John Locke on Personal Identity

What makes us human? For John Locke it is our memories that connect together the different parts of our lives rather than bodily continuity. Gillian Anderson explains.

Narrated by Gillian Anderson. Scripted by Nigel Warburton.

This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.

[NascentTV]

This is what Light did to execute his plan and to kill Kira.

[zatoichiable]

In the day of judgement you only allowed to bring your hard disk storage. no need for the pc unit itself.

[frankierogers]

This reminds me of the Black Mirror episode 'White Bear.'
A woman is punished for kidnapping and killing a child with her partner. Her punishment involved living in a dystopian fantasy where there are people hunting her down, and everyone around them does nothing else except record on their phones.
At the end of everyday, she is reminded of her crime's and how this is her punishment, only for her memory to be completely wiped and having to relive the same day over and over.
Overall I sympathized with the woman at the centre of this because, like Locke theorized, how can you be considered a criminal when you have no memory of the crime you are accused.

[HaploidCell]

Astoundingly, thoughts like this have shaped legal systems until this day.  
If you have amnesia, mental health issues etc. this is exactly the kind of argument that let's you get a reduced sentence, or hospitalisation instead of imprisonment.  
thank god for philosophers, right?

[gur]

this is so consise and easy to uunderstand thank you

[LookBehingYou]

this reminds me of a great little anime called Kaiba

[sploofmcsterra]

If a person didn't remember their crime, they may still need to be charged for it - as they need to be prevented from committing the crime again. If it was a serial killing for example. If it was a one off then I would agree they could get off lightly or completely once they aren't deemed a threat.

[BlazeKing]

His logic is sound. In case of crime and punish scenario we must first identify what purpose is locking up a person for a crime serve. If its to rehabilitate, then must let the person who's forgotten the crime go because what logical purpose does punishing someone who doesn't know what he/she did serve? If the purpose is to give the victims assurance or pay back society for the crime, then crime is relative and become fluid or dynamic concept, changing to fit every person differently and culture differently. You'll start getting injustice where there is none, and justice when there is none.

[viborrr]

Since a person's memory is not the only thing involved in the perpetration of a crime it should not be the only thing held responsible for that crime.

[vasavijagarapu]

This philosophy is there in bhagwathgita since 2 millenia BC....but most of indians learning this after access to gita books recently

[SupernalOne]

some people I've met have the ability to forget things about themselves, or things they've done, that they don't like - a sort of selective memory suppression -- to some that would be simply arrogance or self-serving-ness -- so if they could commit a crime and forget it by effort of will, would they still be innocent, by Locke's reasoning? Like committing crimes while drunk, and blaming the alcohol (and see Twinkie Defense) -- seems pretty bogus to me, Dante would send such people to the Inferno

[Reginald_Ritmo]

The body can be reconstruced no matter what

[Greatj-Gil]

This might make some decide to do bad things and try to wipe their memory of it after. Not that they should

[kasaibouF]

Did philosophers not understand decomposition?

[joekim]

And that’s why John Locke is a beast .
Karl Marx still good though.

[yuriarin]

that's why I have always rejected the idea of reincarnation, it is pointless, it would be no different than just eternal voidness

[saitaro]

So, heaven or hell, there must be enormous amount of shit there.

[Justasheepwithashepard]

I will say, Christians believe in the resurrection of Christs physical body so our soul could go and stay with him in heaven for eternity. If your gobbled up by another human, that's not gonna rule you out from heaven XD cuz your body disengages in the ground anyways haha