Catharine Trotter Cockburn on the virtue of atheists

ABSTRACT

In her Remarks Upon Some Writers (1743), Catharine Trotter Cockburn takes a seemingly radical stance by asserting that it is possible for atheists to be virtuous. In this paper, I examine whether or not Cockburn’s views concerning atheism commit her to a naturalistic ethics and a so-called radical enlightenment position on the independence of morality and religion. First, I examine her response to William Warburton’s critique of Pierre Bayle’s arguments concerning the possibility of a society of virtuous atheists. I argue that this response shows Cockburn vacillating between a moral naturalism, on the one hand, and a theistic morality, on the other. Second, I draw on Cockburn’s letters to her niece, Ann Arbuthnot, and her opinions concerning mystical ideas about “the will of God” in north-east Scotland in the mid-eighteenth century. I maintain that these letters give us a fuller appreciation of Cockburn’s naturalistic position. My conclusion is that Cockburn’s ideas concerning atheism prompt us to consider the close interplay between secular and religious principles in so-called radical ideas of the period.

KEYWORDS:

• Catharine Trotter Cockburn
• William Warburton
• atheism
• virtue
• religion
• mysticism

Notes on contributor

Jacqueline Broad is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies at Monash University, Melbourne. Her main area of expertise is early modern philosophy and the history of feminist thought. Her books include The Philosophy of Mary Astell (OUP, 2015), A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700 (CUP, 2009; co-authored with Karen Green), and Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (CUP, 2002).

Notes

1 Warburton, Divine Legation, 61.

2 Ibid., 35.

3 Locke, Letter, 47.

4 Bayle, Various Thoughts, 212.

5 Shaftesbury, Inquiry, 191.

6 Warburton, Divine Legation, 41. To be fair to Shaftesbury, it should be noted that he gives an important role to religion as a motivating force in the practice of virtue (Shaftesbury, Inquiry, 177–92); he does not aim to overthrow religion, as Warburton suggests. On this topic, see Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, chap. 2.

7 Anne Kelley has uncovered parish records suggesting that Cockburn may have been born in 1674. For details, see Kelley, Catharine Trotter, 1. I give her birthdate as “1679?” because, in a letter to Pope dated 1738, Cockburn herself says that she is “not far from about the borders of threescore [i.e. 60 years old]” (see British Library, London, Add. MS 4265, fol. 31; Cockburn, Works, vol. I, xl). This letter could not be dated any earlier than 1735, as it refers to Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (1735). Cockburn’s gravestone also records that she died aged 70 in 1749.

8 For her collected writings, including her correspondence, see Cockburn, Works; Cockburn, Philosophical Writings; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 125–253.

9 See Lutz and Lenman, “Moral Naturalism.”

10 See Bolton, “Some Aspects,” 577; Sheridan, “Cockburn’s Metaphysics of Morality,” 252; Green, “Moral Philosophy of Their Own,” 93, 95.

11 Sheridan, “Cockburn’s Metaphysics of Morality,” 265, 258. See also Sheridan, “Reflection, Nature, and Moral Law,” 136.

12 Sheridan, “Reflection, Nature, and Moral Law,” 133, 136.

13 Cockburn, Works, vol. I, 57; Sheridan, “Reflection, Nature, and Moral Law,” 141.

14 Cockburn writes “I cannot find any other way to knowledge, or that we have any one idea not derived from sensation and reflection”: Cockburn, Works, vol. I, 53.

15 Green, “Moral Philosophy of Their Own,” 95.

16 Ibid., 93.

17 See Bolton, “Some Aspects”; Sheridan, “Catharine Trotter Cockburn”; Sheridan, “Cockburn’s Metaphysics of Morality”; Sheridan, “Reflection, Nature, and Moral Law”; Sheridan, “Virtue, Affection, and the Social Good”; Green, “Moral Philosophy of Their Own”; Lustila, “Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s Democratization of Moral Virtue.”

18 Green, “Moral Philosophy of Their Own,” 95.

19 While editor Thomas Birch includes the bulk of Cockburn’s letters to Arbuthnot in the Works, he publishes only two letters from Arbuthnot to Cockburn, one dated 6 August 1741, the other 9 June 1747 (Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 303–6, 325–9).

20 See British Library, London, Add. MSS 4264, 4265. The Cockburn–Arbuthnot correspondence from 1731 to 1748 consists of thirty-five letters by Cockburn and twenty-one by Arbuthnot. A large selection of this correspondence has been recently published in Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence.

21 Cockburn, Remarks Upon Some Writers, 443n.

22 For Cockburn’s clearest statements of her moral views, see Cockburn,Remarks Upon Some Writers; Cockburn, Remarks Upon Dr Rutherforth; and her letters to Thomas Sharp (Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 353–460), as well as her letters to Arbuthnot and Edmund Law (Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 255–346, 347–52; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 125–265).

23 Cockburn says “God commanded it [virtue] because he saw that it was absolutely right and fit, the indispensable duty of a rational and social being” (Cockburn, Works, vol. I, 423).

24 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 333; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 238.

25 Warburton, Divine Legation, 36.

26 Ibid., 37.

27 Ibid., 36.

28 Ibid., 42.

29 Ibid., 35. See Bayle, Various Thoughts, 222.

30 Bayle, Various Thoughts, 222.

31 Warburton, Divine Legation, 45.

32 Ibid., 47.

33 Ibid., 48.

34 Ibid., 55.

35 Ibid., 56.

36 Ibid., 57–8.

37 Cockburn, Remarks Upon Some Writers, 443.

38 Ibid., 446.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid., 444.

41 Ibid., 450.

42 Ibid., 449 (quoting Warburton, Divine Legation, 51).

43 Warburton, “Preface,” in Cockburn, Remarks Upon Dr Rutherforth, 3.

44 Ibid., 4.

45 See British Library, London, Add. MS 4264, fol. 233; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 239. This letter is abridged in Cockburn, Works (vol. II, 333), omitting any criticism of Warburton. In 1749–1751, Warburton was closely involved in the publication of Cockburn’s Works and there is evidence that he asked Thomas Birch to omit passages he did not like (see Nichol, Pope’s Literary Legacy, 25–6, 35–6).

46 Richard Hurd reports that Warburton first received a letter from Cockburn, purposefully designed “to draw Mr Warburton into an explanation of his system concerning Moral Obligation”: Hurd, “Discourse by Way of General Preface,” in Warburton, Works, vol. I, 42. In a letter to Arbuthnot dated 12 June 1744, however, Cockburn indicates that Warburton first requested her postal address in order to write to her; it was he who initiated the exchange, not the other way around (Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 314; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 210).

47 See Warburton, Works, vol. I, 147–50; Nichol, Pope’s Literary Legacy, 5–7.

48 Cockburn, Remarks Upon Dr Rutherforth, 48.

49 Ibid., 107.

50 Cockburn, Remarks Upon Some Writers, 449.

51 Ibid., 446.

52 Ibid., 442.

53 Ibid., 449.

54 Ibid., 442.

55 Green, “Moral Philosophy of Their Own,” 95.

56 For overviews of Cockburn’s correspondence with Arbuthnot, see Bigold, Women of Letters; Kelley, Catharine Trotter.

57 On this movement, see Henderson, Mystics of the North-East.

58 For further details on Garden, see Henderson, Mystics of the North-East, 32–9; for Garden’s correspondence, see 191–262.

59 See Ann Arbuthnot to Catharine Cockburn, 30 March 1745: in the British Library, London, Add. MS 4265, fol. 181v; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 229.

60 George Garden to James Cunningham, 2 December 1709: in Henderson, Mystics of the North-East, 209. It should be noted that Garden himself does not accept this viewpoint without question.

61 George Garden to James Cunningham, 2 December 1709: in Henderson, Mystics of the North-East, 212.

62 Although Fides et Ratio has been attributed solely to Metternich, it is in fact a collection of writings by several mystical authors, Metternich among them. See Krop, “Fides et Ratio,” 47–8, 50.

63 Ann Arbuthnot to Catharine Cockburn, 25 April 1738: in the British Library, London, Add. MS 4265, fol. 170; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 178.

64 Metternich, Faith and Reason, 77.

65 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 293; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 180.

66 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 293; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 181.

67 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 293–4; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 181.

68 On the topic of enthusiasm in Locke, see Jolley, “Reason’s Dim Candle.” On Cockburn’s indebtedness to Lockean epistemology, see Sheridan, “Reflection, Nature, and Moral Law.”

69 Locke, Essay, IV.xix.10. My references to Locke’s Essay are by book, chapter, and section number.

70 Locke, Essay, IV.xix.11.

71 Ann Hepburn to Catharine Cockburn, 10 February 1732: in the British Library, London, Add. MS 4265, fol. 149; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 142 (my emphasis).

72 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 269; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 144.

73 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 269–70; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 145.

74 Arbuthnot mistakenly attributes these works to Béat Louis de Muralt (1665–1749), the Swiss travel writer and author. Huber’s authorship of Lettres sur la religion was only first made public in 1754.

75 Huber, World Unmasked, 15.

76 Ibid., 61, 85, 113–14.

77 Ibid., 104, 113.

78 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 313; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 205.

79 Ann Arbuthnot to Catharine Cockburn, 13 October 1743: in the British Library, London, Add. MS 4265, fol. 177v; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 207–8.

80 Cockburn, Works, vol. II, 316; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 211–12.

81 Ann Arbuthnot to Catharine Cockburn, October or November 1744: in the British Library, London, Add. MS 4265, fol. 180v; Broad, Women Philosophers: Selected Correspondence, 221.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [Grant Numbers DP140100109; DP190100019].