Research Articles (Philosophy)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10566/1128

Browse

Browsing by Subject "Locke"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Am I my brother�s keeper? on personal identity and responsibility
    (Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2013) Beck, Simon;
    The psychological continuity theory of personal identity has recently been accused of not meeting what is claimed to be a fundamental requirement on theories of identity - to explain personal moral responsibility. Although they often have much to say about responsibility, the charge is that they cannot say enough. I set out the background to the charge with a short discussion of Locke and the requirement to explain responsibility, then illustrate the accusation facing the theory with details from Marya Schechtman. I aim some questions at the challengers' reading of Locke, leading to an argument that the psychological continuity theory can say all that it needs to say about responsibility, and so is not in any grave predicament, at least not with regard to this particular charge.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The misunderstandings of the Self-Understanding View
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) Beck, Simon
    Marya Schechtman has argued that contemporary attempts to save Locke�s account of personal identity suffer the same faults that are to be found in Locke, among which is an inability to capture the role our unconscious states play. To avoid these problems, she advocates giving up the mainstream Psychological View and adopting a narrative account like her �Self-Understanding� View that, she claims, has the further virtue of maintaining important insights from Locke. My paper argues that it is misleading to understand the Psychological View as sharing Locke�s commitments and that (partly as a result) Schechtman has not isolated a problem that needs fixing or any reason for going narrative. It further argues that the Self-Understanding View is a great deal more at odds with Locke�s view than Schechtman cares to acknowledge.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Understanding ourselves better
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) Beck, Simon
    INTRODUCTION: Marya Schechtman and Grant Gillett acknowledge that my case in �The misunderstandings of the Self-Understanding View� (2013) has some merits, but neither is moved to change their position and accept that the Psychological View has more going for it (and the Self-Understanding View less) than Schechtman originally contended. Schechtman thinks her case could be better expressed, and then the deficiencies of the Psychological View will be manifest. That view is committed to Locke�s insight about the importance of phenomenological connections to identity, but cannot do justice to this insight and as a result fails to explain things that it should.