ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s defence of Locke’s epistemology as a foundation for moral knowledge and moral obligation. In the first section of this chapter, I discuss Cockburn’s interpretation of Locke’s principle of reflection as a basis for establishing the foundation of morality in human nature itself. In the second section, I look at the way Cockburn employs her understanding of Lockean reflection to reconcile Locke’s legalistic account of moral obligation with her own anthropocentric moral theory. In this chapter, I aim to show that despite the fact that Cockburn arguably departs from Locke’s views in significant ways, she successfully demonstrates that Locke’s principles themselves provide the fundamental underpinnings of an anthropocentric morality.
