Abstract

Dramatic changes in the understanding of nature and turbulent debates in religion marked seventeenth century moral philosophy. Many of the most important works of the century were attempts to defend new moral concepts or to recast old ones, as a way of responding to new doctrines in religion, epistemology, ad metaphysics. Many others were attempts to show that traditional conceptions of value, or elements of them, did not after all require revision. Moral concepts depend, or might be taken to depend, upon our conception of the world in various ways. The first section of this chapter presents a basic form of a challenge to traditional views arising from new conceptions of God and the world in the seventeenth century together with four basic questions that arise out of this challenge. The second and third sections present responses to these questions drawn from the most revisionary and systematic moral doctrines of the century, those of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Benedictus Spinoza (1632-1677). The final sections uses these philosophers as points of reference for the understanding of major trends of seventeenth century moral philosophy. Very roughly, moral philosophy in the century presents an arc of radicalism, with earlier figures such as Grotius and Descartes building toward criticism of traditional views, Hobbes and Spinoza presenting the most biting and direct revisions, and later figures such as Cumberland, Pufendorf, and Locke working to reconcile traditional views and new scientific and theological doctrines.