Richard Cumberland 1631 – 1718
Richard Cumberland was an English moral and political philosopher, mathematician, and from 1691 Anglican bishop of Peterborough. His major philosophical work, De Legibus Naturae, published in 1672, was the most thorough early reply to Thomas Hobbes from a Christian natural-law standpoint. He argued that benevolence to the whole rational system is the fundamental natural law, that the moral law is grounded in the eternal nature of things rather than in arbitrary divine command, and that human beings are by nature social. His careful reasoning shaped Locke, Hutcheson, and the wider eighteenth-century Anglo-Scottish tradition of moral philosophy.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Empiricism, Early Modern
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Richard Cumberland:
“Benevolence to the whole is the law of human nature.”
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Attributed to Richard Cumberland:
“Hobbes mistakes the disorder of fallen nature for nature itself.”
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Attributed to Richard Cumberland:
“Reason discovers the laws of nature; it does not invent them.”
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Attributed to Richard Cumberland:
“The good of the whole society is the rational object of moral action.”
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Attributed to Richard Cumberland:
“The moral law binds because it conforms to the eternal nature of things.”