Personal Identity In John Locke's Memory Criterion

Personal identity can be understood as having a soul, an immaterial entity that makes us who we are, or it can be viewed as being defined as who we are by means of psychological continuity where we are defined by our memories and personal experiences. In this essay I will try to establish whether or not Locke’s Memory Criterion is the correct account of personal identity.

What Is Personal Identity?
One can only contemplate personal identity once the definition of ‘person’ is understood. I know that I am a Homo-Sapien, which makes me a human organism, but I am a ‘person’ because I am a ‘thinking and intelligent being’ (Olsen, 2016), and according to Locke, ‘consciousness is inseparable from thinking’. If consciousness is inseparable from thinking and thinking links to our memories then this brings up the critical issue of identity, which is …show more content…
John Locke states that it is ‘the same consciousness that makes a man be himself to himself’ (Blackburn, 1999:130). He believed that person A could be person B at an earlier time only if ‘A is conscious of B’s experiences’ (Blackburn, 1999:130). An example of this is the prince and cobbler example. This example presents to us with the following scenario, if all the prince’s memories and experiences entered the mind of a cobbler then is the cobbler the prince? According to Locke, the cobbler is obviously the prince now because he has all of the prince’s memories and experiences. The prince now inhabits the body of the cobbler. On one hand Locke’s memory criterion is plausible as it shows us that our identity is connected to our consciousness, which includes our conscious memory over a period of time. We are what our memories are as we usually make decisions based on our memories and experiences that help us to identify between right and wrong, good and