Catharine Trotter Cockburn

Quick Facts

• Lived: 1679-1749
• Place: England and Scotland
• Also known as: Catharine Trotter before her marriage
• Main fields: moral philosophy, moral epistemology, religion, and early modern philosophy
• Known for: defending John Locke, explaining moral obligation, and arguing for rational Christianity
• Early career: successful playwright before she became known as a philosopher

The Big Question

If the mind does not come with ready-made moral rules already stamped into it, how can we know right and wrong? And once we know the right thing, why are we obligated to do it?

In One Minute

Catharine Trotter Cockburn was an English philosopher, playwright, and religious writer. She first became known on the London stage, then entered philosophy by defending John Locke against critics who said his theory of knowledge made morality unstable.

Cockburn's answer was that morality can be learned through reason. Reflection means noticing the mind's own acts: thinking, choosing, comparing, feeling guilt, and judging. By reflection we see that human beings are rational and social. We need truth, trust, justice, gratitude, and care for others in order to live well.

So morality is not just feeling, custom, or fear of punishment. It is also not whatever God happens to command. God commands what is right because it fits reason, goodness, and human nature. God's command gives duty the authority of law, but it does not turn cruelty into goodness.

What They Taught

Cockburn taught that morality is grounded in human nature. By "human nature" she did not mean whatever people happen to do. She meant the basic features that make us human: we can reason, we seek happiness, we depend on other people, and we live under God.

This was her answer to a problem raised against Locke. Locke argued that our ideas come from experience, either from sensation or reflection. Sensation gives ideas from the outer world, such as color, heat, and motion. Reflection gives ideas from the mind's own activity. Critics worried that if moral ideas are not innate, meaning born in the mind from the start, morality has no firm basis.

Cockburn replied that reflection is strong enough for ethics. When we reflect on ourselves, we can see that justice, truthfulness, gratitude, and care for society are not random preferences. They fit rational and social beings. Lying is wrong because it attacks the trust that speech requires. Ingratitude is wrong because it refuses to recognize real dependence on others.

Her mature word for this was fitness. A fit action suits the real relation between the person, the act, God, and other people. It is fit for a parent to care for a child, for a witness to tell the truth, and for a neighbor to avoid needless harm. Betrayal is unfit because it clashes with the trust friendship depends on.

This makes Cockburn close to Natural Law Theory. Natural law says moral law is not just a human rule written by a government. It is rooted in the kind of beings we are and in the order of the world. Cockburn's version is Christian: God creates human nature, reason studies it, and duty guides us toward the good that fits it.

She rejected divine voluntarism, the view that right and wrong depend simply on God's will. Cockburn thought that gets the order wrong. God commands what is good because God is wise and good. Divine command gives moral obligation the force of law; it does not create morality from nothing.

Cockburn made room for conscience, or moral sense, but she did not treat feeling as the foundation of morality. Conscience is the felt pull of duty. It can move us to act, but it can also be warped by habit, prejudice, or corrupt custom. Reason must examine it.

Her religious writing follows the same pattern. Christianity should be reasonable, moral, and practical. Churches should not rely on claims of infallible authority alone. A true church should teach the truths needed for salvation and train people to live according to duty.

Key Ideas With Examples

• Moral epistemology: the study of how we know moral truths. Cockburn's answer is that reflection lets us study our rational and social nature, so moral knowledge is not just guesswork.
• Reflection: the mind noticing its own operations. If you notice yourself comparing two choices or judging a promise to be binding, you are using reflection.
• Moral obligation: the binding force of duty. A borrower should repay a loan because truthfulness and trust fit the borrower-lender relation.
• Fitness: the match between an action and the real situation. Feeding a hungry child is fit because children depend on caregivers.
• Conscience or moral sense: the felt awareness that something is right or wrong. Cockburn values it as motivation, but says reason must guide it.
• Anti-voluntarism: the denial that morality is right only because God commands it. For Cockburn, God's will confirms moral law while human nature grounds it.
• Sociability: the fact that human beings are made for life with others. That is why justice, promises, and care for the common good matter.

Major Works

• A Defence of Mr. Locke's Essay of Human Understanding (1702): answers critics who said Locke's theory of ideas could not support morality, religion, or the soul. Cockburn argues that reflection can give real moral knowledge.
• A Discourse Concerning a Guide in Controversies (1707): argues against blind submission to church authority and defends reasoned judgment in religious controversy.
• Remarks upon Some Writers in the Controversy Concerning the Foundation of Moral Duty and Moral Obligation (written 1739, published 1743): defends moral fitness and says duty rests in rational and social human nature, not only reward, punishment, or command.
• Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr. Rutherforth's Essay (1747): argues that morality cannot be reduced to producing good effects, because we first need to know which relations, harms, benefits, and duties matter.
• The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church: treats Christianity as a reasonable guide to duty, not a contest of authorities.
• Plays including Agnes de Castro, The Fatal Friendship, Love at a Loss, The Unhappy Penitent, and The Revolution of Sweden: show her interest in agency, virtue, social pressure, and women's public voice.

Why It Matters

Cockburn matters because she shows that Locke's empiricism did not have to lead to moral skepticism. Empiricism says knowledge begins from experience. Moral skepticism says we cannot really know moral truths. Cockburn argues that experience includes reflection on our own minds and relations, so reason can discover duties.

She was not just repeating Locke or Samuel Clarke. She used their debates to build her own view: moral knowledge begins from reflection, duty is grounded in rational and social nature, and conscience helps motivate us when reason trains it.

Her career is also important for Feminist Philosophy. Cockburn wrote technical philosophy in a culture that often treated women as unfit for public argument. She belongs in the history of Early Modern Philosophy and the Enlightenment as a participant in live debates, not as a footnote.

Proponents, Critics, and Opponents

Cockburn's most important ally was John Locke. She defended his theory of ideas and used reflection to explain moral knowledge. Locke praised her Defence after learning who wrote it.

Samuel Clarke is the main later reference point for her moral fitness language. Clarke argued that actions are right when they fit eternal relations among things. Cockburn defended a related view, while making human nature, sociability, and moral motivation more central.

Her opponents included writers who treated morality as mere divine command, self-interest backed by reward and punishment, or consequences alone. Against Thomas Rutherforth, she argued that good effects are not enough to define virtue. A person alone on an island can still have a sense of virtue, because morality is not only about predicting social outcomes.

Damaris Masham is a useful comparison. Both women worked in a Lockean orbit and used philosophy to discuss morality, religion, and education. Mary Astell is a contrast: she also defended women's intellectual authority and Christian seriousness, but she was more suspicious of Locke and closer to Cartesian rationalism.

In Enlightenment debates, Cockburn stands for a middle path. She does not reduce ethics to church authority, private feeling, or utility. Moral life is reasonable, social, and religious at once.

Related Pages

• John Locke
• Damaris Masham
• Mary Astell
• Feminist Philosophy
• Early Modern Philosophy
• Enlightenment
• Natural Law Theory
• The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church