Pfizz #1 and Answers

1. What is the problem of personal identity?

How can we say that I am the same person now as I was when I was younger? What does it mean to be a person?

2. What is Locke's solution to the problem of personal identity?

Locke says that the identity of a person is constituted by conscious awareness of autobiographical memories. You are whoever you remember being and whatever you remember doing.

3. Explain the brave officer example and how it proves Locke wrong.

A person, P, may remember an event, A, during the time of another event, B. During event C, he remembers event B but not event A. If memory constitutes personal identity, then A = B and B = C (since at B he remembers A and at C he remembers B). By the law of transitivity of identity, C should be identical to A. Yet this would violate Locke's criterion for personal identity, because at C, he does not remember A.  

4. How did Parfit clarify the problem of personal identity?

Parfit clarifies that theories about what a person is that lead to a violation of the transitivity of identity are not bad simply because they violate the transitivity of identity. Parfit says that when we talk about a person being the same as me, we're not talking about strict numerical identity. Rather, we're talking about something else: survival. Survival requires neither a 1:1 ratio nor an all-or-nothing categorization.