Richard Cumberland was an English philosopher, and Bishop of Peterborough from 1691. In 1672, he published his major work, De legibus naturae, propounding utilitarianism and opposing the egoistic ethi
Richard Cumberland, engraving by John Smith after Thomas Murray.
The grave of Richard Cumberland, Peterborough Cathedral
Natural law
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Natural law is a philosophical and legal theory that posits the existence of inherent laws derived from nature and universal moral principles that are discoverable through reason. In ethics, natural l
Richard Cumberland (philosopher)
…commended in a subsequent publication by Pufendorf. Stephen Darwall writes that the Treatise was regarded as one of the three great works of the modern natural law tradition, the others being Grotius's On the Law of War and Peace, and Pufendorf's De jure naturae. It has been described as a…
Thomas Aquinas, whose integration of Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology established the foundational principles of natural law, influencing Western concepts of justice and ethics
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Thomas Hobbes