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Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s Democratization of Moral Virtue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2019

Getty L. Lustila
Getty L. Lustila*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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Abstract

This paper examines Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s moral philosophy, focusing on her accounts of virtuous conduct, conscience, obligation, and moral character. I argue that Cockburn’s account of virtue has two interlocking parts: a view of what virtue requires of us, and a view of how we come to see this requirement as authoritative. I then argue that while the two parts are ultimately in tension with one another, the tension is instructive. I use Cockburn’s encounter with Shaftesbury’s writings to help bring out this tension in her thought. I conclude that Cockburn’s work marks a bridge in modern moral philosophy from seventeenth-century natural law theory to the naturalism of the eighteenth century— that of Gay, Hume, and Bentham.

Keywords

Catharine Trotter Cockburnearly modern philosophyethicsconsciencevirtueJohn LockeAnthony Ashley Cooperthe third Earl of Shaftesbury
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 83 - 97
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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