Final answer:
The Brave Officer paradox challenges Locke's psychological continuity approach to personal identity by demonstrating a scenario that results in a contradictory cycle of identity based on shared and non-shared memories.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Brave Officer paradox presents a challenge to John Locke's psychological continuity criterion of personal identity. According to Locke, personal identity is based on a continuous chain of consciousness and memories. The paradox involves a scenario where a young officer remembers committing a brave act, an older general remembers being the young officer but does not remember the act itself, and a retired elderly man remembers being both the officer and the general but has forgotten the brave act.
This thought experiment shows that Locke's criterion can lead to a contradiction. If personal identity is determined by memory, the young officer is the same person as the general because they share a memory. However, the general is not the same person as the elderly man because they do not share the same memory of the brave act. But, if the elderly man remembers being the general, they must also be the same person, leading to a contradictory cycle of identity.