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1 9 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Man is subject to moral law. By “man” Locke here means a creature, bothcorporeal and rational. We need say no more because for this particular purpose,the consideration of morality, other features we might include in theconcept man (his featherlessness, for example) are irrelevant. But if man iscorporeal as well as rational, how can we relate the empirical fact of corporealityto rationality in order to give a coherent account of a law relating theone aspect of man to the other? Forde mentions that in the Essay concerningHuman Understanding, Locke addresses this problem in two chapters: “OfPower” (2.21) and “Of Identity and Diversity” (2.27). There, Locke identifiesthree senses in which “we speak of a human being”: person, man, and substance.“Substance” is the human being as a material object among others;“man” refers to its shape or form; “person”—the only one of moral significance—means,in Locke’s words, a “thinking intelligent being” with “reasonand reflection.” This “self”—which need not be an immortal “soul”—has “consciousness,”without which it could have no moral responsibility, inasmuch as“no one may be held responsible for acts which he is not conscious of havingperformed (112). (“It is easy to see how [this rule] applies to the doctrine oforiginal sin,” Forde notes, “as [Locke] does not point out” [113]). “The criticaldivide between man and beast is not reason per se; it is rather the abilityto abstract, to create general terms, and mentally to manipulate those terms”(113). To explain the existence of such a composite being, Locke has recourseto a version of the argument from design. Because “the mechanism of nature,as the new science has uncovered it, is incapable of producing a conscious,‘cogitative’ being,” “any such beings must therefore be the workmanship ofGod.” Forde doubts that this proof carries much water; even if it convincedus of God’s existence, it would not prove His (its?) eternality, omnipotence,perfect wisdom, or perfect goodness, “as moral demonstration requires” (115).“At any rate, Locke proceeds with his philosophical project as though it hasfoundation enough to support it” (116). A cool customer, that Locke.In addition to moral responsibility, consciousness also entails “self-concern.”Locke posits “no strict dualism between body and soul”; “our bodiesare part of our conscious ‘selves.’” Appetites, pleasure and pain stem from ourbodies, but like other manifestations of the corporeal they point to “god”—inthis case serving as “dispensations of divine wisdom that spur us to perfectourselves” but which also can “lead us astray” (117). Moral reasoningempowers us to judge and bridle the appetites, guiding us to “true and properhappiness” (118). This mental self-direction is what we mean by our freedom.Unlike Hobbes, Locke regards will and appetite as distinct, because the willcan act “in defiance of appetite”; “the essence of moral volition in Locke is