Philosophical Vegan Forum

Kanade wrote: The main reason why i think the golden rule is flawed is because the moral standard and criteria is not based on others desires and preferences, no it's solely focused on what your own preferences and desires are.

"The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by"

Kanade wrote:It's not a restatement of the golden rule. It's the very opposite principle of the golden rule.

Kanade wrote:The golden rule specifically states don't treat others like you want others to treat yourself.

Kanade wrote:If you want others to treat yourself badly then according to the golden rule treating others badly is justified.

brimstoneSalad wrote:I understand that you may view it that way. But that is not how most people who have studied the subject view it. Language is ambiguous like that, and when something is not very clear (like common statements of the golden rule), it's easy to interpret them in the wrong way.

brimstoneSalad wrote:What do you think "badly" means?

You want others to treat you the way you want to be treated. Whether that is good or bad. So, you should treat others the way they want to be treated. This is the golden rule, understood correctly.

wikipedia wrote: Criticisms and responses to criticisms
Many people have criticized the golden rule; George Bernard Shaw once said that "the golden rule is that there are no golden rules". Shaw suggested an alternative rule: "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same" (Maxims for Revolutionists; 1903). Karl Popper wrote: "The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by" (The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2). This concept has recently been called "The Platinum Rule"[87] Philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell,[citation needed] have objected to the rule on a variety of grounds.[88] The most serious among these is its application. How does one know how others want to be treated? The obvious way is to ask them, but this cannot be done if one assumes they have not reached a particular and relevant understanding.

One satirical version the Golden Rule makes a political and economic point: "Whoever has the gold, makes the rules."[89]

Differences in values or interests
Shaw's comment about differing tastes suggests that if your values are not shared with others, the way you want to be treated will not be the way they want to be treated. Hence, the Golden Rule is "dangerous in the wrong hands,"[90] according to philosopher Iain King, because "some fanatics have no aversion to death: the Golden Rule might inspire them to kill others in suicide missions."[91]

Differences in situations
Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others.[92] Kant's Categorical Imperative, introduced in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, is often confused with the Golden Rule.

Cannot be a sole guide to action
Philosopher Iain King has argued that “(although) the idea of mirroring your treatment of others with their treatment of you is very widespread indeed… most ancient wisdoms express this negatively – advice on what you should not do, rather than what you should.” [93] He argues this creates a bias in favour of inertia which allows bad actions and states of affairs to persist. The positive formulation, meanwhile, can be “incendiary”,[94] since it “can lead to cycles of tit-for-tat reciprocity,” unless it is accompanied by a corrective mechanism, such as a concept of forgiveness.[94] Therefore, he concludes that there can be no viable formulation of the Golden Rule, unless it is heavily qualified by other maxims.[95]

Responses to criticisms
Walter Terence Stace, in The Concept of Morals (1937), wrote:

Mr. Bernard Shaw's remark "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may be different" is no doubt a smart saying. But it seems to overlook the fact that "doing as you would be done by" includes taking into account your neighbor's tastes as you would that he should take yours into account. Thus the "golden rule" might still express the essence of a universal morality even if no two men in the world had any needs or tastes in common.[96]

Marcus George Singer observed that there are two importantly different ways of looking at the golden rule: as requiring (1) that you perform specific actions that you want others to do to you or (2) that you guide your behavior in the same general ways that you want others to.[97] Counter-examples to the golden rule typically are more forceful against the first than the second.

In his book on the golden rule, Jeffrey Wattles makes the similar observation that such objections typically arise while applying the golden rule in certain general ways (namely, ignoring differences in taste, in situation, and so forth). But if we apply the golden rule to our own method of using it, asking in effect if we would want other people to apply the golden rule in such ways, the answer would typically be no, since it is quite predictable that others' ignoring of such factors will lead to behavior which we object to. It follows that we should not do so ourselves—according to the golden rule. In this way, the golden rule may be self-correcting.[98] An article by Jouni Reinikainen develops this suggestion in greater detail.[99]

It is possible, then, that the golden rule can itself guide us in identifying which differences of situation are morally relevant. We would often want other people to ignore any prejudice against our race or nationality when deciding how to act towards us, but would also want them to not ignore our differing preferences in food, desire for aggressiveness, and so on. The platinum rule, and perhaps other variants, might also be self-correcting in this same manner.

Volenta wrote: If you're going to lean fully on the self-corrective power of the rule, you're assuming everyone wants that others take differences in opinion in consideration. While most people do,

Volenta wrote: it's still bad in the wrong hands, even when interpreting it according to the second definition given in the response (which by the way seems to be different from yours if I understood you correctly).

Volenta wrote: I don't see any other way to get out of this problem...

brimstoneSalad wrote:It's almost a tautology to say that people can not want done to them what they don't want done to them.

Volenta wrote: You mentioned yourself the examples of the necessity of making decisions for kids that they consciously don't want, but unconsciously really do want.

Volenta wrote: You're say it's an interpretation and simplification problem, but if you're interpretation of it is that you should treat others as they like to be treated, that would still leave you nowhere...