Flew's Argument

One major critic of Locke’s account is Antony Flew who offers two objections in his article “Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity”. The first objection, which he attributes to Bishop Butler, suggests that by defining personal identity in terms of consciousness Locke has in effect created a circular argument. The second objection concludes that “Locke’s criterion is at the same time both too strict in blackballing and too lenient in admitting candidates.” Although I contend that both objections are flawed, the scope of this paper shall only be to evaluate and respond to the first of these objections.
In order to demonstrate that Flew’s objection is flawed, I shall proceed by briefly summarizing Locke’s position put forward in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Then I shall consider in detail the first criticism offered by Flew. As a result of this examination, I shall argue that Flew’s restatement of Locke’s central thesis relies on terminology obtained through an incorrect interpretation of Locke’s position. Furthermore, I shall show that Flew’s criticism relies on an argument by

Unique to Locke’s view is the notion that the criteria for identity vary depending on what kind of thing is being considered. Thus, the identity conditions for one kind of thing do not need to be same for another kind. As examples, he distinguishes between the identity conditions of masses of atoms and those of living things. According to Locke, a mass of particles is dependent upon the identity of the particles or atoms composing it. As such, this mass persists only as long as no addition or subtraction of matter occurs. In contrast, he argues that living organisms appear to lose or gain particles of matter as they grow and yet still remain the same organism. As Locke