Introduction to Philosophy

Lecture V
Consciousness, Persons and
Responsibility — Part II
Dr. Daniel Kaufman
College of Continuing Education & The Extended University
Missouri State University
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

"Person" is a thinking being, conscious of his/her
thoughts. It is in one's thoughts and consciousness
that one's identity as a person lies. (pp. 448–449)
 Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

So long as the same conscious life persists, the same
person exists.
• Our primary evidence that the same conscious life persists
from one moment to the next is that our memory reaches back
from the present moment to those previous moments.
• This principle of identity must allow for occasional gaps in
memory. A person at T2 is the same person as he/she was at
T1, if and only if he/she could, in principle, remember the
thoughts and experiences he/she had at T1.
 Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

So long as the same conscious life persists, the same
person exists.
• Our primary evidence that the same conscious life persists
from one moment to the next is that our memory reaches back
from the present moment to those previous moments.
• This principle of identity must allow for occasional gaps in
memory. A person at T2 is the same person as he/she was at
T1, if and only if he/she could, in principle, remember the
thoughts and experiences he/she had at T1.
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

• Locke's conception of a person has no dualistic
implications.
• We can speak of one individual, under two
descriptions: as a set of physical parts, organized
together so as to participate in a single life
("human being") or as a series of thoughts,
organized under a single consciousness, so as to
comprise a conscious life ("person").
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

"Person", for Locke, is a "forensic" term; i.e. a
moral and legal one. It is insofar as we are
persons that we bear moral and legal
responsibility for the things we do, not merely
insofar as we are human beings.
1. Absent personhood
2. Diminished personhood
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

• The intuition, in both cases, is that responsibility can
only attach to things over which one is responsible, and
our ordinary, common sense is that we can only be
responsible for those things done while conscious and
fully in control of our mental facilities.
• In cases of absent and diminished personhood,
consciousness and control are in question and hence,
responsibility is in question too.
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

What goes for obligations also goes for rights. The
Lockean idea of a person and of the relationship of
persons to rights informs arguments on behalf of
the right to an abortion and on behalf of active
euthanasia, under certain circumstances.
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Persons and personal identity

Limits on Legal Consideration of Absent and
Diminished Personhood
• It is not always possible to prove full personhood
and thus, full responsibility, in a court of law.
• The law is not solely an instrument of justice, but
also an instrument of order.
Lecture V Consciousness, Persons, and Responsibility — Part II

Next time:
• "Mentalism" vs. "Behaviorism"
• Gilbert Ryle and B. F. Skinner