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5 - Necessity, Free Will and Conscience

Robert Sanderson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2023

Mónica García-Salmones Rovira
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
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Summary

Chapter 5 considers the theology and moral philosophy of the respected theologian and moral casuist, Robert Sanderson. The divine Sanderson despaired of the unfortunate consequences for practical morality of denying the responsibility and freedom of individuals. In its historical context his doubt amounted to finally rejecting the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Scholars consider Sanderson’s Several Cases of Conscience Discussed in Ten Lectures in the Divinity School at Oxford a main reference for Locke in the writing of the unpublished Two Tracts of Government and his foundational Essays on the Law of Nature. Sanderson’s work sets out a moral philosophy of free will reinforced by mechanical overtones of necessary causality in reasoning. The chapter briefly analyses this type of ‘mechanical conscience’ and shows how Sanderson was committed to a de facto theory of government.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Necessity of Nature
God, Science and Money in 17th Century English Law of Nature
, pp. 136 - 162
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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