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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.
| 6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
| 6223 | If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth] |
| 6226 | The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth] |
| 6225 | Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth] |
| 6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
| 6224 | An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth] |
| 6228 | Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth] |
| 6229 | Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth] |
| 6231 | There is a self-determing power in each person, which makes them what they are [Cudworth] |