  What Butler and Reid retain in common with Locke, though, is the  belief that identity grounds certain of our patterns of concern, both prudential and moral. As Reid puts it, “Identity . . . is the  foundation of all rights and obligations, and of accountableness, and the notion of it is fixed and precise” (Reid 1785, 112). What  they disagree over is just what identity consists in. Notice, though, the methodological assumption here: a theory of identity's  plausibility depends significantly on how well it accounts for our  practical concerns. So if Locke's view were right, say Reid and  Butler, it would require a host of radical changes to our practices  of responsibility attribution and prudential deliberation. But,  continues the argument, because making such changes would be crazy  – we are strongly committed to the correctness of our current  ways of doing things – Locke's view cannot be right. And  although Locke disagrees that the implications of his view are crazy, he does agree to the basic methodology. So while he admits that he  has made some suppositions “that will look strange to some  readers” (Locke 1694, 51), he is also at pains to show that our practices are actually already in conformity with the implications of his view, e.g., human law emphasizes the necessity of continuous  consciousness, “not punishing the mad man for the sober man's  actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did”  (Ibid., 47). And this is a methodological assumption that  has been retained by most theorists on identity and ethics since.