John Witherspoon’s ethics and ‘Sir Isaac Newton’s bulldog’

This article explores the consistency of John Witherspoon’s ethics between Scotland and America by comparing Witherspoon’s (in)famous satire of moderatism, Ecclesiastical Characteristics: Or, the Arcana of Church Policy (Glasgow, 1753), with Witherspoon’s ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy’, delivered at Princeton from 1769. In doing so, it is the first article to draw attention to, and to assess, the fundamental role that ‘Sir Isaac Newton’s bulldog’, Samuel Clarke, plays in both the Scottish Arcana and American ‘Lectures’. Although scholars frequently debate whether there are ‘two Witherspoons’ – not least because Witherspoon’s American ‘Lectures’ seem to borrow so heavily from his nemesis in Scotland, Francis Hutcheson – it is argued here that Witherspoon’s ethics are consistently Clarkean as opposed to Hutchesonian, in Scotland and America. By investigating the constancy of Witherspoon’s ethics, as underpinned by his consistent use of Clarke, in both the Arcana and ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy’, this article claims that Clarke’s ethical rationalism and Newtonianism are the key to interpreting Witherspoon’s position on ‘Ethics’ in the ‘Lectures’, as well as appreciating the moral philosophical subtlety of his satirical language in the Arcana.