Group of 17th-century British philosophic and religious thinkers.
Led by Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683), it included Thomas Hobbes and the Calvinists erred in making the voluntarist assumption (see {{link=voluntarism">voluntarism ) that morality consists in obeying the will of a sovereign. Morality, they asserted, is essentially rational, and the good person's virtue is grounded in an understanding of the eternal and immutable nature of goodness, which not even God can alter through sovereign power.