Download INTERLUDE: EMERGENCE OF SECULAR ETHICS In 1600, almost

INTERLUDE: EMERGENCE OF SECULAR ETHICS In 1600, almost all English-­‐speaking moral philosophy was completely embedded in a Christian framework. By 1700 some philosophers had begun to develop moral positions that, while still fundamentally theistic, lacked any distinctively Christian elements. And by 1750, the Age of Enlightenment, still other philosophers had begun to advance accounts of morality that were disengaged not only from Christianity, but also from belief in God. How did this happen? One answer is that the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century broke the dominance of the Medieval Catholic Church’s power over both scholars and ordinary citizens, opening the door for them to think outside the church’s teaching authority. In fact, one could almost say that the seeds of secularism were sown during the Protestant Reformation. Human reason and individual autonomy became the defining features of The Enlightenment. In moral philosophy, or ethics, a group of religious thinkers who attended and taught at Cambridge University from the 1640s until the 1660s, unintentionally opened the door for the secularization of ethics. They were dubbed The Cambridge Platonists, and two of their most prominent members were Benjamin Whichcote and Ralph Cudworth. Cudworth’s father was an Anglican clergyman and a devout Calvinist, as were many of his fellow clergyman in The Church of England. A defining feature of the English Calvinism the elder Cudworth preached and practiced was a passionate belief in the sinfulness of all humans. According to this view, humans had originally been created pure and good, but through original sin had fallen to the depths of degradation. As a result, each and every human is now corrupt through-­‐and-­‐through and deserve eternal damnation in hell. Additionally, everyone’s eternal fate has been forever 1 sealed by God’s predestination. This is the view of human nature in which the younger Cudworth was indoctrinated. Although Ralph Cudworth remained politically and socially associated with the Calvinists for years to come, he quickly became one of the leading lights of a philosophical movement that was diametrically opposed to Calvinism. It was a movement based on a firm and abiding belief in the natural goodness of human beings. At Cambridge Cudworth came under the influence of Benjamin Whichcote, who was a few years older, and already a Fellow of Emmanuel College at Cambridge. Whichcote believed that human nature was basically good and he himself was known as an extraordinarily calm and kind man. Whichcote turned back to Plato and found there a more positive view of human nature than that held by the Calvinists. However, Whichcote, Cudworth and the other Cambridge Platonists remained committed to a deeply theistic understanding of humanity’s goodness, believing that every human soul is God-­‐
like. As Whichcote and Cudworth’s moral philosophy gained ground, mainstream Calvinism began to recede. Cambridge Platonism also influenced Lord Shaftesbury (1671-­‐1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694-­‐1746), and eventually David Hume (1711-­‐1776). Although Hume’s predecessors held deep theological commitments, he himself believed that God was unnecessary for morality. For Hume, morality can be explained in terms of human nature itself, without reference to God. Hume’s stance marks the final full emergence among British philosophers of a thoroughly secular ethics. And that, my friends, is one story of how Christian Ethics became secular. DH 2