Cumberland, Richard (1632–1718)

Richard Cumberland developed his ideas in response to Hobbes’ Leviathan. He introduced concepts of aggregate goodness (later used in utilitarianism), of benevolence (used in moral-sense theory), of moral self-obligation, of empirical proofs of providence and of the moral importance of tradition à la Burke. The philosophical basis for Cumberland’s views was a theory of natural law which was strongly anti-voluntarist and committed to objective moral values, but recognizing institutions such as governments of state and church as conventional or traditional. Cumberland was often seen as the third co-founder, with Pufendorf and Grotius, of modern natural law.