John Locke and Personal Identity

Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy

K. Joanna S. Forstrom

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781441173249
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

One of the most influential debates in John Locke's work is the problem of personal identity over time. This problem is that of how a person at one time is the same person later in time, and so can be held responsible for past actions. The time of most concern for Locke is that of the general resurrection promised in the New Testament. Given the turbulence of the Reformation and the formation of new approaches to the Bible, many philosophers and scientists paid careful attention to emerging orthodoxies or heterodoxies about death. Here K. Joanna S. Forstrom examines the interrelated positions of Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Henry More and Robert Boyle in their individual contexts and in Locke's treatment of them. She argues that, in this way, we can better understand Locke and his position on personal identity and immortality. Once his unique take is understood and grounded in his own theological convictions (or lack thereof), we can better evaluate Locke and defend him against classic objections to his thought.

Chapter 1
John Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity: The Principium Individuationis, Personal Immortality, and Bodily Resurrection

The problem of personal identity was not the reason why John Locke wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, although it may be the reason that many today are introduced to his work and to the classic problem of personal identity. This chapter begins with an inquiry into some of the main reasons Locke includes a section on personal identity in the second and subsequent editions of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (hereafter, Essay). The suggestion made by William Molyneux and the passages he cites in correspondence with Locke is a logical place to begin. And as we examine Molyneux’s suggestion, it becomes clear that what he was asking for and what Locke provides in response is more than a treatment of a particular problem. Rather, it is an engagement with ongoing fundamental concerns about philosophy and theology in light of the new science.

I. Molyneux and the Principium Individuationis in Scholastic Philosophical and Theological Thought

Chapter 27, “Of Identity and Diversity,” is added by Locke to Book II in the second edition of the Essay at the suggestion of William Molyneux to consider subjects that would facilitate the adoption of the Essay by a largely scholastic Oxford.¹ Molyneux, in correspondence with Locke, first suggests that Locke write an entire treatise on the topics of traditional scholastic logic and metaphysics.² Locke demurs and requests of Molyneux specific headings he might incorporate into the second edition of the Essay.³ Molyneux replies with two of the more traditional metaphysical problems with which the scholastics deal, namely eternal truths and the principium individuationis⁴ as he thinks Locke needs but expand on the topic and those passages from the first edition where Locke had already discussed these issues.

To better understand Molyneux’s suggestion and Locke’s response to it, a brief inquiry into the problem of the principium individuationis with an emphasis on understanding its relationship to some key theological controversies in scholastic thought at Oxford and elsewhere is helpful.⁵

The problem of the principium individuationis centers on what individuates, or makes distinct, an individual from others of the same kind. For example, how or why is it that my cat, Electra, is an individual cat and different from any other individual cat, say your cat, Bob? It is not enough to say that they just are different cats. Rather what is asked for is an account of what makes her a distinct cat from Bob. Is it that she is an individual? Is it that she is a bundle of qualities that are unique because of the location of them? Is it because she has an individual soul or life force (which may or may not have had previous experience)? An account that is given in response to these questions impacts on related questions involving identity and individuation—that is, is what makes Electra distinct from Bob the same thing that makes both a cat? And if so, what is it that makes them cats and not dogs? Is what makes her distinct now from Bob is that which will continue to make her distinct from him in a few years? And is there any way that she can become Bob?

These questions of identity and individuation for cats and dogs may seem fairly trivial. But the same types of questions can be raised about humans—and are raised about humans by philosophers and theologians. In particular there are a number of theological topics that philosophers (and scientists and theologians) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were quite interested in that turn on an understanding of identity and individuation. For example, according to the doctrine of original sin, the sin of an individual human, Adam, is somehow transmitted to all other individual humans, as is his punishment of mortality. In the Christian mystery of the Trinity, three distinct persons are held to be but one substance. In the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, the soul of the individual is said to be individually immortal and not to lose its distinct identity after death and before the resurrection. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body holds that one and the same body is resurrected on the Great Day of Judgment in order that each individual will receive appropriate punishment or reward in a body. For each of these, what it is to be an individual soul, person, human, or body, at one time or over time is an important and contentious element of the answer. And answering these concerns will impact as well on the answers that can be given to account for the individuation of cats—particularly in philosophers who work for a coherent and consistent theory in regards to things above and below reason.

The conjunction of two of these theological concerns leads to particularly interesting difficulties. Personal immortality, part of the inheritance from Greek philosophy, and bodily resurrection, with its origins in Scripture and Jewish tradition are an uneasy synthesis.⁶ The resurrection of the dead is promised in Scripture, particularly in the Epistles of Paul. For traditions like those of the Protestants of the seventeenth century that place great value on the revealed truths of Scripture, this doctrine is especially significant. And Locke is clearly a member of this tradition, even if he is not orthodox in his beliefs, as we shall see.

With bodily resurrection there are at least three areas of concern. The first is to give an account of how an individual who experiences bodily death can be resurrected with the same body given that bodies decay and can even become different bodies (e.g., cannibalism or being consumed by fish or wild animals). Second, an account of how an individual living at the time of the Second Coming will be changed “in the twinkling of an eye”⁷ into a state suitable to receive judgment is needed. The third concern is to give an acceptable account of what happens to an individual in the intermediate state between death and resurrection as the body is usually decaying. In these accounts, diachronic identity of the body as well as of the individual receiving justice is the issue. Questions raised by Sadducee opponents of Paul about the resurrection of the body are the reason that Paul discusses it explicitly in his Epistles. It is largely in response to questions about the nature of bodily resurrection and the interpretation of Paul’s writings that work on identity and individuation of material objects is done in the Middle Ages. And Locke continues this tradition, as seen in the next section.

On the other hand, personal immortality with its emphasis on the soul, while not in complete opposition to bodily resurrection, is not clearly in harmony with the emphasis on the body either. The early church fathers draw mostly on Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy, both of which provide an account of the immortality of the soul (or could be interpreted as doing so), and castigate those Greek philosophers that could not or did not offer an appropriate account.⁸ The standard argument of these church fathers centers immortality in an account of the nature of the soul and generally discounts the soul’s dubious relation to the body. The nature of the soul in life is of great concern to these theologians as it indicates the type of life the soul has upon separation from the body. For example, an afterlife of contemplation of the beatific vision is related to the functions that the rational soul serves in this life. The use of the nature of the soul to ground immortality is seen as serving the vital function of providing a reason for individuals to be moral (or at least law abiding). It also represents a hierarchy within the soul such that those entities which use reason are seen as having a higher soul than those entities who cannot for it explains why and how they can be moral agents. Thus if the natural proof for immortality works for human souls, then one of the major arguments for morality is also preserved. And should the proof fail, so too might the morality of individuals and of society (especially Western society), or so was feared.

One question highlights the tension between the two theological topics: What happens to the individual during the intermediate state after bodily death but before the general resurrection? One of the responses that emerged in the Catholic tradition is “Purgatory.”⁹ Because Purgatory is characterized as a halfway stage, it is possible that the actions of individuals not in it could impact on the final outcome of the individuals in the stage. What followed included prayers for the dead, the sale of indulgences and a number of practices rejected by most Protestant groups in the seventeenth century.¹⁰ In Purgatory’s place, Protestant theologians often put a sleep of the soul that excludes the need for an intermediate state.¹¹ And, in so doing, remove the need for the problematic practices that they found most galling.

The uneasy relationship between these two theological commitments, one emphasizing the body and the other emphasizing and glorifying the soul, but both proffering descriptions of the afterlife, form part of the scholastic discussion of the principium individuationis. As such, these commitments are part of the backdrop to Molyneux’s suggestion and Locke’s response. And that these are what Molyneux has in mind when he suggests that Locke comment on the problem is indicated by the passages from the first edition of the Essay that he cites. Molyneux cites two passages where he claims Locke already has discussed personal identity. In the first passage, Locke uses a series of questions to show that the idea of identity is not innate. As Locke writes:

If Identity (to instance in that alone) be a native Impression; and consequently so clear and obvious to us, that we must needs know it even from our Cradles, I would gladly be resolved, by one of seven, or Seventy, Years old, Whether a Man being a Creature, consisting of soul and Body, be the same Man, when his Body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same Soul, were the same Man, tho’ they lived several Ages asunder? Nay, Whether the Cock too, which had the same Soul, were not the same with both of them?¹²

Given that different individuals and groups have answered these three questions in different ways, as is evident, for example in the followers of Pythagoras who explicitly endorse transmigration of the soul or metempsychosis, there is no innate idea of diachronic identity that everyone agrees on. If the idea of identity is innate then Locke thinks everyone would share the same idea. But it is clear that we do not. Notice as well that the questions that Locke raises to demonstrate the differences in the ideas of identity are not “bare, empty speculations,” although even if they were, they would still show that there is a problem with understanding identity as innate. Locke thinks that these questions are significant. As he says:

He, that shall, with a little Attention, reflect on the Resurrection, and consider, that divine Justice shall bring to Judgment, at the last Day, the very same persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this Life, will find it, perhaps, not easie to resolve with himself, what makes the same Man, or wherein Identity consists: And will not be forward to think he, and every one, even Children themselves, have naturally a clear Idea of it.¹³

The concerns Locke raises about diachronic identity connect with the discussions of the Resurrection and final Judgment. All three questions raise problems for accounts placing either personal or human identity in an immaterial soul. Given that a man is soul and body, if the body is changed, or resurrected as a new body, is the resurrected individual the same man who lived? If two individuals have the same soul (albeit at different times) are they the same man? Is an animal with the same soul that a human previously had the same man? Would these individuals be the same person as the person who did the action and thus deserve the happiness or misery that follows judgment? These questions are undeveloped, and Locke’s answers to them are not clear here. But these cases and others like them are used and developed in his discussion of personal identity in the second edition. Here Locke is using the puzzling questions for the purpose of showing that different people have different ideas of identity and to highlight the importance of the idea of identity over time to our commitments to immortality and resurrection.

The second place Molyneux cites is in Book II, chapter 1, pp. 11–12 where Locke raises a problem for the Cartesian doctrine that the soul always thinks, and the implications of this for the individual’s concern with future happiness. Locke grants that the soul of an individual who is awake is “never without thought,” but questions if this is the case for a sleeping person:

Or if it be possible, that the Soul can, whilst the Body is sleeping, have its Thinking, Enjoyments, and Concerns, its Pleasure or Pain apart, which the Man is not conscious of, nor partakes in, It is certain, that Socrates asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same person; but his Soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the Man consisting of Body and Soul when he is waking, are two Persons: Since waking Socrates, has no Knowledge of, or concernment for that Happiness, or Misery of his Soul, which it enjoys alone by it self whilst he sleeps, without perceiving any thing of it, no more than he has for the Happiness, or Misery of a Man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of our Actions and Sensations, especially of Pleasure and Pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal Identity.¹⁴

Locke continues in this vein and raises the problem of Castor and Pollux, who share one soul but do not share perceptions. Locke claims that as a result of not sharing perceptions they do not share the concern with pleasure or pain of the other, or with the happiness or misery of the soul. Thus, Castor and Pollux are different persons. Neither Castor nor Pollux is concerned with the soul in itself, rather each is concerned with the pleasure and pain that he alone will perceive in due course. As a result, Locke concludes that it is difficult to know wherein to place personal identity if the soul is not conscious.

Locke does consider a possible response on behalf of the Cartesians to his problem of sleep and lack of consciousness in the first edition. This response is that when we are sleeping we are thinking but do not remember our thoughts upon later reflection. Locke does not think this to be adequate.

If it [the soul] has no memory of its own Thoughts, if it cannot record them for its use, and be able to recall them upon any occasion; if it cannot reflect upon what is past, and make use of its former Experiences, Reasonings, and Contemplations, to what purpose does it think? They who make the Soul a thinking Thing, at this rate will not make it a much more noble Being, than those do, whom they condemn for allowing it to be nothing but the subtilest parts of Matter. Characters drawn on Dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory of themselves behind them.¹⁵

This passage shows an awareness of not only the Cartesian doctrine, but also other views, such as Epicureanism and Hobbesian materialism, about the nature of thinking and how it may rely on the soul and body. Locke suggests that the Cartesians are not offering an account of the soul that is “more noble” than that offered by the materialists or others working on the same problem. As he points out, if thinking continues but the individual does not have access to memories of that time so as to learn from experience, then what is the point of the thinking? Locke is highlighting a problem for Descartes and others not only about the nature of thinking while asleep, but also about the state of the soul after bodily death. The focus on or concern with memory is one which will come to signify Locke’s own work on the soul. And this criticism of the Cartesians and others mark in part the move from a metaphysical response/analysis of the problem to one that is characterized as an epistemological one.

Two things stand out about the first edition passages cited by Molyneux. First, they reveal what it is about the problem of the principium individuationis that Molyneux thought Locke to have already touched on: the concerns about identity in bodily resurrection and personal immortality. Second, they reveal that Locke is aware of and engaged with other philosophical movements concerned with these issues. Both of these are further developed in Locke’s work on personal identity.

Thus when Molyneux requests that Locke address the Scholastic problem of the principium individuationis, and points to two passages where...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 John Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity: The Principium Individuationis, Personal Immortality, and Bodily Resurrection
• Chapter 2 On Separation and Immortality: Descartes and the Nature of the Soul
• Chapter 3 On Materialism and Immortality: Or Hobbes’ Rejection of the Natural Argument for the Immortality of the Soul
• Chapter 4 Henry More and John Locke on the Dangers of Materialism: Immateriality, Immortality, Immorality, and Identity
• Chapter 5 Robert Boyle: On Seeds, Cannibalism, and the Resurrection of the Body
• Chapter 6 Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity in Its Context: A Reassessment of Classic Objections
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index