The Not So "Golden" Rule

[Nakosis]

Several things become apparent even from this brief survey of the Golden Rule:
• It is not actually universal.
• It has two forms, negative and positive.
• The two forms create very different results.
• Both forms fall short of requiring the sacrifices society needs.
• Neither form represents the highest moral standards.

Golden Rule can still hardly be the core of all morality. It offers little resistance to weak, inconsistent or morally-questionable applications, and it fails to reflect our highest moral standards. Thus we should be concerned about the enthusiasm with which some people tend to embrace something like the Golden Rule as a cure-all for the modern problems of value pluralism; and we should wonder what that tendency tells us about our unwillingness to squarely face the fact that cultures have disharmonious moral styles. It is true that if we could find a universal rule of morality – something like the Golden Rule – it would help us resolve a great many serious moral and political problems. But the fact remains that the Golden Rule is very clearly not the core of morality, and yet it has been embraced as such nonetheless.

Moreover, whatever advantages to democratic politics may come from Golden Rule universalism, it also has an insidious side. Its subtext is the denial of the unique moral contributions of diverse societies in the name of creating superficial harmony. We may well doubt that people who indwell particular cultural/religious traditions and who have long labored under the impression that they have unique moral positions to contribute to humanity would be happy to hear that they have been wrong, and that their whole heritage can be boiled down to the same thing as everyone else’s. We might also have a hard time convincing them that our attitude was not born more of cultural tone-deafness than of tolerance.

The arguments here against Golden Rule universalism are obvious ones. Very clearly, we ought to know better, but we appear to have a strong emotional stake in not knowing better. Our refusal to face this has to be troubling to any rational person, and a source of concern to anyone genuinely interested in pursuing mutual understanding in a pluralistic world.
The Golden Rule: Not So Golden Anymore | Issue 74 | Philosophy Now

Personally, I'm not a fan of the "Golden Rule".
It is, IMO, a rather weak moral gesture.
Though something is better than nothing if this is the best that you can hope for from your fellow man. Like honor among thieves.

 

[Vee]

Thus we should be concerned about the enthusiasm with which some people tend to embrace something like the Golden Rule as a cure-all for the modern problems of value pluralism;

The golden rule is not the answer to everything, but it's a good starting point. It's a rule against selfishness, and people being selfish is one of the roots of evil in society.
I'm a big fan of the golden rule and I apply it as much as I'm capable off.
However, I see your point, and I agree that it's not the core of all morality. It doesn't have enough dept.

 

[Nakosis]

Nietzsche had no kind words to describe the GR and, by extension, morality in general. He referred to the GR as a ‘slave’ (herd) morality as opposed to ‘master’ (noble) morality, which he proclaimed (Nietzsche & Kaufmann, 1989). Nietzsche argued that human life, just like animal life, is about dominating and exploiting others especially the weak. He viewed Christianity, with its will to break the spirit of the strong and emphasis on equality, as retrogressive. Thus, Nietzsche criticized Christianity and other religions for glorifying humility, compassion and selflessness the virtues which he described as vulgar. He despised the ‘neighbour love’ doctrine claiming that he had suffered a lot by exercising goodwill towards others and began to associate generosity and sympathy with inherent weakness
Reflections on the Criticisms of the Golden Rule as a Moral Principle.

The point here being that not everyone sees the GR(Golden Rule) as a good thing.
For Nietzsche the greatest good for man is the will to power. To manifest one's will into the world. Something the golden rule would be antithetical to.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

The golden rule doesn't work for masochists. And I believe all of us have a few masochistic tendencies.

 

[ChristineM]

I have my own version of the golden rule.

Do unto others as they would do unto you, but do it first.

 

[joe1776]

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

This works fine when the others are nice people. It's bad advice when dealing with the bully-tyrants of the world.

Fortunately, almost all humans (sociopaths excepted) are born with a conscience (moral intuition) which justifies acts of self-defense.

 

[Altfish]

The golden rule is not the answer to everything, but it's a good starting point..

This is the crux, and so true

 

[osgart]

Dominating and exploiting the weak leads to violence and chaos. I run contrary to what he says there. My Golden Rule is, 'charity as deserved'. All morality is a judgment call on what people think others and themselves deserve. The most important thing is to have an truthful and accurate sense of deserve.

 

[Heyo]

Several things become apparent even from this brief survey of the Golden Rule:
• It is not actually universal.
• It has two forms, negative and positive.
• The two forms create very different results.
• Both forms fall short of requiring the sacrifices society needs.
• Neither form represents the highest moral standards.

Golden Rule can still hardly be the core of all morality. It offers little resistance to weak, inconsistent or morally-questionable applications, and it fails to reflect our highest moral standards. Thus we should be concerned about the enthusiasm with which some people tend to embrace something like the Golden Rule as a cure-all for the modern problems of value pluralism; and we should wonder what that tendency tells us about our unwillingness to squarely face the fact that cultures have disharmonious moral styles. It is true that if we could find a universal rule of morality – something like the Golden Rule – it would help us resolve a great many serious moral and political problems. But the fact remains that the Golden Rule is very clearly not the core of morality, and yet it has been embraced as such nonetheless.

Moreover, whatever advantages to democratic politics may come from Golden Rule universalism, it also has an insidious side. Its subtext is the denial of the unique moral contributions of diverse societies in the name of creating superficial harmony. We may well doubt that people who indwell particular cultural/religious traditions and who have long labored under the impression that they have unique moral positions to contribute to humanity would be happy to hear that they have been wrong, and that their whole heritage can be boiled down to the same thing as everyone else’s. We might also have a hard time convincing them that our attitude was not born more of cultural tone-deafness than of tolerance.

The arguments here against Golden Rule universalism are obvious ones. Very clearly, we ought to know better, but we appear to have a strong emotional stake in not knowing better. Our refusal to face this has to be troubling to any rational person, and a source of concern to anyone genuinely interested in pursuing mutual understanding in a pluralistic world.
The Golden Rule: Not So Golden Anymore | Issue 74 | Philosophy Now

Personally, I'm not a fan of the "Golden Rule".
It is, IMO, a rather weak moral gesture.
Though something is better than nothing if this is the best that you can hope for from your fellow man. Like honor among thieves.

Find me a moral principle of equal strength, expressed in just one sentence and we can talk about the weakness of the Golden Rule (or its derivates like the silver, platinum, ... rule).

I prefer the formulation by Kant in his Categorical Imperative but it is essentially the Golden Rule.

 

[pearl]

It has two forms, negative and positive.

Over the centuries, many people have compared Jesus’ statement with Hillel’s. Some have regarded Jesus’ formulation as more “positive,” in contrast to Hillel’s “negative” statement.
In practical effect, however, the two statements are virtually identical. After all, inaction can be as “hateful” as action. If I am starving and my neighbor passes by without offering me something to eat, or if I am homeless and my neighbor does not help me find shelter, that would be hateful to me. The Golden Rule implies a social obligation to provide help to those who need it. On that Hillel and Jesus, and the weight of Jewish tradition, are in wholehearted agreement.

Hillel replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Kant spends hundreds of thousands of words--maybe more, it at least felt like to read--explaining why you should prefer his formulation of the best rule to follow, and why you should not just try to behave as a good person would do, or to look to see that the consequences are ideal...or are at least acceptable...

 

[Revoltingest]

The golden rule is not the answer to everything, but it's a good starting point. It's a rule against selfishness, and people being selfish is one of the roots of evil in society.
I'm a big fan of the golden rule and I apply it as much as I'm capable off.
However, I see your point, and I agree that it's not the core of all morality. It doesn't have enough dept.

Selfishness is good.
And it's served by treating others well (by default).
So I too am pro golden rule.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Several things become apparent even from this brief survey of the Golden Rule:
• It is not actually universal.
• It has two forms, negative and positive.
• The two forms create very different results.
• Both forms fall short of requiring the sacrifices society needs.
• Neither form represents the highest moral standards.

Golden Rule can still hardly be the core of all morality. It offers little resistance to weak, inconsistent or morally-questionable applications, and it fails to reflect our highest moral standards. Thus we should be concerned about the enthusiasm with which some people tend to embrace something like the Golden Rule as a cure-all for the modern problems of value pluralism; and we should wonder what that tendency tells us about our unwillingness to squarely face the fact that cultures have disharmonious moral styles. It is true that if we could find a universal rule of morality – something like the Golden Rule – it would help us resolve a great many serious moral and political problems. But the fact remains that the Golden Rule is very clearly not the core of morality, and yet it has been embraced as such nonetheless.

Moreover, whatever advantages to democratic politics may come from Golden Rule universalism, it also has an insidious side. Its subtext is the denial of the unique moral contributions of diverse societies in the name of creating superficial harmony. We may well doubt that people who indwell particular cultural/religious traditions and who have long labored under the impression that they have unique moral positions to contribute to humanity would be happy to hear that they have been wrong, and that their whole heritage can be boiled down to the same thing as everyone else’s. We might also have a hard time convincing them that our attitude was not born more of cultural tone-deafness than of tolerance.

The arguments here against Golden Rule universalism are obvious ones. Very clearly, we ought to know better, but we appear to have a strong emotional stake in not knowing better. Our refusal to face this has to be troubling to any rational person, and a source of concern to anyone genuinely interested in pursuing mutual understanding in a pluralistic world.
The Golden Rule: Not So Golden Anymore | Issue 74 | Philosophy Now

Personally, I'm not a fan of the "Golden Rule".
It is, IMO, a rather weak moral gesture.
Though something is better than nothing if this is the best that you can hope for from your fellow man. Like honor among thieves.

The golden rule should be "Do unto others as they want done to them."

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Personally, I'm not a fan of the "Golden Rule". It is, IMO, a rather weak moral gesture.

The Golden Rule is a simplified statement of empathy. When dealing with a child or the mentally ill, we might not do as they would do unto us or what they want done for them.

And of course, in matters like proselytizing, the believer will do what he prefers over the objections of the other with the justification that that is what he would want somebody to do for him were he unsaved. He might use the same argument as the one ignoring the requests of a suicidal person and see himself as being empathetic for violating the Rule.

We can see the failure of so much of American society today in terms of the Golden Rule playing no part in lives of so many of them, people who seem utterly indifferent to the needs and fears of others, people screaming at fast food employees or wandering through Wal-Mart wearing assault rifles, uninterested in cooperation or community, derisively calling empathy wokeness. That's the alternative to empathy. It's the basis of the racism and the desire to remove abortion rights that characterize modern American life. It's why the gun people never express any empathy for those terrified by the gun violence. They simply don't care about anything but their own desires untempered by anybody else's, the opposite of empathy. It's the basis of the antivaxxer position - your fears don't matter, just mine, and you can't force me to care about you or even express the least empathy about how uncomfortable I make you, because you don't matter.

 

[Nakosis]

Find me a moral principle of equal strength, expressed in just one sentence and we can talk about the weakness of the Golden Rule (or its derivates like the silver, platinum, ... rule).

I prefer the formulation by Kant in his Categorical Imperative but it is essentially the Golden Rule.

How about treat others better than you would expect them to treat you?
Matthew 5:44
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

 

[danieldemol]

Nietzsche had no kind words to describe the GR and, by extension, morality in general. He referred to the GR as a ‘slave’ (herd) morality as opposed to ‘master’ (noble) morality, which he proclaimed (Nietzsche & Kaufmann, 1989). Nietzsche argued that human life, just like animal life, is about dominating and exploiting others especially the weak. He viewed Christianity, with its will to break the spirit of the strong and emphasis on equality, as retrogressive. Thus, Nietzsche criticized Christianity and other religions for glorifying humility, compassion and selflessness the virtues which he described as vulgar. He despised the ‘neighbour love’ doctrine claiming that he had suffered a lot by exercising goodwill towards others and began to associate generosity and sympathy with inherent weakness
Reflections on the Criticisms of the Golden Rule as a Moral Principle.

The point here being that not everyone sees the GR(Golden Rule) as a good thing.
For Nietzsche the greatest good for man is the will to power. To manifest one's will into the world. Something the golden rule would be antithetical to.

Yeah Nietzsche was just calling that which was good bad and vice versa to justify his own selfishness.

If he wanted to do that fine, but don't expect any respect for it from the masses because he didn't do anything to deserve his position of strength while it lasted and it didn't last anyway.

In my opinion.

 

[Nakosis]

The Golden Rule is a simplified statement of empathy. When dealing with a child or the mentally ill, we might not do as they would do unto us or what they want done for them.

And of course, in matters like proselytizing, the believer will do what he prefers over the objections of the other with the justification that that is what he would want somebody to do for him were he unsaved. He might use the same argument as the one ignoring the requests of a suicidal person and see himself as being empathetic for violating the Rule.

We can see the failure of so much of American society today in terms of the Golden Rule playing no part in lives of so many of them, people who seem utterly indifferent to the needs and fears of others, people screaming at fast food employees or wandering through Wal-Mart wearing assault rifles, uninterested in cooperation or community, derisively calling empathy wokeness. That's the alternative to empathy. It's the basis of the racism and the desire to remove abortion rights that characterize modern American life. It's why the gun people never express any empathy for those terrified by the gun violence. They simply don't care about anything but their own desires untempered by anybody else's, the opposite of empathy. It's the basis of the antivaxxer position - your fears don't matter, just mine, and you can't force me to care about you or even express the least empathy about how uncomfortable I make you, because you don't matter.

How about the reciprocity of "I would not force your to wear a mask". Does this not fit the GR? Or "I would not force you to inject yourself with some chemical you did not want to inject into your body".

 

[Bathos Logos]

The first thing I noticed was that the excerpt from the article in the OP doesn't delve into why both versions of the "Golden Rule" are insufficient to establish some form of moral decency, however, I found something I find interesting in the assessment of the negative form (i.e. "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you."). Here are the 2 pertinent paragraphs (red addition is mine for clarity):

This difference [in the negative form] is substantial, and we can see how it works out in practice. If we have only a negative duty, an obligation to avoid harming people, that can be construed as imposing minimal obligations. We simply are not allowed to do anything actively harmful – anything additional is left to our discretion. In fact, the negative version may be fulfilled (if we wish to construe it that way) simply by ignoring our neighbor, for as long as we are not directly implicated in his harm, we have not transgressed the negative version of Golden Rule ethics.

This negative version of the Golden Rule is particularly minimal if we happen to be among those millions of people in the world who believe that a person’s lot in life, even his suffering, is caused by fate or karma: to ‘not do harm’ might then mean that we have a duty to leave him alone. Perhaps we might think it is in his ultimate best interest to suffer, and thereby to achieve his penance, enlightenment, or moksha. To be sure, we might not see things this way, and we might decide to help the sufferer. But – and here is the key point – under the negative version of the Golden Rule we would have no obligation to help him.

So the perceived missing element in this negative form is that of charity or benevolence - the idea of actively helping others. So the point I found interesting is that some of our ideas of morality come with this idea of us having a literal obligation to help others in various circumstances. So, as example, you see someone with headphones walking onto train tracks as a train approaches, and you have time to help them, so you would possibly be considered remiss if you did not help, right? But doesn't taking action in that circumstance still possibly fall under the "do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you" form of the rule? If it were me crossing the tracks, and another witnessing behind who could help, I certainly wouldn't want them to ignore me and my plight. So, if they felt the same, then the act of ignoring would be the thing not to do to the other, because you wouldn't want the same done to you.

In other words, the excerpt sort of hand-waves away both the positively attributed "Golden Rule" and the negative, and in diving in to find the meat of why the negative version is found to be lacking, I am coming up feeling that it may not lack as much as is simply assumed here. I agree that the two versions are starkly different, and agree with the assessment of the positive version that it leaves one open to attacks from people who would like to be attacked. But I am still coming up pretty empty-handed on the negative version, even after reading their proposed justification.

 

[Nakosis]

Yeah Nietzsche was just calling that which was good bad and vice versa to justify his own selfishness.

If he wanted to do that fine, but don't expect any respect for it from the masses because he didn't do anything to deserve his position of strength while it lasted and it didn't last anyway.

In my opinion.

Sure it is a minority view but just to show show the GR is not universal.
His idea however is the people that actually improve the world are those who by their own will act to make the world better.
The GR is useful for those who cannot act in the betterment of their life so they are happier to accept the lot life has given them.
It seems he saw the GR as a spiritual pacifier.

 

[Nakosis]

The first thing I noticed was that the excerpt from the article in the OP doesn't delve into why both versions of the "Golden Rule" are insufficient to establish some form of moral decency, however, I found something I find interesting in the assessment of the negative form (i.e. "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you."). Here are the 2 pertinent paragraphs (red addition is mine for clarity):
So the perceived missing element in this negative form is that of charity or benevolence - the idea of actively helping others. So the point I found interesting is that some of our ideas of morality come with this idea of us having a literal obligation to help others in various circumstances. So, as example, you see someone with headphones walking onto train tracks as a train approaches, and you have time to help them, so you would possibly be considered remiss if you did not help, right? But doesn't taking action in that circumstance still possibly fall under the "do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you" form of the rule? If it were me crossing the tracks, and another witnessing behind who could help, I certainly wouldn't want them to ignore me and my plight. So, if they felt the same, then the act of ignoring would be the thing not to do to the other, because you wouldn't want the same done to you.

In other words, the excerpt sort of hand-waves away both the positively attributed "Golden Rule" and the negative, and in diving in to find the meat of why the negative version is found to be lacking, I am coming up feeling that it may not lack as much as is simply assumed here. I agree that the two versions are starkly different, and agree with the assessment of the positive version that it leaves one open to attacks from people who would like to be attacked. But I am still coming up pretty empty-handed on the negative version, even after reading their proposed justification.

How about saving someone's life or certainly a lot of discomfort because it is simply your will to do so without consideration of any form of reciprocity.
Do you need the promise of reciprocity to justify action?