Perfect thanks. I plan to go to my school board this year, pointing out that Kendi's so-called 'anti-racism', which is endorsed within Board DEI trainings (and which is explicitly reverse discrimination) is the antithesis of the Golden Rule, which covers all the Abrahamic cultures and many others.
My favorite formulation of the Golden Rule is "Show the same consideration for others' wishes as you would have them show for yours." The problem with "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is that it seems to imply that if I like to be slapped on the back whenever someone greets me, I should slap people on the back whenever I greet them.
I agree: I hate the word "must" and will pretty much avoid any column or news story that includes the word in its headline. It almost always presages someone whining about his/her favorite obsession without regard to the forces that would bring the thing to pass or block it from happening. What I DO read is articles along the lines, "If we fail to do X, we will pay cost Y." Or, more appropriate for today's world, "When the government mandates X and prohibits Y, there is a huge cost Z."
Thanks for the shout-out, Max! And I like the framing of this.
One flaw is that I don't see why decentralized private security has any advantage over normal governmental policing with respect to the Golden Rule. The objection to policing, such as it is, of that it involves the use of force. If you're a criminal, you presumably don't want force to be used against you. So can anyone use force against a criminal without violating the Golden Rule. I think maybe so ... but anyway, the question is the same whether the police force is "private" or governmental. Force of any kind belongs in your Magisterium of Must.
Now, clearly there are cases where the use of force would be defended in Golden Rule terms. First, paternalism. When government bans fentanyl or trans fats, the legislators and enforcers surely think they're treating fentanyl or trans fats users as they would want to be treated by removing a harmful option.
Second, government often helps people at taxpayer expense, and while the taxation *may* not be Golden Rule compliant, the helping certainly is. That raises the question: if you can do unto A or B, but not both, something you would want done for you in A or B's place, how should you act to follow the Golden Rule? It's rather embarrassing for a rule with such lofty pretensions to be so easily problematized! And the problematic is not easily resolved, but I think one might just be able to glimpse an ultimate state of moral maturity where one simply doesn't want more for oneself than for others, so in the position of A or B, one wouldn't want to be favored, and if you attain that state, you don't violate the Golden Rule by favoring one or the other. Applied to welfare, you can become the kind of person who doesn't mind paying taxes so that the government can help those in need, and if you are that kind of person, you don't violate the Golden Rule by collecting taxes to help those in need.
Many stated some form of the Golden Rule, usually in passing and in a limited form, limited either in their formulation or something about the context. But Jesus of Nazareth amplified it by the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount into a doctrine of moral perfection that was unprecedented and has been unequaled since. And not only taught it but lived by it! The many problematics with which the Golden Rule, or the Kantian and utilitarian moral systems that are indebted to it, can be assailed, find their answer in the Sermon on the Mount. But the Sermon on the Mount is not a societal template. It's an infallible guide to living so as to make the world a better place, but it leaves so little room for self-interest that its full practice is really off limits to any but some kind of monastic saint. We can all learn from the Golden Rule, but we can't really help but fall short unless we make some very radical lifestyle choices for its sake.
"One flaw is that I don't see why decentralized private security has any advantage over normal governmental policing with respect to the Golden Rule." Of course there is. My forced acquiescence to authority, whether policing and national security structures, as opposed to selecting from among a menu of agencies, say, is an affront.
"Now, clearly there are cases ... terms. First, paternalism. When government..." Ah, such failure of imagination. This is one of those areas in which I don't think conservatives appreciate either private governance or the violative aspects of state paternalism. I mean, I can't imagine Jesus going around fining people for trans fat violations. And you know that the bans on hard drugs are why fentanyl has become a social problem. The economics of prohibition creates so many secondary social problems, of which you are surely aware.
"Second, government often helps people at taxpayer expense, and while the taxation *may* not be Golden Rule compliant, the helping certainly is."
I don't know what planet you live on, but I have seen very little that the government does to help people on net. It causes those who would otherwise give not to practice their compassion/charity, which is a developed virtue. It causes recipients to become dependent and entitled. It causes massive secondary and tertiary social harms beyond dependency and entitlement, such as muting the work ethic, creating income traps, and generally subsidizing social malaise. The welfare state has killed our mutual aid sector and communities everywhere. And "I'm okay to pay my taxes to 'help people,' and you should be too" is just the sort of moral laziness and abandonment of virtue that is destroying our society. (Oh and we're in 34 trillion in national debt, the majority of which is due to 'helping people.')
The Golden Rule is the crown of ethics, but I'm kind of surprised you think so. You're contorting your positions and arguing in epicycles to reconcile your beliefs that clearly contradict it. If your reasoning were sound, then it would cause me to question the Golden Rule itself.
So... there's a good deal of merit in this argumentation, yet in a sense it's missing the point. Consider that:
1. You can only act on the basis of what you know or believe.
2. Lots of bureaucrats and taxpayers BELIEVE that the welfare state helps a lot of needy people on net.
3. Therefore, when they pay taxes or collect taxes for the welfare state, and then distribute benefits, their actions may be compliant with the Golden Rule, to the best of their knowledge EVEN IF the total impact of the welfare state is, unbeknownst to them, objectively harmful.
I think applying the Golden Rule to large societal questions is good, and productive of moral progress and freedom, but don't expect it to lead to easy consensus. And it's even more important to apply it to personal conduct than to politics.
To me, what you have just demonstrated here is that outsourcing responsibility to great bureaucracies removes it from the fact that individuals act (methodological individualism) and collectivizes it in a kind of cognitive blur. Yes, we act based on what we know or believe, but our claims to knowledge and our beliefs are frequently in error. That is why the Golden Rule is and ought to be an individual practice, as with any other practiced virtue. The further away people get from individual practice, to abstract collectivization (that is non-GR based), the closer we move towards justifying violence monopolies (and justifying them as GR-complaint, which these are clearly not). Now, no one is arguing that paying one's taxes is GR non-complaint, but one can certainly claim that tax collection is non-GR complaint. (Yes, that means IRS agents are evil. "I'm just doing my job" didn't work in Nuremburg and it won't work in this context.) Something similar can be said about paternalism.
I want to point out, very sadly, that my read on your 1, 2, 3 above is a pretty close parallel to a postmodern argument. This is little better than: "Live your truth. Whatever you believe is good is good." But the whole point of ethics, much less the crown of ethics, is to parse right and wrong actions, as well was to identify virtues to be practices, vices to be avoided, and systems that reward vice and suppress virtue. If you want to argue pomo subjectivism through the back door, and then add that you don't expect the GR to lead to consensus (even if it's harder), then the GR cannot be the "crown" of ethics at all. If it is indeed the crown, then it must reign. It must have the power to subordinate other ethical systems such that it can be a universalist practice and basis for doctrine. (And I think Jesus would want it that way. Otherwise, it's a rule of thumb that is too vague to be all that useful.)
Hmm. I agree with a lot of this. But how do you think ethics should take epistemic limitations into account? Surely some allowance must be made for the person who serves a cause that is objectively bad, but that they think good, if they tried hard to discern what was right. I think it's possible to make such allowances without descending into complete moral relativism.
The bizarre aspect of this exchange is that I'm a moral antirealist, and I suspect you're moral realist, though that's just an assumption on my part. In other words, I don't believe there is such a thing as objective morality (a metaphysical position, not a moral position). Epistemic limitations, indeed! That said, I think we can construct moral rules through instrumental rationality and agreements, so for example: If we want to live in a world of peace, freedom, and abundance, I will not initiate harm (e.g. violence, theft, fraud) against others who agree to do the same. And indeed, that has the outlines of the Golden Rule in it, even as it acknowledges there are those who might not agree to live by the same principle. Now, it terms of error, we all err. But our jobs are to use reason and eliminate error as much as as we can to participate in being good and embracing the GR, or other commitments. My hope is that more people committed to such principles can join in solidarity and community around such commitments, practiced as virtue and enforce through opt-in arrangements, where enforcement is treated as a multi-lateral contract for behavior and rule following as a club good. (Busy day.)
Yes, I'm a moral realist, and it is ironic. You were sounding like a branch off the Christian natural law tree for a second there.
Concerning "constructing moral rules through instrumental rationality and agreements," why should agreements be binding unless you already think there is moral rule to keep your agreements? Why shouldn't I just use instrumental rationality to maximize the market share of my selfish genes, and agreements as a weapon in the arsenal of instrumental rationality, to be kept or broken based on the advantages to me from doing so? How can you endow moral rules with authority if the good and its authority aren't there from the beginning?
In Ciudad Morazán we have Golden Rule policing. The security guards are all armed, but they have never had to draw a weapon. The police are members of the community and they are trained that their job is to protect the life, liberty, and property of their neighbors. There are no fines or arrests. When someone breaks one of the simple contractual rules they agreed to when they moved in, the police politely remind them of the rule. If they continue to be a bad neighbor, their lease is not renewed. Part of the reason it works so well is that criminals and gang members aren't allowed inside the city wall. We are located in the highest crime region in the country, but the residents all say that what they love about living here is the peace and tranquility. There may come a time when force is necessary to remove someone who is a danger to others, but it hasn't happened yet.
This is excellent, exactly what I was looking for. Do you have any references in the Quran to the Golden Rule or equivalent?
Not really in the Quran, I think, but a Hadith: https://sunnah.com/nawawi40:13
Perfect thanks. I plan to go to my school board this year, pointing out that Kendi's so-called 'anti-racism', which is endorsed within Board DEI trainings (and which is explicitly reverse discrimination) is the antithesis of the Golden Rule, which covers all the Abrahamic cultures and many others.
Excellent, steven! You might find this helpful: https://www.goldenruleproject.org/formulations/
Perfect that is excellent, exactly what I need.
My favorite formulation of the Golden Rule is "Show the same consideration for others' wishes as you would have them show for yours." The problem with "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is that it seems to imply that if I like to be slapped on the back whenever someone greets me, I should slap people on the back whenever I greet them.
I agree: I hate the word "must" and will pretty much avoid any column or news story that includes the word in its headline. It almost always presages someone whining about his/her favorite obsession without regard to the forces that would bring the thing to pass or block it from happening. What I DO read is articles along the lines, "If we fail to do X, we will pay cost Y." Or, more appropriate for today's world, "When the government mandates X and prohibits Y, there is a huge cost Z."
I removed a line that said: "Okay, don't go around giving your neighbors praline ice cream because it's your favorite."
Thanks for the shout-out, Max! And I like the framing of this.
One flaw is that I don't see why decentralized private security has any advantage over normal governmental policing with respect to the Golden Rule. The objection to policing, such as it is, of that it involves the use of force. If you're a criminal, you presumably don't want force to be used against you. So can anyone use force against a criminal without violating the Golden Rule. I think maybe so ... but anyway, the question is the same whether the police force is "private" or governmental. Force of any kind belongs in your Magisterium of Must.
Now, clearly there are cases where the use of force would be defended in Golden Rule terms. First, paternalism. When government bans fentanyl or trans fats, the legislators and enforcers surely think they're treating fentanyl or trans fats users as they would want to be treated by removing a harmful option.
Second, government often helps people at taxpayer expense, and while the taxation *may* not be Golden Rule compliant, the helping certainly is. That raises the question: if you can do unto A or B, but not both, something you would want done for you in A or B's place, how should you act to follow the Golden Rule? It's rather embarrassing for a rule with such lofty pretensions to be so easily problematized! And the problematic is not easily resolved, but I think one might just be able to glimpse an ultimate state of moral maturity where one simply doesn't want more for oneself than for others, so in the position of A or B, one wouldn't want to be favored, and if you attain that state, you don't violate the Golden Rule by favoring one or the other. Applied to welfare, you can become the kind of person who doesn't mind paying taxes so that the government can help those in need, and if you are that kind of person, you don't violate the Golden Rule by collecting taxes to help those in need.
Many stated some form of the Golden Rule, usually in passing and in a limited form, limited either in their formulation or something about the context. But Jesus of Nazareth amplified it by the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount into a doctrine of moral perfection that was unprecedented and has been unequaled since. And not only taught it but lived by it! The many problematics with which the Golden Rule, or the Kantian and utilitarian moral systems that are indebted to it, can be assailed, find their answer in the Sermon on the Mount. But the Sermon on the Mount is not a societal template. It's an infallible guide to living so as to make the world a better place, but it leaves so little room for self-interest that its full practice is really off limits to any but some kind of monastic saint. We can all learn from the Golden Rule, but we can't really help but fall short unless we make some very radical lifestyle choices for its sake.
"One flaw is that I don't see why decentralized private security has any advantage over normal governmental policing with respect to the Golden Rule." Of course there is. My forced acquiescence to authority, whether policing and national security structures, as opposed to selecting from among a menu of agencies, say, is an affront.
"Now, clearly there are cases ... terms. First, paternalism. When government..." Ah, such failure of imagination. This is one of those areas in which I don't think conservatives appreciate either private governance or the violative aspects of state paternalism. I mean, I can't imagine Jesus going around fining people for trans fat violations. And you know that the bans on hard drugs are why fentanyl has become a social problem. The economics of prohibition creates so many secondary social problems, of which you are surely aware.
"Second, government often helps people at taxpayer expense, and while the taxation *may* not be Golden Rule compliant, the helping certainly is."
I don't know what planet you live on, but I have seen very little that the government does to help people on net. It causes those who would otherwise give not to practice their compassion/charity, which is a developed virtue. It causes recipients to become dependent and entitled. It causes massive secondary and tertiary social harms beyond dependency and entitlement, such as muting the work ethic, creating income traps, and generally subsidizing social malaise. The welfare state has killed our mutual aid sector and communities everywhere. And "I'm okay to pay my taxes to 'help people,' and you should be too" is just the sort of moral laziness and abandonment of virtue that is destroying our society. (Oh and we're in 34 trillion in national debt, the majority of which is due to 'helping people.')
The Golden Rule is the crown of ethics, but I'm kind of surprised you think so. You're contorting your positions and arguing in epicycles to reconcile your beliefs that clearly contradict it. If your reasoning were sound, then it would cause me to question the Golden Rule itself.
So... there's a good deal of merit in this argumentation, yet in a sense it's missing the point. Consider that:
1. You can only act on the basis of what you know or believe.
2. Lots of bureaucrats and taxpayers BELIEVE that the welfare state helps a lot of needy people on net.
3. Therefore, when they pay taxes or collect taxes for the welfare state, and then distribute benefits, their actions may be compliant with the Golden Rule, to the best of their knowledge EVEN IF the total impact of the welfare state is, unbeknownst to them, objectively harmful.
I think applying the Golden Rule to large societal questions is good, and productive of moral progress and freedom, but don't expect it to lead to easy consensus. And it's even more important to apply it to personal conduct than to politics.
To me, what you have just demonstrated here is that outsourcing responsibility to great bureaucracies removes it from the fact that individuals act (methodological individualism) and collectivizes it in a kind of cognitive blur. Yes, we act based on what we know or believe, but our claims to knowledge and our beliefs are frequently in error. That is why the Golden Rule is and ought to be an individual practice, as with any other practiced virtue. The further away people get from individual practice, to abstract collectivization (that is non-GR based), the closer we move towards justifying violence monopolies (and justifying them as GR-complaint, which these are clearly not). Now, no one is arguing that paying one's taxes is GR non-complaint, but one can certainly claim that tax collection is non-GR complaint. (Yes, that means IRS agents are evil. "I'm just doing my job" didn't work in Nuremburg and it won't work in this context.) Something similar can be said about paternalism.
I want to point out, very sadly, that my read on your 1, 2, 3 above is a pretty close parallel to a postmodern argument. This is little better than: "Live your truth. Whatever you believe is good is good." But the whole point of ethics, much less the crown of ethics, is to parse right and wrong actions, as well was to identify virtues to be practices, vices to be avoided, and systems that reward vice and suppress virtue. If you want to argue pomo subjectivism through the back door, and then add that you don't expect the GR to lead to consensus (even if it's harder), then the GR cannot be the "crown" of ethics at all. If it is indeed the crown, then it must reign. It must have the power to subordinate other ethical systems such that it can be a universalist practice and basis for doctrine. (And I think Jesus would want it that way. Otherwise, it's a rule of thumb that is too vague to be all that useful.)
Hmm. I agree with a lot of this. But how do you think ethics should take epistemic limitations into account? Surely some allowance must be made for the person who serves a cause that is objectively bad, but that they think good, if they tried hard to discern what was right. I think it's possible to make such allowances without descending into complete moral relativism.
The bizarre aspect of this exchange is that I'm a moral antirealist, and I suspect you're moral realist, though that's just an assumption on my part. In other words, I don't believe there is such a thing as objective morality (a metaphysical position, not a moral position). Epistemic limitations, indeed! That said, I think we can construct moral rules through instrumental rationality and agreements, so for example: If we want to live in a world of peace, freedom, and abundance, I will not initiate harm (e.g. violence, theft, fraud) against others who agree to do the same. And indeed, that has the outlines of the Golden Rule in it, even as it acknowledges there are those who might not agree to live by the same principle. Now, it terms of error, we all err. But our jobs are to use reason and eliminate error as much as as we can to participate in being good and embracing the GR, or other commitments. My hope is that more people committed to such principles can join in solidarity and community around such commitments, practiced as virtue and enforce through opt-in arrangements, where enforcement is treated as a multi-lateral contract for behavior and rule following as a club good. (Busy day.)
Yes, I'm a moral realist, and it is ironic. You were sounding like a branch off the Christian natural law tree for a second there.
Concerning "constructing moral rules through instrumental rationality and agreements," why should agreements be binding unless you already think there is moral rule to keep your agreements? Why shouldn't I just use instrumental rationality to maximize the market share of my selfish genes, and agreements as a weapon in the arsenal of instrumental rationality, to be kept or broken based on the advantages to me from doing so? How can you endow moral rules with authority if the good and its authority aren't there from the beginning?
In Ciudad Morazán we have Golden Rule policing. The security guards are all armed, but they have never had to draw a weapon. The police are members of the community and they are trained that their job is to protect the life, liberty, and property of their neighbors. There are no fines or arrests. When someone breaks one of the simple contractual rules they agreed to when they moved in, the police politely remind them of the rule. If they continue to be a bad neighbor, their lease is not renewed. Part of the reason it works so well is that criminals and gang members aren't allowed inside the city wall. We are located in the highest crime region in the country, but the residents all say that what they love about living here is the peace and tranquility. There may come a time when force is necessary to remove someone who is a danger to others, but it hasn't happened yet.