Wollaston, William

AbstractWilliam Wollaston (1659–1724) was one of several early modern British moral theorists known today as “moral rationalists” (seeRationalism In Ethics). Others in this group included Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, John Balguy, and Richard Price (seeCudworth, Ralph; Clarke, Samuel; Balguy, John; Price, Richard). They were foils or opponents of such “moral sentimentalists” as Lord Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, and David Hume (seeShaftesbury, Third Earl of; Hutcheson, Francis; Hume, David), their disagreements with whom anticipated and influenced many later debates over moral cognitivism and moral intuitionism (seeCognitivism; Non‐Cognitivism; Intuitionism, Moral). Uniting the rationalists was the view that reason, rather than feeling, sentiment, or a moral sense, is the source of moral perceptions. Many rationalists held also that what we detect when we perceive moral rightness is some sort of “fitness,” reasonableness, or agreement with truth.