The personal identity is a symbol of a person’s existence. It extends beyond the purpose of a name, serving as proof for the existence of the self in time. However, the physical appearance is not what the personal identity is derived from. In Locke’s Personal Identity, the personal identity stems from the consciousness itself instead of the physical body. The identity is significant to the individual, as it allows the individual to distinguish between the experiences from their mind and what may be from another individual’s. If the personal identity were not derived from consciousness and instead from the body, then the experiences, including who received them, would not matter in identification. Instead only the physical appearance would only matter, with which perhaps anyone could claim to be another person. The personal identity would be nothing more than a label.
…show more content…
It acts an anchor for the individual, so that he/she knows that they are the one who is experiencing events, instead of another being, and if the later if the experiences were theirs. Locke provides one example when he argues about the identity by consciousness. He claims that “for as to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or other substances, I being as much concerned and as justly accountable for any action that was done a thousand years since, appropriated to me now by this self-consciousness, as I am for what I did the last moment” (Locke 223). It is self-consciousness that makes Locke aware of events occurring, despite any effects on the physical body. The identity links existence and actions [to] the same person, as well as the existence and actions of the immediately preceding moment, so that whatever the consciousness of present and past actions is at the same person to whom they both belong (223).
“Everyone is concerned for himself… but admit as its own now”
It acts an anchor for the individual, so that he/she knows that they are the one who is experiencing events, instead of another being, and if the later if the experiences were theirs. Locke provides one example when he argues about the identity by consciousness. He claims that “for as to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or other substances, I being as much concerned and as justly accountable for any action that was done a thousand years since, appropriated to me now by this self-consciousness, as I am for what I did the last moment” (Locke 223). It is self-consciousness that makes Locke aware of events occurring, despite any effects on the physical body. The identity links existence and actions [to] the same person, as well as the existence and actions of the immediately preceding moment, so that whatever the consciousness of present and past actions is at the same person to whom they both belong (223).
“Everyone is concerned for himself… but admit as its own now”