Hastings Rashdall (24 June 1858 – 9 February 1924) was an English philosopher,

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

, historian, and Anglican priest. He expounded a theory known as ideal utilitarianism, and he was a major historian of the universities of the

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Biography

Born in Kensington,

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, on 24 June 1858, Rashdall was the son of an Anglican priest. He was educated at

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and received a scholarship for New College, Oxford. After short tenures at St David's University College and University College, Durham, Rashdall was made a Fellow of first Hertford College, Oxford, then

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at ...

, and dedicates his main work, '' The Theory of Good and Evil'' (1907), to the memory of his teachers T. H. Green and Henry Sidgwick. The dedication is appropriate, for the particular version of utilitarianism put forward by Rashdall owes elements to both Green and Sidgwick. Whereas he holds that the concepts of good and value are logically prior to that of right, he gives right a more than instrumental significance. His idea of good owes more to Green than to the hedonistic utilitarians. "The ideal of human life is not the mere juxtaposition of distinct goods, but a whole in which each good is made different by the presence of others." Rashdall has been eclipsed as a moral philosopher by G. E. Moore, who advocated similar views in his earlier work '' Principia Ethica'' (1903). Rashdall was also a Berkeleyan, believing in metaphysical

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely con ...

. His historical study, ''The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages'', was described in the introduction to its recent reprinting as "one of the first comparative works on the subject" whose "scope and breadth has assured its place as a key work in intellectual history." His ''The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology'' surveyed different approaches to the Christian doctrine of atonement, concluding with an influential defence of the "subjective" theory of the atonement that Rashdall attributed to both

Peter Abelard Peter Abelard (; french: link=no, Pierre Abélard; la, Petrus Abaelardus or ''Abailardus''; 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician. This source has a detailed descr ...

and

Peter Lombard Peter Lombard (also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus; 1096, Novara – 21/22 July 1160, Paris), was a scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of ''Four Books of Sentences'' which became the standard textbook of ...

. Rashdall argued that the "objective" view of the atonement associated with Anselm of Canterbury was inadequate, and that the most authentically Christian doctrine was that Christ's life was a demonstration of God's love so profound that Christ was willing to die rather than compromise his character. This in turn inspires believers to emulate his character and his intimacy with the Father. Rashdall received the degree Doctor of Letters (DL) from New College, Oxford, in October 1901. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1904 to 1907, a member of the Christian Social Union from its inception in 1890, and was an influential Anglican modernist theologian of the time, being appointed to a canonry in 1909. He was

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from 1917 to 1924, and died of cancer in Worthing on 9 February 1924.

Selected works

*
''Doctrine and Development: University Sermons''
(1898)
''New College''
(with Robert Rait, 1901)
''Christus in Ecclesia: Sermons on the Church and Its Institutions''
(1904)
''The Theory of Good and Evil''
(1907)
''Ethics''
(undated)
''Philosophy and Religion''
(1910)
''Is Conscience an Emotion? Three Lectures on Recent Ethical Theories''
(1914)
''Conscience and Christ: Six Lectures on Christian Ethics''
(1916)
''The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology''
(London: Macmillan, 1919)
''The Moral Argument for Personal Immortality''
in ''King's College Lectures on Immortality'' (1920)
''God and Man''
1930

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links