All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945995
ISBN 978–0–19–884675–8
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198846758.001.0001
Printed and bound in the UK by TJ Books Limited
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
For my mother
5.2.5
7.
8.
7.6
7.7
10.
Acknowledgements
My research on Locke on persons and personal identity started at the University of St Andrews where I wrote my PhD dissertation on this topic and since then has accompanied me as I continued my work on three different continents. I would not have been able to complete this book project without the support and encouragement of my teachers, mentors, colleagues, friends, and family. I owe special thanks to my PhD supervisors Sarah Broadie and James Harris for their guidance, support, and feedback on multiple drafts, which helped me to sharpen my philosophical and historical views. Kenneth Winkler has been a wonderful mentor and interlocutor ever since I first met him during a research visit at Yale in 2010. I have learned much from his detailed knowledge of Locke and the early modern period. I am deeply grateful for all his support and encouragement. I have also greatly benefited from conversations with Michael Della Rocca at Yale. Martha Bolton has been very generous with her time and given me many in-depth comments on drafts of my work during a research visit at Rutgers in 2011 and I am enormously grateful for all her support since then.
My PhD research was supported by a Carnegie Scholarship from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, which I gratefully acknowledge. Additionally, I wish to thank the Thomas and Margaret Roddan Trust for supporting my research visit at Yale in the spring of 2010. I am also grateful to the Journal of the History of Philosophy for supporting library and manuscript research at the University of Oxford with a Kristeller-Popkin Travel Fellowship in 2015.
I held positions at Bowling Green State University, SUNY Albany, the University of Melbourne, and University College Dublin while I worked on this book project. The collegiality of my colleagues has been enormously valuable and I wish to thank my students and colleagues for many insightful discussions. I owe special thanks to my department chairs Greg Restall and Francois Schroeter at the University of Melbourne and my Heads of School Jim O’Shea, Maria Baghramian, and Brian O’Connor at University College Dublin for supporting my career development and for enabling me to pursue my research activities in recent years.
Kathryn Tabb deserves particular mention. She has not only given me very valuable feedback on my work on several occasions, but also she has helped organize a workshop at Columbia University where we discussed an earlier version of this book project. Her wonderful hospitality greatly contributed to the success of the event. I am deeply grateful to the participants Patrick Connolly,
Matthew Leisinger, Jorge Morales, Kathryn Tabb, Kenneth Winkler, Joshua Wood, and Phil Yaure for very stimulating discussions and for their in-depth feedback that enormously helped me advance my interpretation of Locke. I have also greatly benefited from conversations with Patrick Connolly and Matthew Leisinger at various other early modern conferences and workshops.
Earlier versions of my work have been presented at seminars, workshops, and conferences hosted at Brown University, CUNY John Jay College, Deakin University, Eötvös Loránd University, Fordham University, Ghent University, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, King’s College London, Monash University, Radboud University, Skidmore College, SUNY Albany, Texas A&M University, University College Dublin, University of Aberdeen, University of Cambridge, University of East Anglia, University of Exeter, University of Graz, University of Groningen, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Melbourne, University of Otago, University of Oxford, University of Sheffield, University of Sydney, University of the West of England, and Yale University. I wish to thank all my audience members for helpful comments.
Many have helped and encouraged me to develop and advance my philosophical views over the last couple of years. I especially like to thank Peter Anstey, Bihotz Barrenechea, Jacqueline Broad, Julia Borcherding, Artem Bourov, Yoon Choi, Rachel Cohon, Samuel Fleischacker, Jessica Gordon-Roth, Karen Green, Katherine Hawley, Julia Jorati, Larry Jorgensen, Jia Kefang, Patricia Kitcher, Cheryl Koh, Allison Kuklok, Vili Lähteenmäki, Bruce Langtry, Michael LeBuffe, Martin Lenz, Antonia LoLordo, Christopher Macleod, Marzia Marconi, Edwin McCann, Daniel Moerner, Victor Nuovo, Katherine O’Donnell, Kenneth Pearce, Matthew Priselac, Ursula Renz, Samuel Rickless, Marleen Rozemond, Anat Schechtman, Kelley Schiffman, Ariane Schneck, Lisa Shapiro, Patricia Sheridan, Alex Silverman, Craig Smith, M. A. Stewart, Patrick Stokes, Galen Strawson, Matthew Stuart, Udo Thiel, Radka Tomeckova, Anik Waldow, Julie Walsh, Shelley Weinberg, Peter West, and Gideon Yaffe.
I am also tremendously grateful to OUP’s anonymous readers for reading earlier drafts of my book with great attention to detail and for making many very helpful and intelligent suggestions for revisions. The book is much better thanks to their feedback, but, of course, I do not expect all controversies in Locke scholarship to be settled and the views expressed in this final version are my own. Working with Peter Momtchiloff, April Peake, and Rachel Goldsworthy at OUP has been delightful and I thank them for their support and guidance.
My work in this book builds on previously published journal articles. I am grateful for permission to reuse material from the following articles: ‘The Moral Dimension in Locke’s Account of Persons and Personal Identity’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 31 (2014): 229–47; ‘Locke and Hume on Personal Identity: Moral and Religious Differences’, Hume Studies 41 (2015): 105–35; ‘The Role of Appropriation in Locke’s Account of Persons and Personal Identity’, Locke Studies
For a long time Lockes Theorie der personalen Identität [Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity] by Udo Thiel, published in 1983,1 was the only book-length study on the subject. In recent years there has been growing interest in Locke scholarship in general, and in Locke’s views on persons and personal identity in particular. Galen Strawson’s Locke on Personal Identity (2011)2 revived the interest in the topic. Udo Thiel’s The Early Modern Subject (2011)3 covers the early modern debates about self-consciousness and personal identity from Descartes to Hume. It is an invaluable book for scholars, because it covers an impressive range of primary and secondary sources. Additional new book publications that make important contributions to the interpretation of Locke’s account of persons and personal identity followed, and include Antonia LoLordo’s Locke’s Moral Man (2012),4 Matthew Stuart’s Locke’s Metaphysics (2013),5 Nicholas Jolley’s Locke’s Touchy Subjects (2015),6 and Shelley Weinberg’s Consciousness in Locke (2016).7 All of these books have been important sources that helped me develop my own interpretation and have set high standards for Locke scholarship. What contributions can a new book on Locke on persons and personal identity make? My book will be significantly different from the existing book-length studies on the topic. By understanding Locke’s account of persons and personal identity within the framework of his kind-dependent approach to identity, I am in a position to distance my interpretation from other approaches to Locke’s account of personal identity that immediately turn to Locke’s account of personal identity without examining first his account of personhood. Neither Jolley, LoLordo, Thiel, nor Weinberg carefully distinguish Locke’s account of personhood from his account of personal identity over time. By distinguishing Locke’s account of personhood from his account of personal identity I can locate the moral dimension of Locke’s view in his account of personhood and take seriously both his claim
2 Galen Strawson, Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).
3 Udo Thiel, The Early Modern Subject: Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
4 Antonia LoLordo, Locke’s Moral Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
5 Matthew Stuart, Locke’s Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2013).
6 Nicholas Jolley, Locke’s Touchy Subjects: Materialism and Immortality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
7 Shelley Weinberg, Consciousness in Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
that ‘person’ is a forensic term and his claim that personal identity consists in same consciousness.8
LoLordo’s two major contributions to the interpretation of Locke’s account of persons and personal identity are, first, her proposal that Lockean persons are modes rather than substances, and, second her appropriation interpretation of Locke’s account of personal identity.9 I have reservations about both proposals. The proposal that Lockean persons are modes was first made by Edmund Law in his Defence of Mr Locke’s Opinion concerning Personal Identity,10 but has been challenged by interpreters who claim that Lockean persons are, or must be, substances.11 I will not take this route to distance my view from LoLordo’s mode interpretation. Rather I believe that Locke’s own silence about the question whether persons are modes or substances in his chapter ‘Of Identity and Diversity’ (II.xxvii) intimates that he did not regard it as relevant to decide whether persons are modes or substances in the context of this chapter where his main task is to specify persistence conditions for persons. LoLordo’s appropriation interpretation is the proposal that the necessary and sufficient conditions for personal identity are to be understood in terms of appropriation. Appropriation certainly plays a role in Locke’s account of persons and personal identity. However, since Locke never claims that personal identity consists in appropriation, but rather argues repeatedly that personal identity consists in same consciousness, I am not convinced that LoLordo’s interpretation is well supported by Locke’s text.12
Strawson has done good work in emphasizing the forensic aspect of Locke’s account of personhood. However, my work differs from Strawson’s insofar as he does not consider Locke’s account of persons and personal identity within the framework of the kind-dependent account of identity. Moreover, Strawson and I differ about the role that the religious context plays in Locke’s theory. This disagreement finds expression in our different interpretations of the problem of
8 For instance, Thiel argues that ‘consciousness has priority’ (The Early Modern Subject, 128) over self-concern and moral and legal notions. Thiel’s claim is vague and my framework offers resources for a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between morality and metaphysics or morality and a psychological account of personal identity. See Ruth Boeker, ‘The Moral Dimension in Locke’s Account of Persons and Personal Identity,’ History of Philosophy Quarterly 31 (2014): 241–3.
9 See LoLordo, Locke’s Moral Man, ch. 2.
10 See Edmund Law, A Defence of Mr. Locke’s Opinion Concerning Personal Identity; in Answer to the First Part of a Late Essay on That Subject (Cambridge: Printed by J. Archdeacon, 1769).
11 See Jessica Gordon-Roth, ‘Locke on the Ontology of Persons,’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 53 (2015); Samuel C. Rickless, ‘Are Locke’s Persons Modes or Substances?’ in Locke and Leibniz on Substance, ed. Paul Lodge and Tom Stoneham (New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2015); Kenneth P. Winkler, ‘Locke on Personal Identity,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 (1991). Matthew A. Leisinger, ‘Locke on Persons and Other Kinds of Substances,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (2019), argues for an intermediate position, according to which the idea of a person is a substance idea that contains a mode idea. A third option is that Lockean persons are relations, as is argued by Marko Simendic, ‘Locke’s Person Is a Relation,’ Locke Studies 15 (2015). Simendic does not carefully distinguish between a person at a time and personal identity over time.
12 I offer a critical response to appropriation interpretations in Ruth Boeker, ‘The Role of Appropriation in Locke’s Account of Persons and Personal Identity,’ Locke Studies 16 (2016).
transitivity. While Strawson argues that Locke’s account of personal identity is non-transitive, I argue that the religious context of the afterlife and a last judgement makes it more likely that Locke would give preference to a hybrid view that combines insights of transitive and non-transitive interpretations.
Stuart’s contributions are twofold: first, he defends a Relative Identity interpretation of Locke’s account of identity;13 second, he argues that Locke endorses a simple memory theory of personal identity.14 If the simple memory theory offers a correct interpretation of Locke, it entails that his account of personal identity is non-transitive, which Stuart believes is supported by his text. I believe that both proposals deserve serious consideration, but I am not convinced that Locke is committed to either of them. Due to Locke’s metaphysical agnosticism about the materiality or immateriality of thinking substances, he would be reluctant to endorse a Relative Identity interpretation. Although memory is certainly an important aspect of Locke’s same consciousness account, I believe that Stuart does not give sufficient consideration to other aspects of Locke’s same consciousness account such as unity and temporality. Moreover, I emphasize the importance of the religious context of Locke’s theory more than Stuart.
Nicholas Jolley discusses Locke’s account of personal identity in the context of metaphysical and religious views held by Locke, his contemporaries, and predecessors. I agree with Jolley that this context is significant. Jolley’s book defends the thesis that ‘[a] major concern of Locke’s philosophy is to show that at least a weak form of materialism is a reasonable position in the philosophy of mind.’15 I take Locke at his word when he claims that ‘the more probable Opinion is, that this consciousness is annexed to, and the Affection of one individual immaterial Substance’ (II.xxvii.25)16 and distance my interpretation from Jolley’s, because Jolley’s discussion of immaterial views of the mind focuses almost exclusively on Cartesian immaterial views and neglects non-Cartesian immaterial views of the mind such as Platonist views.
Shelley Weinberg has done important work to advance the interpretation of Locke’s notion of consciousness and its role throughout Locke’s Essay. I build on her insights, but distance my view from various details of her interpretation. For instance, I do not follow Weinberg in identifying Lockean consciousness with self-consciousness.17 On my view, a subject that has a perception is not only conscious of oneself as perceiving subject, but also of the content of the perception. This reading, I believe, can better accommodate Locke’s view that persons are conscious of their thoughts and actions.
13 See Stuart, Locke’s Metaphysics, ch. 7. 14 See Stuart, Locke’s Metaphysics, ch. 8.
15 Jolley, Locke’s Touchy Subjects, 8.
16 See also Locke, Works, 4:33–7. This reading, namely that it is more likely that thinking substances are immaterial, is also defended by Michael Jacovides, Locke’s Image of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 129–34.
17 See Weinberg, Consciousness in Locke, xi–xiii, 27, 33, 45–7, 51.
My book offers a new perspective on Locke’s account of persons and personal identity by considering it within the context of his broader philosophical project and the philosophical debates of his day. I draw on a wider range of texts from Locke’s philosophical corpus than any other previous study on the topic. This enables me to argue that his account of personal identity is not psychological per se, but rather his particular moral, religious, metaphysical, and epistemic background beliefs explain why he links a moral account of personhood with a psychological account of personal identity. Moreover, my approach makes it possible both to show how Locke advances the debates of his predecessors and to explain why his early critics questioned or rejected his view.
Abbreviations
References to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works follow common referencing conventions and are abbreviated and cited in the following formats.
Works by John Locke
In-text references with three numerals (Roman numeral, small Roman numeral, Arabic numeral) such as ‘II.xxvii.9’ are to Book, chapter, section number of Locke’s Essay.
Correspondence The Correspondence of John Locke, edited by E. S. de Beer, 8 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976–1989, cited by letter number, followed by volume and page number.
Drafts A and B Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and Other Philosophical Writings, edited by Peter H. Nidditch and G. A. J. Rogers, vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, cited by draft, paragraph, page number.
Early Draft An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay, Together with Excerpts from His Journals, edited by R. I. Aaron and Jocelyn Gibb. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936.
Education Some Thoughts concerning Education, edited by John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989 [1693].
Essay An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 [1690], cited by book, chapter, section number. Where relevant edition number is added in bold.
Law of Nature Essays on the Law of Nature and Associated Writings, edited by W. von Leyden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.
Paraphrase and Notes
A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, edited by Arthur William Wainwright, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987, cited by volume and page number.
Political Essays Political Essays, edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Reasonableness The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures, in Writings on Religion, edited by Victor Nuovo. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002 [1695].
Two Treatises Two Treatises of Government, edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988 [1690], cited by Book, paragraph number.
Works The Works of John Locke, new, corrected ed., 10 vols. London: Thomas Tegg, 1823, cited by volume and page number.
xviii Abbreviations
Writings on Religion Writings on Religion, edited by Victor Nuovo. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.
Works by René Descartes
AT René Descartes, Ouvres de Descartes, edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, 12 vols. Paris: Vrin, 1996.
CSM René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, vols. 1 and 2 (out of 3 vols). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984–85, cited by volume and page number.
CSMK René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: The Correspondence, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, vol. 3 (out of 3 vols). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, cited by volume and page number.
Works by Thomas Hobbes
English Works Thomas Hobbes, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, edited by William Molesworth, 11 vols. London: J. Bohn, 1839–45, cited by volume and page number.
Leviathan Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668, edited by Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994 [1651], cited by part, chapter, section number, followed by and page number.
Anonymously published works
Remarks Anon., Remarks Upon an Essay Concerning Humane Understanding in a Letter Address’d to the Author. London: Printed for M. Wotton, 1697.
Second Remarks Anon., Second Remarks Upon an Essay Concerning Humane Understanding in a Letter Address’d to the Author, Being a Vindication of the First Remarks against the Answer of Mr. Lock, at the End of His Reply to the Lord Bishop of Worcester. London: Printed for M. Wotton, 1697.
Third Remarks Anon., Third Remarks Upon an Essay Concerning Humane Understanding in a Letter Address’d to the Author. London: Printed for M. Wotton, 1699.
Works by Catharine Trotter Cockburn
Defence Catharine Trotter Cockburn, A Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding, wherein its Principles, with Reference to Morality,
Christian Religion
Revealed Religion, and the Immortality of the Soul, are considered and justified: In answer to some Remarks on that Essay. In Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Philosophical Writings, edited by Patricia Sheridan. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2006 [1702].
Works by Mary Astell
Mary Astell, The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England, edited by Jacqueline Broad. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies and Iter Publishing, 2013 [1705], cited by paragraph number.
Clarke-Collins Correspondence
A Letter to Mr. Dodwell; Together with Defences and Replies
References to the Clarke-Collins Correspondences are to the following edition of 1731: Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins, A Letter to Mr. Dodwell; Wherein all the Arguments in his Epistolary Discourse against the Immortality of the Soul are particularly answered, and the Judgment of the Fathers concerning Matter truly represented. Together with A Defence of an Argument made use of in the above-mentioned Letter to Mr. Dodwell, to prove the Immateriality and Natural Immortality of the Soul. In Four Letters to the Author of Some Remarks, &c. To which is added, Some Reflections on that Part of a Book called Amyntor, which relates to the Writings of the Primitive Fathers, and the Canon of the New Testament. The Sixth Edition. In this Edition are inserted The Remarks on Dr. Clarke’s Letter to Mr. Dodwell, and the several Replies to the Doctor’s Defences thereof. Printed for James and John Knapton, at the Crown in St. Paul’s Churchyard: London, 1731 [1706–08]. Individual works in the collection will be abbreviated as follows:
LD Clarke, A Letter to Mr. Dodwell (1706)
LLD Collins, A Letter to the Learned Mr. Henry Dodwell (1707)
D Clarke, A Defence of an Argument (1707)
RD Collins, A Reply to Mr Clarke’s Defence of his Letter to Mr. Dodwell (1707)
SD Clarke, A Second Defence of an Argument (1707)
RSD Collins, Reflections on Mr. Clarke’s Second Defence (1707)
TD Clarke, A Third Defence of an Argument (1708)
ATD Collins, An Answer to Mr. Clarke’s Third Defence (1708)
FD Clarke, A Fourth Defence of an Argument (1708)
Additionally, references are given to The Correspondence of Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins, 1707–08, edited by William L. Uzgalis. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2011, cited as ‘U,’ followed by page number.
Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
New Essays Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, cited by Book, chapter, section number, followed by page number.
Works by the Third Earl of Shaftesbury
Characteristicks Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, edited by Douglas J. den Uyl, 3 vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001 [1711]. Individual works in the collection will be abbreviated as follows:
LE A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm (in vol. 1 of the 1711 ed.)
SC Sensus Communis, and Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour in a Letter to a Friend (in vol. 1 of the 1711 ed.)
S Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (in vol. 1 of the 1711 ed.)
I An Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit (in vol. 2 of the 1711 ed.)
M The Moralists: A Philosophical Rhapsody (in vol. 2 of the 1711 ed.)
MR Miscellaneous Reflections on the said Treatises, and other critical Subjects (in vol. 3 of the 1711 ed.)
Additionally, references are given to Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, edited by Lawrence E. Klein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, cited as ‘C,’ followed by page number.
Works by Joseph Butler
Analogy of Religion
‘Of Personal Identity’
Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion. In vol. 1 of The Works of Joseph Butler, edited by W. E. Gladstone. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897 [1736]. Joseph Butler, ‘Of Personal Identity’, in vol. 1 of The Works of Joseph Butler, edited by W. E. Gladstone, 1:317–25. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897 [1736].
Works by David Hume
Treatise David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 [1739–40], cited by part, book, section, paragraph number; additionally, references are given to David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978 [1739–40], cited as ‘SBN’, followed by page number.
EHU
EAP
EIP
Animate Creation
Abbreviations
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Tom L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000 [1748], cited by section, paragraph number; additionally, references are given to David Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch, 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, cited as ‘SBN’, followed by page number.
Works by Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, edited by Knud Haakonssen and James A. Harris. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010 [1788], cited by essay, [part, if relevant,] chapter number, followed by page number.
Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, edited by Derek R. Brookes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002 [1785], cited by essay, chapter number, followed by page number. Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation: Papers Relating to the Life Sciences, edited by Paul Wood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
1 Introduction
1.1 Locke’s Innovative Approach to Debates about Persons and Personal Identity
John Locke develops an innovative account of persons and personal identity. Locke is interested in making sense of questions of moral accountability and argues that we need to distinguish the idea of a person from that of a man (or human being1 as we would say today) and that of a substance.2 For Locke, persons—rather than human beings or substances—will be held accountable and rewarded or punished for their actions in this life and in the life to come. Moral accountability presupposes personal identity. However, what makes a person the same over time? Locke not only aims to explain how a person continues to exist in this life, but as a Christian believer it is important for him to take seriously the possibility of an afterlife and thus he intends to offer an account of personal identity that can explain how a person can continue to exist in the afterlife. Locke argues repeatedly that personal identity consists in sameness of consciousness and his point is that personal identity does not have to coincide with identity of man or identity of substance.3 The significance of Locke’s distinction between the ideas of person and man becomes clear when we consider an individual in a coma. Locke would argue that a patient in a coma is the same man (or woman) as before falling into the coma, but not the same person, and it would be unjust to hold someone in a coma accountable for a past crime. Moreover, as we will see, philosophers who identify persons with human beings face problems in explaining the resurrection; these problems do not arise for Locke’s account of personal
1 Here and in the following I use Locke’s term ‘man’ interchangeably with ‘human being.’
2 For Locke, the idea of a person stands for ‘a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing in different times and places’ (II. xxvii.9). Moreover, he holds that ‘Person . . . is a Forensick Term appropriating Actions and their Merit; and so belongs only to intelligent agents capable of a Law, and Happiness and Misery.’ (II.xxvii.26) Although Locke’s idea of man is often taken to stand for a human organism, this is only one way to understand what is meant by ‘man’ and Locke considers alternative meanings in II.xxvii.21, which I will discuss further in subsequent chapters. According to Locke, we use the idea of substance to denote an underlying substratum from which our various ideas associated with the substance under consideration result. We suppose the substratum to exist, since we cannot imagine how the various simple ideas subsist by themselves (see II.xxiii.1). Locke’s claim that we have to distinguish the idea of a person from that of a substance remains neutral on the further metaphysical question of whether a person at a time is a substance.
3 See II.xxvii.9–26. Locke’s distinction between the ideas of person, man, and substance can already be found in an early manuscript note. See John Locke, ‘Identy [sic] of Persons,’ (Bodleian Libraries MS Locke f.7, 5 June 1683), 107.
identity. However, can Locke explain the resurrection and life after death without presupposing the continued existence of an immaterial substance? According to Locke, God ‘will restore us to the like state of Sensibility in another World’ (IV. iii.6) and the mere presence of an immaterial substance does not ensure that resurrected beings will be sensible beings that are capable of happiness or misery.4 Thus, Locke believes that ‘[a]ll the great Ends of Morality and Religion, are well enough secured, without philosophical Proofs of the Soul’s Immateriality’ (IV. iii.6). My study intends to show how Locke offers an account of persons and personal identity that is well suited for his moral and religious purposes.
His views about persons and personal identity were widely discussed soon after their publication and continue to influence debates about personal identity. In present-day debates Locke’s view is often seen as an early version of psychological accounts of personal identity.5 Since Locke argues repeatedly that personal identity consists in same consciousness, it is plausible to regard his account of personal identity as psychological. However, his account of persons and personal identity is richer. Locke not only argues that personal identity consists in same consciousness, but he also claims that ‘person’ is a forensic term,6 meaning that persons are moral and legal beings that are accountable for their actions. In the following I argue that both claims are central for understanding Locke’s position and show how they are intertwined. In order to understand how Locke links his forensic account of personhood with his psychological account of personal identity, it is helpful to understand his approach to persons and personal identity within the framework of his general approach to questions of identity, which I call kind-dependent. By taking the kind-dependent framework seriously we will see that it is important to consider Locke’s account of personhood separately from his account of personal identity. A close examination of Locke’s account of personhood will establish that Lockean persons are moral and legal beings, or, in other words, subjects of accountability. Moreover, I bring to light that he holds particular—and controversial—moral background beliefs, which explain why he regards sameness of consciousness as necessary for personal identity. I examine how Locke understands sameness of consciousness and show how my reading
4 Similar considerations can already be found in a manuscript note on immortality dating back to 1682. See Locke, Early Draft, 121–3.
5 For instance, see Michael Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, 2 vols. (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 2:278–92; Harold W. Noonan, Personal Identity, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 9–11; Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 204–9; Jennifer Whiting, ‘Personal Identity: The Non-Branching Form of “What Matters” ,’ in The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics, ed. Richard M. Gale (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002). It is worth noting that neo-Lockean accounts of personal identity are not the only way to develop Locke’s view. For instance, Carol Rovane regards Locke’s view as a source of inspiration for her own normative account of personal identity. See Carol Rovane, ‘From a Rational Point of View,’ Philosophical Topics 30 (2002); Carol Rovane, The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
6 See II.xxvii.26.
provides resources to respond to problems commonly associated with Locke’s account of personal identity such as the problems of circularity and transitivity. Furthermore, I argue that we can reveal the strengths of Locke’s same consciousness account if we consider it in the context of metaphysical and religious debates of his predecessors. Considering Locke’s views about persons and personal identity within his broader philosophical project brings to light how his moral, religious, metaphysical, and epistemic background beliefs shape his thinking about persons and personal identity.
My interpretive approach is rooted in Locke’s position that human cognitive capacities are limited. This means that many metaphysical propositions remain unknown to us.7 The lesson for Locke is that we should use our capacities for enquiries that they are suited for and focus on morality and religion:
From whence it is obvious to conclude, that since our Faculties are not fitted to penetrate into the internal Fabrick and real Essences of Bodies; but yet plainly discover to us the Being of a GOD, and the Knowledge of our selves, enough to lead us into a full and clear discovery of our Duty, and great Concernment, it will become us, as rational Creatures, to imploy those Faculties we have about what they are most adapted to, and follow the direction of Nature, where it seems to point us out the way. For ’tis rational to conclude, that our proper Imployment lies in those Enquiries, and in that sort of Knowledge, which is most suited to our natural Capacities, and carries in it our greatest interest, i.e. the Condition of our eternal Estate. Hence I think I may conclude, that Morality is the proper Science, and Business of Mankind in general. (IV.xii.11)
In addition to showing how Locke’s views about persons and personal identity are situated within his broader philosophical project, my work brings to light how Locke advances the debates of his predecessors by bringing together moral debates about personhood with metaphysical and religious debates about the afterlife and the resurrection in a unique and novel way. Locke is not the first philosopher to regard persons as moral and legal beings. He is familiar with the natural law tradition—a tradition that regards persons (or in Latin personae) as bearers of rights and duties.8 This moral and legal conception of a person can be
7 It is worth noting that Locke does not reject metaphysical knowledge entirely. For instance, he accepts that we can know that God exists (see IV.x), or that substances exist (see Locke, Works, 4:32–3).
8 Locke wrote Essays on the Law of Nature around 1663–64 and delivered them as lectures at Christ Church College, Oxford. Locke never published the essays during his lifetime, despite encouragement to do so. For the role of persons in natural law theory see, for instance, Samuel Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations, ed. Jean Barbeyrac, trans. Basil Kennett and George Carew, The fourth edition, carefully corrected. (London: printed for J. Walthoe, R. Wilkin, J. and J. Bonwicke, S. Birt, T. Ward, and T. Osborne, 1729), especially I.i. For further discussion, see Stephen Buckle, Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), chs. 1–3; Knud Haakonssen,
