Response to Lockes Theory of Personal Identity

Alex Longval 100891988 PHIL 1100P Nalini Ramlakhan November 23rd, 2012

Longval 1 Personal identity is what distinguishes you from every other person that has ever existed and is what remains constant throughout your life. John Lockes theory of personal identity is built upon the foundation of memory being the determining factor that links consciousness together through time and space. I will outline Lockes theory, demonstrate some of its flaws and postulate a possible alternative.

Lockes theory of personal identity is based upon the stream of consciousness held together by memory. Consciousness is the functional principle of organization for people in the same way that the number of wheels serves as the functional principle of organization for bicycles. What makes a bicycle different from a tricycle is that a bicycle has two wheels and a tricycle has three wheels. Similarly, what makes a person different from another person is that they each possess a different consciousness. Lockes theory states that memory is the constant that connects consciousness through time and space. This ensures that you are the same person now as you were ten minutes ago because the memories that you have now remain constant with the memories you had ten minutes ago. This seems logical, however the theory falls apart when applied to longer periods of time.

The brains capacity for memory is limited and it is due to this primary reason why Lockes theory is flawed. According to his theory, I am a different person than I was when I was when I was six years old because my six year old self has memories that I no longer have now at the age of eighteen. This implies that somewhere along the way, I stopped being one person, and became a totally new different person. This goes strongly against intuition. Instead, it would make more sense to say that the person I am today is a grown up, more experienced version of

Longval 2 the person I was twelve years ago. We are constantly losing memories because our brains dont have the capacity or necessity to remember every detail of our life experience.

If a complete theory is to address personal identity, it will have to include more than memory. Memory is merely an aspect to understand personal identity; it is a part of the qualitative conscious experience. I am the same person that I was yesterday because I embody the same qualitative conscious experience; what it is like to be me instead of you or a bat. This general explanation seems to lead us further away from the solution, however it accounts for the problems that Lockes theory encounters with memory loss.

Personal identity, at first glance seems like it can easily be explained with the specific brain function of memory as Locke has tried. However his theory is limited by the physical capacity that memory is restrained to. According to his theory, the loss of memory would lead to a total change of identity which goes against intuition. If we are to properly explain the constructs of personal identity, we must first come to an understanding of the qualitative conscious experience.