Exam (elaborations)
EMA A222
- Module
- A222 (A222)
- Institution
- The Open University (OU)
According to Locke, should a man who has forgotten to commit a crime to be held responsible for that crime? Explain and assess Locke’s position.’?
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Enrique Sarabia Sánchez - personal identifier: G6533073A222 – TMA30 (EMA) - Word limit: 2000 words
PART 1
Question 1 - According to Locke, should a man who has forgotten
committing a crime be held responsible for that crime? Explain and
assess Locke’s position.’?
In order to be able to evaluate the question in the title of this topic, we must, first of all,
take into account the concept of personal identity and what makes us remain the same
people through time. The philosopher John Locke has been one of the pioneers in
arguing that personal identity originates in episodic and/or autobiographical memories.
When a person has lost his ability to remember or his memories have become distorted,
his identity is lost. For this purpose John Locke proposes "Three thought experiments":
· A prince wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror. In the reflection, he sees an
ordinary working man. He is able to remember when he went to bed the day before.
When he closes his eyes he is still the prince, but his appearance has changed. At the
same time, a cobbler gets up, looks in the mirror and discovers that he has the face of a
prince.
· A guy named Socrates is two individuals in unison. During the day he follows his
routine and his ideas, but during the night a totally different personality invades his
mind. Neither of them is aware of the other's existence.
· A man, who has drunk a bottle of bourbon, intervenes in a fight in the street and breaks
the nose of an opponent, then falls asleep and when he wakes up he has no recollection
of what has happened.
According to Locke, the self consists of self-consciousness, and the "self" of which one
is aware or has memory, is one's own psychic content which the self identifies as one's
own in the act of thinking or remembering. Therefore the same beliefs, desires and
thoughts are necessary for us to remain the same person. We are the same to the extent
that we continue to be aware of our own past thoughts and actions, as well as the
thoughts and actions we project into the future. From Locke’s point of view, you can be
the same man as years ago but this doesn't mean that you still be the same person and
the way to know it relies on terms of culpability.
For Locke, one of the most important issues is to distinguish the concept of personal
identity from that of substance. For Locke, it is on personal identity that all the value
and fairness of rewards and punishments rests, and if personal identity could not be
distinguished from the substance, we could not reliably establish the boundaries of
moral responsibility. Today, there are individuals who are not full persons, but only
human.
We are people only if, for example, we can partially remember what we did, reflected
on or experienced yesterday, and if we are also able to project ourselves into the future
to understand the aftermath or actions resulting from the actions we take tomorrow. But
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