| The conventional view of eighteenth century British moral philosophy maintains that the participants in the debate regarding moral-decision-making were neatly divided into rationalists and sentimentalists. Rationalist had complete faith in the power of the intellect, that is, reason, to determine right conduct and that we can know certain substantive truths about the universe independent of experience. Sentimentalists, on the other hand, were skeptical of reason. They held that what is considered morally good was no more than a feeling. To put it somewhat differently, rationalists located virtue in the nature of things while sentimentalists located virtue in human nature. This dissertation calls into question this conventional view.;My dissertation goes beyond the standard texts in evaluating Clarke and Cudworth in particular. For Clarke, I examine his Correspondence With Liebniz, his sermons, and his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God in addition to the usual Discourse on the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion. And for Cudworth, I examine his Treatise on Free Will, his True Intellectual System of the Universe, his sermons, and the extant manuscripts as well as typically focusing on his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality.;I show that much of the debate revolved around the efficacy and reliability of the mathematical method that Newton claimed ought to govern all areas of human activity and contrast the mathematical model with the aesthetic model. I further demonstrate that while there is considerable affinity between Clarke and Cudworth, there are substantial differences. Hence I conclude that Hume and those who follow after him are wrong in pairing them together. Attention is also given to the concept of duty that helps substantiate the differences among Clarke, Cudworth, and Hume.;I argue that Samule Clarke, Ralph Cudworth, and David Hume (along with Joseph Butler, Richard Price, and the Earl of Shaftesbury) all admit that both reason and sentiment are at work in moral decision-making and the essential difference between the so-called rationalists and the so-called sentimentalists is merely a matter of emphasis. |
