One of Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s most famous texts is her Defense of Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding (here on referred to as the Defense), also her first major philosophical text to be published. After its publication, friends of Locke read it and appreciated it, showing it to Locke himself. In response, Locke sent Cockburn (Trotter at the time, as she was not yet married) financial support and some books to show his appreciation for her defense (Waithe and Åkerman). While yes, she did defend him, and in doing so would have similar views, a close reading of the two unveils important nuances between Cockburn’s and Locke’s views of moral theory.
Brief note: Historically, Catharine Cockburn has been lopped into the philosophical views of Locke and Clarke because of her defenses of both of them. Due to her being a woman, not much research or analysis has been done into her individual views and how she defends them with her own philosophy. Thus leading many to believe that her defenses and philosophical writings are not of much merit because they only echo Locke and Clarke. One paper that I found very interesting was authored by Patricia Sheridan and explains how she has her own philosophical views and is not just echoing Locke and Clarke (the paper is cited at the bottom, and referenced throughout this section).
Locke’s main exploration of moral theory occurs within his Essay on Human Understanding while Cockburn’s exploration extends beyond the Defense into a smattering of her later works. They agree on the grounding principle that humans use reflection to discover moral law (and all else). This, however, is where they begin to differ, leading to the larger differences in each Philosopher’s understanding of morals. From the theory of reflection, Cockburn builds up the idea that moral theory and moral distinction are anthropocentric in origin, whereas Locke uses this as foundation and evidence for the existence and prominence of God (Sheridan). It is also this view of God, and His role that separates their views significantly.
Within the Defense, Cockburn begins to illustrate the anthropocentric ideas of morality, “The nature of man is the ground or reason of the law of nature; i.e. of moral good and evil” (57). Here she is explaining that at the root of it all is man, not nature first. This is a really important and key part of her individual ideas, as Locke thinks differently. He believes that man can reflect and find the connection between abstract ideas in order to figure out morals:
“Ideas that ethics deals with are all ideas of mixed modes and so are all real essences and such as I imagine have discoverable connections and agreements with one another; so that as far as we can find their natures and relations so far we shall come to know truths that are certain, real and general” (Locke 255).
This demonstrates the differing ideas of Locke and Cockburn; Locke is arguing that the abstract ideas of morality and ethics exist, and humans must connect them in order to know the truths of morality, while Cockburn states that humans are the foundation for good and evil. From that, one must understand the nature of humans in order to know morals.
Given these ideas, this leads to a question: what role does God play in the understanding of morality, and humanity’s relationship with morality? In her writings, instead of addressing it directly, Cockburn seems to skirt around the role of God. This does not, however, mean that God is not present in her writings. He is, and this is a large factor that separates her views from Locke’s. While God does play a prominent role in her philosophy, which makes sense given the era, and her religious affiliation, Cockburn is very against the idea of divine volition. According to her, God did create the universe, but he did so in a way that was best fit for humanity. He created humans with “the relations and fitnesses resulting from their nature, are necessary and immutable” (405). So, God did not force humans to have a certain nature, but saw the nature that best fit them and created them as such. The emphasis to be made here is that God did not command his choices to be the right fit. This nuance is a crucial detail of her philosophy as it separates her from the views of Locke.
Locke, on the other hand, was content with the idea that everything stemmed from divine volition. All right and wrong was morally obligatory, meaning that humans were told by God to follow his law and they do so just because He said. In his Political Essays, Locke illustrates the concept of moral obligation and divine volition: “without showing a law that commands or forbids [people], moral goodness will be but an empty sound, and those actions which the schools here call virtues or vices may by the same authority be called by contrary names in another country” (302). Locke’s main argument is that without the will of God, people would not know right from wrong, and even if they did it would not hold any merit, rather it would be akin to knowing blue water from grass.
In contrast, Cockburn’s theory argues that people will do good just because it is good and that is rooted within our nature, not because we have a moral obligation to do so. We as humans are guided by these natural principles of which we know both by sense and rationality. As mentioned in more detail on the previous page, specifically about Cockburn’s moral theory, there are certain immutable truths that we as people know. These are, for example, that murder is bad, that pleasure is good and pain is bad. From these feelings, it is within human nature to then understand a broader sense of morals. One can even go as far as wondering if her views imply that people should separate morals from the will of God in order to act in a way that is inherent to us, and not in a way that can just use God as a scapegoat.
Sources
Cockburn, Catharine Trotter. The Works of Mrs. Catharine Cockburn, Theological, Moral, Dramatic, and Poetical. Edited by Thomas Birch, vol. 1 and 2, London, J. and P. Knapton, 1751.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book IV: Knowledge. 2017.
— Locke: Political Essays. Ed. Mark Goldie. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Sheridan, Patricia. “Reflection, Nature, and Moral Law: The Extent of Catharine Cockburn’s Lockeanism in Her Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay.” Hypatia, vol. 22, no. 3, 2007, pp. 133–151, https://doi.org/10.2307/4640085.
Waithe, Mary Ellen, and Susanna Åkerman. A History of Women Philosophers. Vol. 3, Modern Women Philosophers, 1600-1900. Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1991.