What Makes Something Right or Wrong? Catharine Trotter Cockburn's Big Question

Imagine you’re standing in the school cafeteria. You see someone drop their lunch tray. Food splatters everywhere. A group of kids nearby starts laughing. You feel something—a kind of pull to help, or at least a sense that the laughter is wrong. That feeling comes fast, almost before you’ve thought about it. But where does it come from? And should you trust it?

This is the kind of puzzle that fascinated a woman named Catharine Trotter Cockburn, who lived in England around 300 years ago. She was a playwright, a philosopher, and someone who thought deeply about a question that still matters: How do we know what’s right and wrong? Is it something we figure out by thinking carefully? Is it something we just feel? Or is it both?

The Spark That Started It All

Cockburn didn’t start out as a philosopher. She was born in London in 1679 and taught herself to write, learned French, and studied Latin and logic. By the time she was 16, she was writing plays that people actually performed on stage. But then she read a book that changed everything—John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Locke had a radical idea: all our knowledge comes from experience. We’re not born with ideas already in our heads. Instead, we learn through our senses (seeing, touching, hearing) and through “reflection” (thinking about what our minds are doing). This was a big deal because most people at the time believed that some ideas—especially moral ones—were built into us from birth.

Some people hated Locke’s ideas. One anonymous critic (historians call him “the Remarker”) wrote a series of pamphlets arguing that if Locke was right, then we couldn’t be sure about morality at all. If moral knowledge doesn’t come built-in, the Remarker said, then it’s all just uncertain opinion. And if we can’t be certain about right and wrong, then what’s stopping anyone from doing whatever they want?

Cockburn disagreed. She thought Locke’s system could actually explain how we know right from wrong—better than the critics’ own theories could. So at 23 years old, she wrote a defense of Locke’s ideas. Locke was so impressed that he sent her money and books as a thank-you.

Three Ways of Thinking About Morality

To understand what Cockburn was arguing about, you need to know about three different ways philosophers have tried to explain morality. Cockburn ended up mixing them together in her own way.

Moral rationalism says that morality comes from thinking. You reason about what’s right and wrong, using logic, and you figure out moral rules the same way you figure out a math problem. If you think carefully enough, you’ll arrive at the truth.

Moral fitness theory (a specific kind of rationalism) says that certain actions are “fit” or “unfit” for certain beings, based on what those beings are like. For example, because humans are social creatures who can feel pain and form relationships, it’s “fit” for us to help each other and “unfit” to cause unnecessary suffering. These fitness relations aren’t made up by anyone—they’re real, like the fact that water is wet or that circles are round.

Moral sense theory says that humans have a special ability—like a sixth sense—that lets us feel what’s good or bad without having to think about it first. You see someone being cruel, and you just feel that it’s wrong. It’s immediate, like tasting something bitter.

The Remarker (Locke’s critic) believed in something like moral sense theory. He said that conscience—that immediate feeling of rightness or wrongness—is how we know what’s moral. We just look at a situation and we know.

Cockburn thought this was too simple. She asked: if conscience gives us immediate knowledge, then what happens when two people’s consciences disagree? Whose do we trust? And how do we explain people who do terrible things but feel perfectly fine about them?

Cockburn’s Solution: Using Your Mind to Check Your Feelings

Cockburn’s big idea was that morality has two parts, and both are important.

The first part is knowledge. According to Cockburn, we can figure out what’s right and wrong by thinking about human nature. What kind of creatures are we? We’re rational (we can think and reason). We’re social (we live with others and need each other). We can feel pleasure and pain. We can choose our actions. Once you understand these facts about human nature, Cockburn said, you can reason your way to moral rules. This is the rational part.

The second part is feeling. Cockburn agreed with the Remarker that humans have a natural moral sense—a kind of built-in conscience that gives us immediate feelings about right and wrong. But she insisted that this feeling isn’t knowledge by itself. It’s more like an alarm system or a motivator. It alerts you that something matters morally, and it pushes you to act on what you’ve figured out through reason.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Cockburn argued that this moral feeling actually presupposes rational knowledge. In other words, you can’t have the feeling without first having some understanding of what’s good and bad. The feeling doesn’t tell you what’s right—it pushes you to do what you’ve already known is right.

Think about it this way: Imagine you figure out (through thinking) that it’s wrong to bully someone because they’re smaller than you. That’s the rational part. Later, when you actually see bullying happening, you feel that flash of anger or discomfort. That feeling isn’t giving you new information—it’s motivating you to act on what you already know.

Or consider a hermit—someone who lives alone on a desert island with no other people around. Could that person still have a sense of virtue? Cockburn said yes. Even without anyone to help or harm, the hermit can still reason about what kind of person they want to be and feel satisfaction at being that kind of person. Morality isn’t just about effects on other people—it’s about fitting your nature as a rational, social being.

Fighting on Two Fronts

Cockburn spent much of her career defending this view against two kinds of opponents.

On one side were people who thought morality was entirely about feelings—that our moral sense tells us everything we need to know, and reason is just there to assist. Cockburn thought this was dangerous because feelings can be wrong. People have felt perfectly fine about slavery, about treating women as property, about all sorts of things we now recognize as deeply wrong. If morality is just feeling, there’s no way to say those people were mistaken.

On the other side were people who thought morality was entirely about consequences—that an action is right if it produces good results (like happiness) and wrong if it produces bad results. Cockburn thought this missed something important. Imagine someone who does the right thing for the wrong reason—say, they help an elderly person cross the street only because they want to look good in front of their friends. The consequence is good, but is the action truly virtuous? Cockburn said no. Virtue isn’t just about what happens—it’s about acting according to what’s fitting for your nature as a rational and social being.

Why This Still Matters

You might wonder: why should we care about a philosopher from 300 years ago? Because the question she was wrestling with is one you face every single day.

When you see something wrong and feel that flash of “that’s not right,” what’s happening? Are you just feeling something, or are you actually knowing something? If your feelings tell you one thing and your reason tells you another, which should you trust? And how do you know when your moral feelings are reliable and when they’re leading you astray?

Cockburn’s answer was that both reason and feeling matter, but reason comes first. Your feelings are important—they push you to act, they make morality feel personal and real. But without reason to check them, feelings can lead you badly. And without feelings, reason might leave you cold and unmotivated.

She didn’t think this was a problem. She thought it was just how humans work. We’re not pure thinking machines, and we’re not pure feeling animals. We’re both. And morality—real, trustworthy morality—requires using both parts of ourselves together.

Nobody has completely settled this question. Philosophers still argue about whether morality is ultimately about reason, feeling, or consequences. But Cockburn’s idea—that you need both thinking and feeling, with thinking in the lead—has influenced a lot of people. It’s a careful middle path that respects both the head and the heart.

The next time you feel that flash of moral discomfort, pay attention to it. But also ask yourself: Why does this feel wrong? Is there a reason behind the feeling? Can I explain it to someone else? If you can, you’re doing exactly what Cockburn thought we should all do—using your whole mind to figure out what’s right.

Appendix: Key Terms

Term	What It Does in This Debate
Moral rationalism	The view that morality comes from thinking and reasoning, like solving a logic problem
Moral fitness theory	The idea that certain actions are “fit” or “unfit” for humans based on what kind of creatures we are
Moral sense theory	The view that humans have a special ability to feel what’s right and wrong without thinking first
Conscience	For Cockburn, the feeling-part of morality—it motivates you but doesn’t give you knowledge by itself
Reflection	Thinking about what your own mind is doing; for Cockburn, this is how we learn about human nature

Appendix: Key People

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679–1749) – A London-born playwright and philosopher who taught herself Latin and logic, wrote successful plays as a teenager, and later became a defender of John Locke’s ideas. She argued that morality requires both reason and feeling, with reason in charge.
John Locke (1632–1704) – A famous English philosopher who argued that all knowledge comes from experience. His ideas inspired Cockburn’s thinking about morality.
Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) – A philosopher who developed moral fitness theory, the idea that actions are right or wrong based on the “fit” between them and the natures of the beings involved. Cockburn defended his view against its critics.
The Remarker – The name given to the anonymous critic who attacked Locke’s ideas and argued that conscience gives us immediate moral knowledge. Cockburn wrote her first philosophical work responding to this person.

Appendix: Things to Think About

Think of a time when you felt sure something was wrong but couldn’t explain why. Does that mean the feeling was unreliable? Or does it mean you just hadn’t figured out the reason yet?
Cockburn thought a hermit on a desert island could still have a sense of virtue. Do you agree? If no one else is around, can your actions really be “moral” or “immoral”? What would that even mean?
If two people have opposite moral feelings about the same situation—one feels it’s right, the other feels it’s wrong—how can they figure out who’s correct? Can reason settle the argument, or do we just have to accept that people disagree?
Cockburn believed reason should guide our feelings, not the other way around. Can you think of a situation where following your feelings instead of your reason might actually be the right thing to do?

Appendix: Where This Shows Up

In school debates – When you argue about whether a rule is fair or whether someone’s punishment fits their action, you’re using reason to check your feelings about what seems right.
In courtrooms – Judges and juries are supposed to use reason to decide guilt, but they also have feelings about cases. The question of how to balance these is still debated.
In everyday arguments – When someone says “I just feel like you’re being unfair,” they’re appealing to moral sense. When you ask them “But how am I being unfair?” you’re asking for reasons. Cockburn’s view says both moves matter.
In psychology – Modern research shows that people often make moral judgments based on fast, emotional reactions, and only later come up with reasons to justify them. This raises exactly the questions Cockburn was asking: can we trust those fast feelings, or do we need reason to check them?