William Wollaston 1659 – 1724
William Wollaston was an English Anglican priest, philosopher, and one of the leading early Enlightenment moralists. He spent the last decades of his life as a private scholar in London and produced his Religion of Nature Delineated, published in 1722, in which he argued that the truth of moral propositions can be tested by considering whether an action treats things as they really are. The book sold widely in Britain and the colonies and was reprinted by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. His attempt to ground morality in the truth of action shaped later debates with Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Empiricism, Early Modern
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to William Wollaston:
“Every act treats reality either truly or falsely; the moral act is the true one.”
-
Attributed to William Wollaston:
“To act morally is to act in accordance with the truth of things.”
-
Attributed to William Wollaston:
“The religion of nature is the recognition of moral truths legible to all rational beings.”
-
Attributed to William Wollaston:
“Lies are wrongs done to the order of being itself.”
-
Attributed to William Wollaston:
“Reason is the conscience of the natural law.”