Allied to the Emotional school for the purpose of proving conscience are those Rationalists, of whom we have taken Dr. Rashdall as an example, who have for an object the establishment of the "objective" validity of moral judgment. The real contention becomes clearer; the chief point at issue is the question of authority.
We see, then, that there are two points to be decided: (1) the ultimate validity, with which is connected the question of the Divine Authority, of moral judgments; and (2) the mode of recognition, with which is connected the cause or propellent which induces moral action.
Rashdall summarily dismisses the dual character of the problem in a phrase. "The question at issue between Rationalists and Emotionalists is not what impels me to do a virtuous act, but how I know it to be virtuous."[23] The connexion between motive and judgment is too closely related to be thus calmly ignored. It is agreed that the motive does not affect the intrinsic character or "rightness" of an action, but at the same time it most certainly does affect a man's estimation of his action; and this, in order to arrive at the value of moral judgments, is most obviously relevant.
For Dr. Rashdall the distinction between how I know my action to be right or virtuous, and how it is virtuous, does not exist. Both imply recognition or statement of indisputable fact; for him there can be no ultimate doubt as to the character of moral "good," which can in no way be a matter of opinion, for good is sui generis: it is good and nothing else; happiness may be good, honesty may be good, but good is good for no other reason than because such an abstraction is supposed to exist as a transcendental fact. "Therefore good can be recognized just as any axiomatic truth can be recognized; as, for instance, the fact that 2 + 2 = 4, or two straight lines cannot enclose a space." How is it then that people even of the highest intelligence do not invariably agree about what is good or morally right?
There are no two opinions about whether 2 + 2 does, or does not, equal 4, yet there is no such general agreement about what is right. If asked why a thing is right or good most people would reply either by giving a reason to show that it is desirable or else by quoting the authority of some one else's ipse dixit (in which case it is inferred that the authority quoted had some reason for supposing it desirable). The reason that 2 + 2 = 4 is, on the other hand, that there can be no possible alternative. Yet is it true to say that there can be no possible alternative to what the consensus of opinion in any one country considers morally right? Some things that are considered immoral in England are considered moral in Japan, and vice versa.
Dr. Rashdall, however, conceives of but two alternatives in estimating moral values, the first of which he dismisses, because on this view "our moral judgments could possess no objective validity." He says: "... I examined the question whether our moral judgments are in ultimate analysis merely statements asserting the existence of a particular kind of feeling in particular minds, or whether they are intellectual judgments of universal validity—judgments, of course, of a very peculiar and distinctive kind, but just as much intellectual and universal judgments about the nature of Reality as the judgments 2 + 2 = 4, or 'this is a good inference and that is a bad one'."[24]
It is difficult to know whether this arbitrary elimination of the subjective element from ethical judgments, and the attempt to translate moral values into terms of mathematical formulæ, is intended to denote the infusion of a mystic factor into the "exact sciences," or an attempt to reduce metaphysics and morality to rule of thumb! The following thesis, however, which will be elaborated in the course of this discussion, is based on a synchronous realization of rational principles and psychological processes.
Thus, what an individual conceives to be morally right and good, when he is conscious of having acted so according to his own standard, may be either:
(1) Wholly irrational, illogical, anti-social and undesirable (from every point of view except his own), even though arrived at solely by an intellectual and reasoning process; or
(2) An entirely instinctive, blindly impulsive or emotional action, afterwards endorsed by the intellect (i.e. subsequently rationalized); or