In what sense are you the same person today that you were when you were ten?
Ty Watson
Such a question regarding the sameness of persons over time is, by nature, a question of survival. What ‘matters’ in survival is predominantly seen to be personal identity.
In any ordinary case, it seems natural to assume that in all aspects you are the same person today that you were when you were ten. You both can track the spatio-temporal path of your body and have psychological experiences and connections linking you to your younger self (e.g., you remember events your ten-year-old self experienced). Indeed, in any ordinary case, the multiple criteria of personal identity do not conflict, and common-sense psychology is a good-enough indicator of whether A at t 1 is the same person as B at t 2 . It is through the extraordinary cases that one finds a need for exact requirements of what makes someone the same person over time, and unanimous agreement for such requirements has thus far been unsuccessful. Subsequently, some even question whether personal identity is what matters. The modern discussion of personal identity stems from Locke’s rejection of the Cartesian view of persons as immaterial souls. 1 Locke proposes that the identities of persons consist in their ‘ consciousness [that] can be extended backwards to any past action or thought ’: 2 simplified, personal identity consists in memory. If you can remember a past experience, you are the same person as that who experienced it. This definition was criticized in the 18 th c entury by Butler and Reid. First, Butler rejects Locke’s criterion as circular. 3 For some, this charge has been satisfactorily refuted with the introduction of ‘quasi - memories’. 4 Second, Reid argues that Locke’s memory criterion is non -transitive, whereas identity is a transitive relation. 5 In response to this, the neo-Lockean conception of personal identity was born, through the notion of memory continuity. This notion conditions that identity instead consists in the overlapping chain of memory connections, which is a transitive relation. 6 1 Descartes 1969. 2 Locke 1694. 3 Butler 1736. 4 Parfit,1984. Although some express doubts about the ‘quasi - memories’ argument, I feel Parfit answers them adequately. I will not discuss them further. 5 Reid 1785. 6 To clarify using an example: on Locke’s initial criterion, if you remember committing petty theft when you were seventeen, then you are the same person now as that who committed petty theft. If, in twenty years, you remember being your current age, but you no longer remember committing petty theft, then you will be the same person as you are now, but not the same person as when you were seventeen. This is a logical fallacy, since, if A=B and B=C then C=A, but on Locke’s criterion, C ≠ A because C can’t remember being A. The relation of memory continuity can be introduced to say that C=A because C remembers being B who remembers being A.
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