it has all the same physical components. The arrangement of the physical particles is irrelevant. Locke used the example of simple and compound substances, involving atoms (Wanderer, 2005: 59). However, a simpler example would be a book on a shelf. If the book remained untouched in perpetuity, then the identity of the book would remain unchanged. But if pages were torn out of the book, Locke’s view would be that it is not the same book anymore – there ceases to be a perfect continued existence of material body (Emerson, 1997:1)

Locke viewed the identity of living entities in a different light. Above, change in mass constituted a change in identity. But, in living entities a change in mass does not affect the identity of the object. Locke uses the example of the oak tree. It starts off as a sapling and grows into a huge oak tree, with a massive change in mass. That oak tree could be subjected to the cutting of branches, and the winter fall of leaves, however it still remains an oak tree because it continues the life of a tree. It maintains the same functional arrangements of components (Blackburn, 1999: 125-126). An interesting example is raised by Blackburn in assessing “how much change to tolerate while still regarding it as the same ‘thing’” (Blackburn, 1999:127). ‘Theseus’ ship’ is used to illustrate this. The ship goes on a long voyage and is in need of constant repair and maintenance. By the end of the voyage, all the components of the ship have been changed.

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