On his view, a person – a moral agent – Y at t2 is identical to a person X at tstep one just in case Y’s consciousness “can be extended backwards” to X (Ibid., 39), and this is typically taken to mean that Y remembers X’s thoughts and experiences. This is what we might call a relational account of identity, for it maintains that persons at different times are identical to one another in virtue of some relation(s) between them, where such relations might be psychological or physical. Locke thus rejected what we might call a substance-based view of identity, which maintains that persons at different times are identical to one another in virtue of their consisting in one and the same substance.
Start by prudential rationality
Today whenever we has actually Locke’s relational account from label in hand, we could see what effects it will have for various normative things. This is actually the mechanism wherein I would personally end up being rationalized, like, in the expecting the newest afterlife, and in case at resurrection you’ll encounter you to definitely whom my personal introduce understanding offers. This individual would-be me personally even when he may has actually good very different human anatomy than simply I have now (Ibid., 44). It must be unimportant if you ask me, with this look at, what substance (body or soul) I have found my personal awareness – me personally – attached to escort in Cincinnati OH. If, such as for instance, my personal finger had been cut off and you can my personal awareness honored they, “that would be a similar care about which was worried towards body yesterday, as and also make part of in itself, whose strategies this may be try not to but recognize as the individual today” (Ibid., 46). Continue reading Locke’s account off personal identity appealed as to the looks a vital condition of moral agency, particularly, self-reflective awareness