Sorry, I can't remember

A woman is in court, accused of murder. The most fundamental question the jury is asked is: “Did she do it?” This question opens up a can of worms much more full than we usually imagine. Let’s call the accused Sarah. When we ask whether Sarah committed the crime, what we mean is did Sarah commit the crime or was it John or Emma or Luke. However, we ignore a question just as fundamental: is the Sarah in court is the same Sarah as the past Sarah who we suspect of the crime. In general, we ignore the question of what makes Person A the same person today as yesterday or tomorrow. This is the question of personal identity. John Locke’s account of personal identity, born out of his desire to understand what someone can be held legally and morally responsible for, is assessed in this post.

Locke’s account begins, as most great Philosophical works do, with a distinction. Locke distinguishes between sameness of substance, man (or woman) and person, with the former not our concern. According to Locke, a man is nothing more than a certain animal, so the physical body that we have. Sameness of man, therefore, is just sameness of physical body. However, this is not what Locke takes personal identity to consist in. Locke defines a ‘person’ as, “…a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places.” He goes on to state that sameness of person consists in sameness of consciousness, which we take to mean memory.

This is referred to as an account of psychological continuity, because there is a continuing of the psychological features of the person – that is their memory, their beliefs, their personality. For Locke, memory is what is most important. So if a person X, can remember doing an action Y, then person X was the person who performed that action. This what Locke refers to as: remembering from the inside. We have special access to our memory of past events, because we were that very same person that did them.

There are two cases which bring out Locke’s thought. One is a case that Locke himself considered: the prince and the pauper. If the consciousness or mind of a prince is put into the body of a pauper, and the pauper can remember being the prince, then we could say that the pauper is the prince! A modern day example is a case where two men (Brown and Robinson) are in a car crash and Brown’s body but not brain survives, but Robinson’s brain but not body survives, so Robinson’s brain is transplanted into Brown’s body. Locke would say that this new creation is the same man as Brown, but the same person as Robinson, if they can remember being Robinson, which we would suggest, because they share a brain, that the person would.

What this post has attempted to establish is what it means to be the same person throughout time. Why does this matter? Simply put because we reward and punish people for actions we say they committed. When we punish Sarah for murder, we are saying that the Sarah in court was the same Sarah as the one who plunged the knife into the victim’s neck. Locke’s theory of personal identity gives us a basis for coming to this conclusion. Sarah can be said to be the same person that committed the crime because it can be proven that Sarah remembers committing that crime. More on this later.

Let’s return to a case previously discussed, the prince and the pauper. Locke’s theory forces us to conclude that because the pauper can remember the prince’s past life, the pauper is the prince. From this is follows that the pauper’s body would be responsible for all of the prince’s actions prior to the transfer of consciousness and not responsible for the any of the pauper’s prior actions. Where we see the pauper’s body, the Law must see the prince’s actions - according to Locke. The question to be asked is “who” exactly are we punishing if the pauper’s body is put in prison. It seems fairly intuitive that, after the transfer of the prince’s memories, thoughts etc, it would still be the prince - despite the physical change.

Another case to be considered is that of children and the mentally impaired. Locke’s definition of “person” (thinking, intelligent etc) would render children and the mentally impaired not (at least full) persons. Oddly enough, the Law does exactly the same. We hold children and mentally impaired humans much less responsible, often to the extent where they are not held accountable at all, for their actions in virtue of the fact they are children or mentally impaired. Locke’s theory gives us a reason why we do this: children and the mentally impaired are, in the legal sense, not persons and therefore we do not hold them responsible in the same way.

In a legal sense, therefore, Locke’s theory seems to have a lot going for it. However, in a crucial way it falls down. Let’s return to Sarah and a statement made above: “Sarah can be said to be the same person that committed the crime because it can be proven that Sarah remembers committing that crime.” This leads to two fundamental issues:

1. Believe it or not, it is virtually impossible to prove what someone remembers and what someone doesn’t remember
2. To forget something would necessarily be a defence in a court of Law. 

The first one is quite simple. Only Sarah truly knows what Sarah remembers. Suppose Sarah claims to not remember murdering her physics teacher - do we believe her? In most cases we are likely to dismiss Sarah’s claim but Locke would force us to consider it more closely. If Sarah cannot remember committing the crime, she is not the same person that committed the crime. It seems uncontroversial to argue that we do not punish criminals for actions that literally another person committed. It becomes vital to prove whether Sarah remembers committing the crime, yet this is impossible to do.

The second one is just false. Sarah stands up and claims to have been under the influence of alcohol when she murdered the victim and therefore cannot remember doing it. Let’s suppose it can be proven that she did not remember it. Locke’s theory now forces us to believe that a different person committed the crime. Again, it seems uncontroversial to argue that we do not punish criminals for actions that literally another person committed. Do we acquit Sarah? Taking Locke at his word would force us to do so. Intuitively this seems wrong, Sarah is surely guilty of something, even if it is on diminished responsibility - and, indeed, the Legal system tends to agree. We assume that people remain that person even throughout lapses in memory - and hence we can punish them (or reward them) for actions they cannot remember committing. Sorry Sarah, it seems your appeal to Locke’s theory of Personal Identity won’t work.

There are limitations to Locke’s theory. He may help us answer questions of personhood when we consider princes and paupers or why children are not held accountable, but his theory is, at least in part, not compatible with our modern legal system. Can’t remember doing something? Tough luck!

Oh So Fresh

Going to university was a big move for me (as, indeed, it is for most). Suddenly tasks that 'mummy' would usually have done, became my responsibility overnight. From shopping and becoming bargain hunting students (mainly looking for cheap booze) to doing your own laundry (something I have not attempted yet - considering I burnt myself within 5 seconds of switching on the iron at home and I spent a good 10 minutes sat in front of my washing machine completely ignorant of what settings to use to make it work that's probably a wise move), you begin to look after yourself. Or at least attempt to.

Despite arriving with virtually everything under the sun, I somehow forgot to bring any food other than some cornflakes leading to genuine concerns from my flatmates as to my eating habits in the first few days. Luckily a female flatmate took pity on me cooking me a stir-fry not once, but twice. So much for looking after yourself, I was still being looked after by a (albeit different) woman! Indeed,  before I'd even bought any food, our kitchen had been used by others not once but twice. The first was a perfectly innocent couple of guys from downstairs who only wanted to cook a lasagne because their oven wasn't working but were subjected to brilliant discussion centring on 10ft whale penis. We couldn't help but feel sorry for them as they nervously waited for their lasagne to cook and clearly felt quite uncomfortable in the process. The second occasion, however, was much weirder:

I was just arriving back from something when I was greeted by "Come here Raphael. Come and have a look at this". I figured I'd made a mess with my cornflakes or something as I was dragged to the kitchen. Upon entering, however, I discovered that a group of Chinese people had set up base in our kitchen, were using 3/4 of our stoves and had even brought their own rice steamer with them. None of them were from our kitchen and only one was even from our block. Looking back I shouldn't have compared it to Hitler's search for living space in the east but nonetheless my flatmates had all been driven out of our kitchen by hysterics and a complete ignorance over what to do about 7 random Chinese people just cooking in our kitchen for no apparent reason other than they felt like it. They then all sat down and started eating in our kitchen. I took the opportunity to join in and eat - it wasn't bad. All was forgiven.

Taking a couple of days to settle in; a visit from Mum and Dad the week after moving out and finally purchasing something to eat/drink other than cornflakes or tea, I settled down to began student life...

...Pretty much the same way I ended school life. I remain the annoying one seemingly not doing any work or, indeed, having any work to do and as I sit here looking at my comparatively empty timetable (to a science subject for example), I can't help but think I made the right decision picking an Arts Subject like PPE; I still wear what some would label ludicrous clothing, going out two nights in my PJs (and only on one of those did I get a free drink); I still offer everyone and anyone a random hug even if I do claim that most enjoy it and, indeed, a good hug is always beneficial; I've still been getting into "discussions" about the Israel-Palestine conflict and I'm still blogging!

Getting to know people is always a bit daunting and despite initial anti-socialness as I scampered off to Old Trafford, I quite quickly felt at home and indeed as if I had been lucky with my flatmates. We quickly labelled ourselves as a dysfunctional family and haven't really looked back. We are an odd but, I would say, wonderful mix.

Despite lectures starting 2 days into Freshers Week (actually two weeks here at Warwick), my determination to party remained strong - "Please drag me to stuff," I believe were my exact words. My reasoning? I bought a freshers passport and didn't want it to be a waste of money - I had expected this would receive the amazingly witty response "YOU JEW" forgetting I was no longer at Habs and casual racism might not be as acceptable. Whilst I have attended most Freshers Events, I still fail to see the attraction and often leave early for a game of pool gaining me a reputation as Arthur Vick's resident party animal (or not). Something about the incessant shoving, immense crowding, shit but loud music, the one guy who decides the middle of the dance floor is absolutely the right place to break wind and drunk people that doesn't endear me to them - of course, I will still attend the freshers events remaining. And moan about them.

Drinking is big part of Freshers week especially and whilst even I did cross the line from sober to tipsy on a few occasions, and even went a bit further than that, I discovered a wonderful pleasure in observing drunk people. I felt a bit like David Attenborough as I ate my yogurt perfectly sober and looked on, sometimes in shock, sometimes in amusement, at my block mates going about their business having just played Ring of Fire.  Then it got a bit interesting.

For a moment I thought I was back at HABS as I suddenly heard, "You can't be racist if you have slept with a black guy". I'm sure there was a context to this that I missed as I finished of my yogurt but this was a line of argument that was actively pursued and, indeed, repeated. It culminated with the question, which remained unanswered, "What about if a black man rapes you? Because technically you've still slept with him so can you not be a racist?". It was something off a HABS playground and I did have a little snigger to myself as I realised we're this absurdly and casually racist completely sober! There was worse but I'm not sure I should reveal all here. I will admit to enjoying the drunken conversation even if I did get caught out tweeting about that comment.

Having spent a week and a half at university, I can certainly say I've enjoyed it. I've met some wonderful new people, had a lot of fun at freshers, got a free condom and actually done a little bit of work. Just a little bit mind. It's been a brilliant experience so far and as long as I have food in the kitchen or people who take enough pity on me to cook me something I am sure I will do just fine!

Revision will start soon....honest

There is nothing worse than getting to a holiday after 5/6 weeks of school to realise that you are going to have to do revision and it is not a holiday at all. Or at least you should do revision and you will do your best to put it off but more importantly justify putting it off. As you get older, it seems, you get better at justifying putting off revision (or indeed work) despite it being more important - similar in a way to justifying eating chocolate because it comes from a plant and therefore is essentially a vegetable. All sorts of excuses come out and the older you are, the better you are at convincing yourself of the soundness of those reasons. For example, I shall proceed to put this into an argument and claim that I am therefore doing philosophy revision:

1. I need to do x amount of revision
2. I can and will do  x amount of revision later
3. Therefore I need not to do revision until later. 

If the two premises are true this argument is such that I can convince myself that the conclusion follows and is true and now it would seem that I can put off revision until later. In fact, this argument is paradoxical, because while I've just concluded that I need not do revision until later I have, in the process of formulating it, also managed to convince myself that this counts as philosophy revision. As you get older you get better at not only procrastination, but also convincing yourself that procrastination can count as revision. It's a funny old world. 

You also get better at convincing yourself you need a break after slaving away for approximately 10 minutes, possibly underlining three words that were already underlined and telling yourself it would be good if you knew what they meant but you will figure it out later. At this point I usually go for a banana all the while mentally going over what you have just "revised", again convincing yourself that, despite being on a break, you are actually still revising and, as a result, deserve a longer break. This can get so bad as to watch TV and start finding subliminal messages in the Disney Channel's programming that further convinces you that you are still revising - last year, for example, I was watching Wizards of Waverly Place (as you do), and managed to spend the entire programme asking myself if they were determined to make the decisions they were or if it is was fate or free will. Definitely solid philosophy revision there. Yet again, your second break wasn't really a break at all and you need another break.

Having gone off for the "another break" that you now need after two unproductive breaks, you often end up on social networking sites. The undoing of many, vain attempts to deactivate facebook "for exams" often fail with this being nothing more than simply logging out, Facebook can claim the revision of many teenagers. Twitter is no better and between them, they must see numerous posts about "should be revising but on here" or something along those lines, often complaints about how easily distracted people are and funny things they found whilst procrastinating (like this blog? Nah...). With these sites comes the most deadly and convincing type of justification for not doing revision. Again I shall do some philosophy:

1. X is online
2. X is a hard worker and likely to get top grades
3. Therefore, if X is online and not working, I can be online and not working 

Whilst possibly the most flawed reasoning in the world, this can be the most convincing and for as long as X remains online (let's say s/he left his computer on), you feel you can remain online - after all, is s/he isn't revising, you obviously don't need to be. 

Finally, you decide that for you to "revise" a subject, you have to have known it in the first place. No point trying to learn something that the teacher hasn't taught you so you do one of two things:

1. You email your teacher safe in the knowledge that s/he won't reply because it is not term time and thus convince yourself that you are not able to revise that topic until you go back to school and ask him/her about it. Or rather, that you would have revised it if you could and therefore count the time you would have spent revising it but didn't, as time you actually spent revising.

2. Convince yourself if you needed to know it, the teacher would have taught it and therefore not only do you not need to know or learn it but also you can cut down revision time in the knowledge you have less to revise. 

Having procrastinated but actually revised, taken a break but actually done revision and managed to cut your revision time down despite not revising it is probably time to end the hard day's revision and find a way of adding in revision you've only technically not done to the next day, to convince yourself you will eventually do it, only for the process to start all over again. And with that, I am already 3 minutes late for maths revision but then, I do 3 essay subjects so writing this blog counts as writing practice, so really, I've already started revision...