Moral System
Section 2 - VIII.
The principle of universal benevolence
162. Richard Cumberland is very close to Leibniz in establishing the supreme principle of morality. Like Leibniz he locates the principle in universal benevolence accompanied by a certain sagacity which always directs benevolence to the good of the whole rather than of a part.
He establishes what is just and upright when he writes:
The effort we make, in so far as possible, for the common good, that is, for the good of the whole system of rational agents, leads, as far as we are concerned, to the good of the individual parts in which our happiness lies, as people who are part of the whole. Acts which are the opposite of this effort bring with them, amongst other evils, our own misery.(103)
163. The objections I made against Leibniz apply here also. For example, it is incorrect to suppose that justice depends on such an extensive wisdom. On the contrary justice is necessarily present in every human being in whom the tiniest ray of reason shines. The force of obligation reveals itself in us in the very act by which from our first moment the force of truth reveals itself to us. Although we may know only one intelligent object and be ignorant of its relationship with all that co-exists with it in the universe, its presence alone would inform us when we turn our attention to it, that we must acknowledge it for the intelligent being it is, and because of its worth, respect and love it.
The nature of justice therefore is simpler than these thinkers make it. It must be so if its light is to shine equally in all human beings.
Notes
(103) In the prolegomena of De Legibus naturae, etc., §9.