Jay Sea
Member
- Mar 23, 2023
- 40
Excerpt from On the Origin of God(s) By Means of Supernatural Selection: An Abstract
While many intuitively hold the Golden Rule as the guidance towards moral and ethical conducts of the highest possible standard, it has nevertheless been subjected to harsh criticisms from a variety of sources. The 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, for instance, strongly rebukes the Golden Rule, and instead advocates for an alternative proposal of moral principles called the Categorical Imperatives. Those who search through various scholarly journals and articles today are more likely to find objections than support for the Golden Rule, as well as eager attempts by various commentators to prescribe their remedies to its perceived defects. Those who remain sceptical, or are critical of the Golden Rule will certainly find no shortages of intellectual company.
Broadly speaking, there appears to be two kinds of criticisms we could discern from various sources. The first of which centres on the problem that we had alluded to in earlier discussions: the fact that people are generally different from one another, each with their own sets of likes and dislikes, interests and ideals, motives and desires; in other words, everyone has their own unique set of preferences. As was previously discussed, the Golden Rule when read at the surface level, appears to passively permit, if not actively instruct, that anyone who chooses to abide by its rulings should reflect their own tastes and preferences upon others, or to refrain from imposing upon others what they do not wish to have done on themselves: want to receive kindness? Then one should be kind to others; do not want to be insulted? Then one should not insult others. While this may appear to be a reasonable interpretation based on a plain textual reading of the rule alone, it is easy to see how such an interpretation would be highly impractical and undesirable under certain circumstances.
Imagine a person who enjoys loud street parties at night and wants to be woken up for any such occasions, since she would want others to wake herself up if she was sleeping through a party, then she might be justified in waking up her neighbours had she been amongst the party attendees, this appears to be a permissible course of conduct based on a simple interpretation of the Golden Rule alone. As another example, imagine a religious zealot who is absolutely convinced of his religious beliefs, who also adopts the view that had he not been a believer, he would welcome any other zealot to indoctrinate himself with those very same beliefs. Application of the Golden Rule in this case might suggest that this zealot would be entitled to indoctrinate other people as he himself would welcome such indoctrinations. These problems are aptly summed up by some commentators in their conclusions, that one should not do unto others as one would like to be done by, as their tastes may not be the same.
The second problem concerns certain types of interests or desires that people might find objectionable based on other grounds. Imagine a career criminal who was asked by her criminal associates for help in committing robbery. Since the criminal herself would want to be helped were she in need of assistance during a robbery, she reasoned that following the Golden Rule would implore for her to assist her fellow criminals with respect to their endeavours at the present time. Imagine a recreational drug user who was approached by a curious, but inexperienced newcomer wanting to get high and asking for access to hard drugs, since the drug user would not want to be denied access to hard drugs had himself been curious and inexperienced, then by Golden Rule reasoning perhaps he should not deny this newcomer to such access. These types of problems can be summarized by the saying that there is no wrongdoing that cannot be justified, so long as the perpetrator is willing to partake for themselves.
These problems have vexed the minds of many thinkers, leading them to a variety of proposals in fixing these perceived flaws. Many such solutions either implicitly or explicitly invoke the concept of "rationality", almost always used as a filter of sorts to pre-evaluate the tastes or preferences of individual persons, and further sorts these tastes and preferences in accordance with a "rational" perspective, after which only the "rational" tastes or preferences will be admissible with respect to their applications by the Golden Rule. For example, one may argue that pursuing pleasures at the expense of necessities is irrational, therefore a street partier is not entitled to wake up a sleeping person; or that illegal acts are contrary to greater societal interests, and therefore assisting or partaking in criminal activities are inherently irrational.
While these attempts to "fix" the Golden Rule are laudable, we are of the opinion that most, if not all of these approaches fundamentally change the Golden Rule into something else. Instead of "do to others as you would have them do to you", some of these "fixes", if adopted and incorporated into the text of the Golden Rule, would essentially change its meaning into "do to others as you would rationally have them do to you", or sometimes even "do to others as a rational observer would have you do to them". Instead of changing the rule, perhaps one should think of some other ways in resolving its perceived flaws, and there could be a number of good reasons for taking this approach; an important reason in our view, is that the problem may not necessarily be with the Golden Rule per se, but rather with people's interpretations of it, or within the subconscious biases and preferences that is affecting their judgment; we must be open to the possibility that it may not be the rule, but people's erroneous interpretations, that is the fundamental problem here, and that they may need to take out the thorn stuck within their own eyes before beginning to search for a speck of dust that may or may not be found on something else.
While many intuitively hold the Golden Rule as the guidance towards moral and ethical conducts of the highest possible standard, it has nevertheless been subjected to harsh criticisms from a variety of sources. The 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, for instance, strongly rebukes the Golden Rule, and instead advocates for an alternative proposal of moral principles called the Categorical Imperatives. Those who search through various scholarly journals and articles today are more likely to find objections than support for the Golden Rule, as well as eager attempts by various commentators to prescribe their remedies to its perceived defects. Those who remain sceptical, or are critical of the Golden Rule will certainly find no shortages of intellectual company.
Broadly speaking, there appears to be two kinds of criticisms we could discern from various sources. The first of which centres on the problem that we had alluded to in earlier discussions: the fact that people are generally different from one another, each with their own sets of likes and dislikes, interests and ideals, motives and desires; in other words, everyone has their own unique set of preferences. As was previously discussed, the Golden Rule when read at the surface level, appears to passively permit, if not actively instruct, that anyone who chooses to abide by its rulings should reflect their own tastes and preferences upon others, or to refrain from imposing upon others what they do not wish to have done on themselves: want to receive kindness? Then one should be kind to others; do not want to be insulted? Then one should not insult others. While this may appear to be a reasonable interpretation based on a plain textual reading of the rule alone, it is easy to see how such an interpretation would be highly impractical and undesirable under certain circumstances.
Imagine a person who enjoys loud street parties at night and wants to be woken up for any such occasions, since she would want others to wake herself up if she was sleeping through a party, then she might be justified in waking up her neighbours had she been amongst the party attendees, this appears to be a permissible course of conduct based on a simple interpretation of the Golden Rule alone. As another example, imagine a religious zealot who is absolutely convinced of his religious beliefs, who also adopts the view that had he not been a believer, he would welcome any other zealot to indoctrinate himself with those very same beliefs. Application of the Golden Rule in this case might suggest that this zealot would be entitled to indoctrinate other people as he himself would welcome such indoctrinations. These problems are aptly summed up by some commentators in their conclusions, that one should not do unto others as one would like to be done by, as their tastes may not be the same.
The second problem concerns certain types of interests or desires that people might find objectionable based on other grounds. Imagine a career criminal who was asked by her criminal associates for help in committing robbery. Since the criminal herself would want to be helped were she in need of assistance during a robbery, she reasoned that following the Golden Rule would implore for her to assist her fellow criminals with respect to their endeavours at the present time. Imagine a recreational drug user who was approached by a curious, but inexperienced newcomer wanting to get high and asking for access to hard drugs, since the drug user would not want to be denied access to hard drugs had himself been curious and inexperienced, then by Golden Rule reasoning perhaps he should not deny this newcomer to such access. These types of problems can be summarized by the saying that there is no wrongdoing that cannot be justified, so long as the perpetrator is willing to partake for themselves.
These problems have vexed the minds of many thinkers, leading them to a variety of proposals in fixing these perceived flaws. Many such solutions either implicitly or explicitly invoke the concept of "rationality", almost always used as a filter of sorts to pre-evaluate the tastes or preferences of individual persons, and further sorts these tastes and preferences in accordance with a "rational" perspective, after which only the "rational" tastes or preferences will be admissible with respect to their applications by the Golden Rule. For example, one may argue that pursuing pleasures at the expense of necessities is irrational, therefore a street partier is not entitled to wake up a sleeping person; or that illegal acts are contrary to greater societal interests, and therefore assisting or partaking in criminal activities are inherently irrational.
While these attempts to "fix" the Golden Rule are laudable, we are of the opinion that most, if not all of these approaches fundamentally change the Golden Rule into something else. Instead of "do to others as you would have them do to you", some of these "fixes", if adopted and incorporated into the text of the Golden Rule, would essentially change its meaning into "do to others as you would rationally have them do to you", or sometimes even "do to others as a rational observer would have you do to them". Instead of changing the rule, perhaps one should think of some other ways in resolving its perceived flaws, and there could be a number of good reasons for taking this approach; an important reason in our view, is that the problem may not necessarily be with the Golden Rule per se, but rather with people's interpretations of it, or within the subconscious biases and preferences that is affecting their judgment; we must be open to the possibility that it may not be the rule, but people's erroneous interpretations, that is the fundamental problem here, and that they may need to take out the thorn stuck within their own eyes before beginning to search for a speck of dust that may or may not be found on something else.
