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Full Idea
The soul is not a mere rasa tabula, a naked and passive thing, with no innate furniture of its own, nor any thing in it, but what was impressed upon it without; for then there could not possibly be any such thing as moral good and evil, just and unjust.
Clarification
A 'rasa tabula' is a blank page
Gist of Idea
If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice
Source
Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Bk IV Ch 6.4)
Book Ref
'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.118
A Reaction
He goes on to quote Hobbes saying there is no good in objects themselves. I don't see why we must have an innate moral capacity, provided that we have a capacity to make judgements.
| 5051 | The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written [Aristotle] |
| 20803 | Stoics say we are born like a blank sheet of paper; the first concepts on it are sensations [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch] |
| 6025 | At birth the soul is a blank sheet ready to be written on [Stoic school, by Aetius] |
| 6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
| 7723 | The senses first let in particular ideas, which furnish the empty cabinet [Locke] |
| 7507 | The mind is white paper, with no writing, or ideas [Locke] |
| 12474 | The mind is a blank page, on which only experience can write [Locke] |
| 12940 | What is left of the 'blank page' if you remove the ideas? [Leibniz] |