The Questions
The two questions of this project are:
(1a) For any human being who is a person, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for its personhood?
(2a) For any human being who is a particular person at one time, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions such that that human being is the same person at a different time? I will answer these questions in the spirit of Locke’s analysis of persons and personal identity. Locke’s definition of a person was “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places.” 1 In addition he thought that personal identity consisted in the phenomenological unity of consciousness, whereby through one’s consciousness, one perceives that one is the same self of the past. 2,3
1
Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 335.
2
Ibid., 335.
3
Locke’s exact words were:
This being premised, to find wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it: It being impossible for any one to perceive, without perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present sensations and perceptions: And by this every one is to himself that which he calls self ... For since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things; in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it
Locke’s claim that persons are intelligent and have reason and reflection seems to me to be correct. However, in holding that personal identity consists in the
phenomenological unity of consciousness, by which one experiences oneself as persisting over time, Locke excludes Episodics as persons and persons who persist over time, since Episodics can lack the phenomenological experience of persisting over time.
Working Definition of ‘Person’
I agree with Parfit on his methodology of starting with a working definition of persons inspired by Locke, and focusing on formulating an analysis of personal identity over time, though the final analysis of personal identity over time might alter the definition persons.4 Unlike Parfit, whose working definition of persons seems to be in
complete agreement with Locke, my working definition of person is a modified version of Locke’s definition of person:
Working Definition of a Person:
Person: A thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and may consider itself the same thinking thing in different times and places.
Criteria for a Successful Project
In forming their respective theories of personal identity, Parfit, Schechtman, and Rovane were each inspired by Locke and sought to improve upon Locke’s analysis. In Chapter 1, I discussed the views of Parfit, Schechtman, Rovane, and Korsgaard, and claimed that each offered important insights into the nature of personal identity and persons, but each were also unsatisfactory. Parfit’s view was an important expansion of
was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done (Ibid., 335).
4
Locke’s view in that it considers various psychological features, not just experiential memories or some sort of conscious sense that one persists over time. In claiming that all of our psychological features are relevant to our persistence, rather than just any self- perception that one persists over time, Parfit’s view does not exclude Episodics as Locke’s view does. However, Korsgaard notes that Parfit’s analysis problematically treats persons as a bundle of psychological features, minimizing rather than emphasizing that persons are agents. Schechtman’s view focused on the agency of persons. However, in requiring some degree of self-narrativity which connects one to one’s further past and one’s further future, Schechtman’s view fails to include those who do not use narrative to form their whole identities (e.g., Episodics such as Strawson and non-narrating or
intermittently narrating Diachronics). Pre-theoretically these individuals do not appear to lack identities and are persons who have a past and a future, though self-narratives would not create these identities. While Korsgaard takes rational agency to be a central feature of persons, she does not explain how a person is unified, though perhaps not ideally, when he fails to act on formal rational principles, such as the Categorical Imperative. Rovane’s view focuses on rational agency as well and I believe that having unifying projects and also striving to achieve overall rational unity probably unifies persons to some degree. However, many human beings are pre-theoretically human-sized persons that go through stages of life when they are committed to incoherent projects, and reject overall rational unity in favor of those projects. Hence, Rovane’s view unduly treats as multiple persons those who, pre-theoretically, we view as whole human-sized persons. Though Rovane holds that an overall commitment to rational unity is required to be a unified person, we can imagine what appears to be a whole person – Mary, the conflicted
businesswoman and mother, who lacks a commitment to overall rational unity. Rovane’s focus on rationality does not provide a comprehensive account of the identities of
persons.
In light of the strengths and shortcomings of previous views, I will present and defend an analysis of persons and personal identity over time that is (1) in the spirit of Locke with an emphasis on reason and reflection, (2) makes agency central rather than peripheral, (3) will not unduly exclude Episodics and non-narrating Diachronics as persons and persons who persist over time, and (4) will not unduly label those who appear to be whole but internally conflicted human-sized persons as group persons.