ABSTRACT
Moral theory is concerned with the reasons that justify action; or else condemn it. Rashdall's condemnation of the theory is that it reduces conscience to nothing but a comfortable feeling, and blurs the distinction between good and evil. But the true precursor of modem subjectivism and the emotional theory of ethics, was David Hume. Indeed, Ayer acknowledges that his doctrines are themselves the logical outcome of the empiricism of Berkeley and David Hume. To Hume moral ideas and judgments were simply feelings of approbation or disapprobation. There is nothing in such a theory that could possibly elicit a sense of moral responsibility, nor could we on the theory give our children a moral criterion. The mention of responsibility leads immediately to the relation of both subjective and objective guilt to responsibility. Conscience is the moral mirror of our very being, the mirror in which the Self which has done the guilty thing sees itself.
