 Along similar lines, some take Locke’s claim that the identity of persons lies in the identity of consciousness as fuel for the assertion that, properly speaking, there is no special relation between person x and any other future person. That is, personal identity only exists between present and past selves, not present and future selves. For this reason, we ought not have prudential concern, or concern for a future self that is distinct from our concern for others. This is the argumentative move that William Hazlitt makes, and in An Essay on the Principles of Human Action (1805), he explicitly sets as his task showing 