Richard Cumberland and Natural law Kirk Linda
Richard Cumberland and Natural law Kirk Linda No study in the history of seventeenth century thought is completed without some mention of Richard Cumberland, one of the many writers who aimed to…
Specifikacia Richard Cumberland and Natural law Kirk Linda
Richard Cumberland and Natural law Kirk Linda
No study in the history of seventeenth century thought is completed without some mention of Richard Cumberland, one of the many writers who aimed to refute Hobbes. His one important work, De Legibus Naturae, first appeared in Latin in 1672 and has never been satisfactorily translated into English. Cumberland remains on of the few important writers of his century on whom, until now, nothing of substance has been writtenIn the past Cumberland has been somewhat unfairly overshadowed by his fellow anti-Hobbists.
It is now clear that he went further than both Grotius and Pufendorf in devising a system which prefigured classical utilitarianism, propounding a cosmology based upon the reconciliation of charity and self-interest. That he published so little in such a prolific age was unusual, but his influence through his work continued to be felt well into the nineteenth century.