Bledsoe, A. T. (1853). The scheme of necessity denies the reality of moral distinctions. In A. T. Bledsoe, A theodicy; or, Vindication of the divine glory, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world (pp. 113-131). New York, NY, US: Carlton & Phillips.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/12095-003
In Chapters I and II (Bledsoe; see records 2008-16567-001and 2008-16567-002) we have taken it for granted that there is such a thing as moral good and evil, and endeavoured to show, that if the scheme of necessity be true, man is absolved from guilt, and God is the author of sin. But, in point of fact, if the scheme of necessity be true, there is no such thing as moral good or evil in this lower world; all distinction between virtue and vice, moral good and evil, is a mere dream, and we really live in a non-moral world. This has been shown by many of the advocates of necessity. It is shown by Spinoza, that all moral distinctions vanish before the iron scheme of necessity. They are swept away as the dreams of vulgar prejudice by the force of Spinoza's logic; yet little praise is due, we think, on that account, to the superiority of his acumen. His superior consistency only shows one of two things--either that he possessed a stronger reasoning faculty than his great master, Descartes, or a weaker moral sense. In our opinion, it shows the latter. We discuss the attempt of Edwards to reconcile the scheme of necessity with the reality of moral distinctions. This is the question which we intend to examine: Whether that which is concreated with a moral agent, can be his virtue or his vice? Whether, in other words, the dispositions or qualities which Adam derived from the hand of God, partook of the nature of true virtue or otherwise? Edwards assumes the affirmative. We discuss the following proposition: "The essence of the virtue and vice of dispositions of the heart and acts of the will, lies not in their cause, but in their nature." We contend that the scheme of necessity seems to be inconsistent with the reality of moral distinctions, not because we confound natural and moral necessity, but because it is really inconsistent therewith. In conclusion, we shall simply lay down, in a few brief propositions, what we trust has now been seen in relation to the nature of virtue and vice: 1. No necessitated act of the mind can be its virtue or its vice. 2. In order that any act of the will should partake of a moral nature, it must be free from the dominion of causes over which it has no control, or from whose influence it cannot depart. 3. Virtue and vice lie not in the passive state of the sensibility, nor in any other necessitated states of the mind, but in acts of the will, and in habits formed by a repetition of such free voluntary acts. Whatever else may be said in relation to the nature of virtue and of vice, and to the distinction between them, these things appear to be clearly true; and if so, then the scheme of moral necessity is utterly inconsistent with their existence, and saps the very foundation of all moral distinctions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)