Ralph Cudworth’s Ethics

Ralph Cudworth was a represented the 17^th century movement called Cambridge Platonists. He was an English philosopher and theologian.

• Three of his works namely- The True Intellectual System of the Universe, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality and A Treatise on Freewill comprise a complete exposition of Platonist world-view.
• Platonists have formed a natural theology which supports the concept of freewill and opposes the materialism of Thomas Hobbes. All Platonists did not consider any natural divide between philosophy and theology.
• Cudworth devoted himself to developing a model of universe which was based on a vast body of both ancient and contemporary sources. Cudworth’s ontology was based on Neoplatonism and was involved in a world-soul he called as ‘Plastic Nature’. As per his epistemology, all the essences that served as the standards of rationality were innate to God.
• He developed a modern-sounding psychology derived from Epictetus’s Stoic psychology which attacked the concepts of materialism, voluntarism and determinism.

In his work, ‘The Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality’, he has stated that right exists which is independent of all authority by the nature of things in the coeternity with the Supreme Being.

Other Western Ethics Thinkers

Ethics of Adam Smith

• Adam Smith advocated that moral distinctions completely depend on sympathy. Whatever we approve in others corresponds to our own tastes and habits.
• The sense of duty depends on putting ourselves in place of others and inquiring what they approve in us. Conscience then is both a collective and corporate faculty and is created by the prevalent opinions of the community.
• There cannot be any solitary virtue.
• The duty of any individual can never transcend the average conscience of the community. The society is described as what it actually is and not what is ought to be.

Bishop Joseph Bishop

Bishop Joseph Bishop is a well-known religious philosopher of the 18^th century and is still read and discussed among contemporary philosophers for arguments against some major figures in the history of philosophy just like Hobbes and Locke.

• In two of his famous works viz.  ‘ Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel’ and ‘ Analogy of Religion’, Butler has argued against Hobbes egoism and Locke’s memory based theory of personal identity respectively.
• His philosophy is generally defensive. He largely accepts the received systems of morality and defends them against all those who think that such systems can be refuted or disregarded.
• In his philosophy he attempts to neutralise the morality and religion by depicting them as essential components of nature and common life. He has argued that nature is a moral system to which humans have adapted via conscience.
• In addressing questions like why be moral or why be religious Butler has developed a philosophy that possesses a unity which states religion and morality are grounded in natural world order.

Paley

All his definitions of virtue are commendable for the combination of three partial theories. As per him, virtue is doing good to the mankind as per the will of God for the attainment of everlasting happiness. The following can be deduced from his definition.

• Being good to mankind is definitely a virtue but it is not the complete virtue.
• Obedience to God is our bound duty but his will must be according to what is fitting and right.
• The everlasting happiness is the result of virtue and not the basic reason for it.

Paley was a sincere believer in the Christian revelation and has immense contribution towards defending Christianity and the illustration of its records. The primary merit of Paley’s treatise on Moral Philosophy is that it explicitly recognised the Divine authority of the moral teachings of the New Testament.

Malebranche

Malebranche who belongs to the previous century resolves virtue into love of universal order and conformity to it in conduct. This requires that all beings should be equally valued and loved as per their relative worth and one should recognize this worth in our rules and habits of life.

• This translates into the view that man is to be more valued and more zealously served as compared to other animals because his worth is more.
• Likewise God is to be indefinitely loved more than man and all the creatures that derive their existence from him.
• Malebranche ascribes to the Supreme Being true recognition of HIs government of the world which is the sole law the man follows.