La filosofia morale di Catharine Cockburn

Catharine Cockburn’s moral philosophy combines John Locke’s epistemology with Samuel Clarke’s moral fitness theory, as well as elements coming from Cambridge Platonism and moral sense theory. She entertains an anthropocentric view on morality, defending the idea that human beings are naturally rational and social creatures. Accordingly, she argues that the true ground of morality consists in the human nature itself. We have all a moral sense, which is not an innate blind instinct, but ‘a consciousness consequent upon the perceptions of the rational mind’, and its exercise depends on custom and education. Thus, moral obligation, which is perceived by such moral sense as a duty, arises from the eternal fitness of things, and it does not depend on the will of God and the sanctions of his laws, but it can only be enforced by them. Mankind is a system of creatures that continually need one another’s assistance : as rational beings men are naturally inclined to act suitably to reason, and as social beings they are inclined to promote the good of others.