Philosophy Now Forum

Dan Flores argues that the Golden Rule can’t be followed, even in principle.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/The_Not_So_Golden_Rule

Philosophy Now wrote: ↑Mon May 07, 2018 1:42 am Dan Flores argues that the Golden Rule can’t be followed, even in principle.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/Th ... olden_Rule

While there are undoubted problems with taking the golden rule literally and precisiely, I suspect that there would be even more problems with any moral rule if taken literally and precisely. Certainly the author does not address this likelihood and hence his conclusion that : " We should focus our attention on ordinary moral principles instead." is unjustified.

Philosophy Now wrote: ↑Mon May 07, 2018 1:42 am Dan Flores argues that the Golden Rule can’t be followed, even in principle.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/Th ... olden_Rule

On the contrary, each person cannot help but follow the Golden Rule, whether or not the rule is intellectually known.

If you treat people with kindness, this is because you want to be treated with kindness, whether or not you know it.

If you are petty and cruel, this is because you want to be treated this way, whether or not you know it.

The dualistic delusion of separation obscures the knowing.

I thought everyone knew this.

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 1:46 am

Philosophy Now wrote: ↑Mon May 07, 2018 1:42 am Dan Flores argues that the Golden Rule can’t be followed, even in principle.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/Th ... olden_Rule

On the contrary, each person cannot help but follow the Golden Rule, whether or not the rule is intellectually known.

[/quote]


OT rule of Reciprocity is better.

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 1:46 am If you treat people with kindness, this is because you want to be treated with kindness, whether or not you know it.

initial default - assuming a credit - is the golden rule.

if that is not returned, then return to them what they give to you.

Reciprocity

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 1:46 am If you are petty and cruel, this is because you want to be treated this way, whether or not you know it.

then after the initial Goldren Rule fails.

stoop to their lever and return to them what they give you.

I always thought that the golden rule was a stupid proposition. It was not based on logic ever...it was based on wishful thinking.

It does not follow that if I treat everyone as I want to be treated, then I will be treated as I want to be treated. To say that I will be treated the way I treat others is not logical. People can treat me any way they want, regardless how I treated complete strangers to them priorly or afterward.

That's A. B. is that if I want to be treated some way, and therefore I treat others that way, I may be violating the way they want to be treated. Say, I like shaking hands with business partners. Especially after a deal. I want to be treated the same way. If I go to Saudi Arabia, and I do business with a business woman local to the culture there, then I expect she will want to shake hands with me, as I only want to be treated as I treat others. But her husband will kill her if she touches me, and then he will make minced meat out of me. Here, the golden rule does not apply at all.

Life is full of expectations and wishfulness, but hardly any of it comes through. The Golden Rule is just one such arrangement.

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 1:46 am

Philosophy Now wrote: ↑Mon May 07, 2018 1:42 am Dan Flores argues that the Golden Rule can’t be followed, even in principle.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/Th ... olden_Rule

On the contrary, each person cannot help but follow the Golden Rule, whether or not the rule is intellectually known.

If you treat people with kindness, this is because you want to be treated with kindness, whether or not you know it.

If you are petty and cruel, this is because you want to be treated this way, whether or not you know it.

Yes, everyone knows this, but this is exactly where the golden rule breaks down. Say person A treats everyone cruelly, and person B treats everyone nicely, because they both want to be treated that way. But they won't be treated the way they treat others, when the two meet. So the golden rule fails.

-1- wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 7:32 am

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 1:46 am

Philosophy Now wrote: ↑Mon May 07, 2018 1:42 am Dan Flores argues that the Golden Rule can’t be followed, even in principle.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/Th ... olden_Rule

On the contrary, each person cannot help but follow the Golden Rule, whether or not the rule is intellectually known.

If you treat people with kindness, this is because you want to be treated with kindness, whether or not you know it.

If you are petty and cruel, this is because you want to be treated this way, whether or not you know it.

Yes, everyone knows this, but this is exactly where the golden rule breaks down. Say person A treats everyone cruelly, and person B treats everyone nicely, because they both want to be treated that way. But they won't be treated the way they treat others, when the two meet. So the golden rule fails.

The Golden Rule does not say you will be treated as you treat others, so no break down.

The Golden Rule is more a statement of dualistic causation, of how B follows A, than it is a prescription for behavior.

Same goes for this.

Proverbs 11:17 (KJV)
The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.

Dan Flores states that the traditional Golden Rule comes with a number of problems. In this post I will refute the author’s criticisms and describe a better version of the Rule.

When taken literally, it can lead to absurdities.
The author suggests that if a masochist were a literal follower of the Golden Rule, his reasoning could be: I want to be tortured by an acquaintance, therefore I should torture that person. The resulting absurdity is that the acquaintance would be a victim rather than a beneficiary of the Rule.

While this could be the reasoning and the result, I would have it that the case of a masochist is an absurd case inasmuch as the moral agent is an abnormal human being. The Golden Rule’s intended audience simply does not include masochists.

It is not commonly practiced.
Flores states that just because some version of the traditional Golden Rule can be found from culture to culture and religion to religion does not mean that people within that culture or religion actually believe it to be true, much less practice it.

This is true enough on the face of it, however neither the number of believers nor the number of practitioners of the Golden Rule impacts the value to be gained by following the Rule.

It isn’t true that we all want to be treated well.
Certainly not the masochists. It is considered to be harmful rather than helpful to seek misfortune or injury, at least by normal, healthy people.

Again, I would have it that the Rule’s intended audience purposely excludes the abnormal among us.

It is not an ‘infallible guide’ to what is right or wrong. It does not explain why some action is morally correct or incorrect. It doesn’t say what specific acts to do.
The author claims that the Golden Rule is a broken compass because “it says nothing about (A) The way others want to be treated relative to one’s own desires of how to be treated; (B) Which preferences are morally superior to others; and (C) What makes certain preferences for behavior morally superior to others.”

The Rule serves best as a heuristic: when in doubt, always treat others the way you would like them to treat you. (A) The way others want to be treated is not germane to the Golden Rule, which urges one to treat others not in accordance with their unknowable preferences, but in accordance with your own principles; and (B) and (C) a hierarchy of moral principles does not apply to the situation where you cannot compare your principles with the unknowable preferences of someone else.

It does not replace regular moral norms.
Ordinary moral norms still apply when there is opportunity to identify and compare the norms. When conflict exists among ordinary principles. there needs to be some way to determine which principle is the stronger one. The Golden Rule is useful in doubtful situations where no such comparison can be made. The Rule does not intend to, nor should it, replace regular moral norms.

It asks that the moral agent do something impossible.
Flores refers here to a (non-existent) requirement to do to others what they want done to them. He explains the ‘Malkovich Dilemma’ i.e. how can a moral agent experience another’s experiences unless the agent is the other?

“… if what I will call the ‘identity condition’ – that one must be able to imagine one’s self in the place of another – is meant in a strong sense… then if the identity condition is an impossibility, so too is the Golden Rule. And since it is impossible to truly imagine one’s self in the place of another in a strong sense, even a modified Golden Rule is thus an impossibility.”

The Rule is that you should do what you would like done to you. There is no need to imagine the unimaginable, to know the unknowable or to do anything that requires the moral agent to have intimate access to the mind of the other. Flores is asking something of the moral agent that the Rule does not,

It doesn’t really do anything.
It attempts to prohibit its followers from acting immorally toward others. That’s something.

A better version
The Hebraic version says, in effect, do not do something to someone else that you wouldn’t want done to you. The very same heuristic of the traditional Golden Rule is applied, however this version emphasizes that the Rule is a prohibition, not an invocation. The Rule does not incite anyone to act morally. Rather it prevents anyone who adheres to it from acting immorally.
Many laws and statutes are the same. They prohibit actions that are illegal but they do not compel actions that are legal. One could do nothing and still avoid breaking the law. The rule of law prohibits actions that are illegal, but does not induce actions that are legal. The same is true of the Golden Rule with respect to immoral acts.

Conclusion
The Golden Rule is a useful rule of thumb in those instances where there is no certain principle to apply. Therefore, it is an adjunct to the regular moral principles that can be applied in specific instances. It makes no assertion that ordinary moral norms are to be abandoned. It makes no claim to be the only moral guidance. It serves as a guide to those who follow it of what not to do. It has not the tarnish that Dan Flores sees.

Philosophical perspectives on the Golden Rule typically focus on the Golden Rule’s well-known flaws and may even have a dismissive tone.
The philosopher Dan Flores recently wrote in his article The Not So Golden Rule.

“If ethics is the inquiry into the basic claims of morality, then upon philosophical scrutinization of the Golden Rule, we find that, in the words of Quine, ‘there is nothing to scrute’ after all. We should focus our attention on ordinary moral principles instead.”

As an admirer of the Golden Rule, I took offense on its behalf. In response, I will both defend its permanent cultural usefulness and argue that it points us to a universal moral principle.

Rather than there being “nothing to scrute”, the Golden Rule, particularly in the form “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, may be the most culturally useful heuristic (a usually reliable, but fallible, rule of thumb) for moral behavior in existence. We will see there are good reasons that Jesus is quoted in Mathew 7:12 as saying the Golden Rule summarizes morality and even present-day secular people commonly quote it as their primary moral guide. Despite the Golden Rule’s flaws, it has remained a popular and useful moral principle since ancient times and in cultures around the world.

Building on insights into the origin and function of morality by the Greek philosopher Protagoras and Charles Darwin, I’ll argue (here and continued in https://scienceandmorality.com/2018/10/ ... principle/) that we can understand why the Golden Rule’s specific flaws exist. Understanding when the Golden rule will advocate immoral behavior is a useful result on its own. In addition, this knowledge plus a bit about cooperation strategies leads to a perhaps even more surprising result. We can identify the cross-species universal moral principle that the Golden Rule is a heuristic for. These are the potential payoffs for scrutinizing the Golden Rule.

In one of Plato’s dialogs, the philosopher Protagoras explained to Socrates that morality’s function, the primary reason it exists, is it increases the benefits of cooperation. (Protagoras illustrated his argument with the Greek myth that Zeus gave all people a moral sense to enable them to cooperate in groups. The existence of this myth implies that “morality as cooperation” was a common understanding of morality among people in Protagoras’ time and likely well-known to Socrates.)

If the function of morality is to increase the benefits of cooperation, then how might we describe immoral behavior except as acting to decrease the benefits of cooperation? Then when might the Golden Rule’s guidance be expected to decrease the overall benefits of cooperation? Such circumstances include the Golden Rule’s commonly recognized “failures” when 1) a judge does not punish a criminal because the judge would like to not be punished in the same circumstances, 2) a soldier acts generously toward an enemy soldier in time of war resulting in the enemy soldier killing the generous one, and 3) people’s “tastes differ”, as Bernard Shaw pointed out, regarding how they want to be treated. Protagoras’ 2500-year-old perspective on morality as cooperation reveals the “why” of the Golden Rule’s standard failure examples. Those failures occur when following the Golden Rule would likely decrease the benefits of cooperation and thus be immoral.

If the function of moral behavior actually is increasing the benefits of cooperation, then we have an explanation for the flaw that produces the Golden Rule’s failures. But given this flaw, how has the Golden Rule remained such a useful moral norm?

“Do to others as you would have them to do to you” advocates initiating cooperation based on the generally reliable assumption that both parties like to be treated similarly. For example, following the Golden Rule would advocate sharing food, coming to other’s aid when they need help, and treating other people fairly, even when one has the power to treat them unfairly. Such cooperation was critical for survival in pre-civilization societies and the material and psychological benefits of cooperation remain, even now, the overwhelming reason we form and maintain societies and moral codes.

However, the Golden Rule does not advocate mere reciprocity – I help you and you help me. There is no hint in the Golden Rule that people helped will directly reciprocate. If the people helped also follow the Golden Rule, then they will help whoever in the group needs help. Radically more benefits of cooperation are made possible when “all help all” in a large group rather than when help is dependent on pairs of reciprocators (pairs of cooperating people).

The sophisticated form of cooperation initiated by the Golden Rule is called indirect reciprocity. It is perhaps the most powerful cooperation strategy known. The Golden Rule has remained a central moral principle since ancient times because the behaviors it advocates can so effectively increase the benefits of cooperation. (Note that the Golden Rule only initiates indirect reciprocity. Maintaining indirect reciprocity requires exploiters and freeloaders be punished, perhaps just by ceasing to cooperate with them. Our evolved moral sense is generally eager to punish ‘immorality’. We can think of indirect reciprocity as being initiated by the Golden Rule. But indirect reciprocity must be maintained by freeloaders and exploiters being “punished” as motivated by our moral sense’s indignation about other people’s immorality, our own guilt and shame at our own immorality, and by cultural punishment norms for immoral behavior.)

The above is the first part of an essay refuting the "not so Golden" claim. If anyone is interested, the rest, included the proposed simple universal moral principle the Golden Rule's failure cases points us to, is at
https://scienceandmorality.com/2018/10/ ... principle/.

Feedback is welcome. Presenting the science of morality in a way that will not be misunderstood is surprisingly difficult.

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 9:12 am

-1- wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 7:32 am

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 1:46 am
On the contrary, each person cannot help but follow the Golden Rule, whether or not the rule is intellectually known.

If you treat people with kindness, this is because you want to be treated with kindness, whether or not you know it.

If you are petty and cruel, this is because you want to be treated this way, whether or not you know it.

Yes, everyone knows this, but this is exactly where the golden rule breaks down. Say person A treats everyone cruelly, and person B treats everyone nicely, because they both want to be treated that way. But they won't be treated the way they treat others, when the two meet. So the golden rule fails.

The Golden Rule does not say you will be treated as you treat others, so no break down.

The Golden Rule is more a statement of dualistic causation, of how B follows A, than it is a prescription for behavior.

Same goes for this.

Proverbs 11:17 (KJV)
The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.

Sorry, Walker, I don't follow your logic how you claim that 1. Golden rule is a statement of dualistic causation, as "dualistic" is a Nick_A expression, i.e. meaningless. Furthermore, if B follows A, yes, you are right, but as I showed in my example, B does not always follow A, so your argument fails.

Proverbs 11:17 (KJV) does not apply to people with antisocial personality disorder. Or to sadists, or to masochists. You are excluding a HUGE chunk of humanity by sticking to the alleged truth of this proverb; reality belies its prophesy.

The Golden rule necessitates a choice in not just values and value formation but effectively expresses moral actualities and potentialities by allow a form of generosity where the individual maintains some degree of choice and inherent nature of generating the boundaries of their personal condition.

The dualism of the good man and evil man, both practicing there respective choices, observes the one forms the other and this personal freedom of "value" necessitates an inherent element of synthesis and creativity where the person creates the judgements they will be judge by in the face of a percievable inversive opposition conducive in form and function to void.

In simpler terms a person forms themselves in the encapsulation of darkness and chaos through there use of reason from which they will be simultaneously judged by.

It is not a moral conundrum but rather a foundation of generation through synthesis.

he who has the gold makes the rules

-Imp

The Golden Rule is probably practiced less than reciprocity, as suggested by Gatto and others.

In game theory, reciprocity is called Tit-for-Tat. In numerous simulations run, using all manner of strategies, Tit-for-Tat won in all cases except one, which is perhaps important. Tit-for-Tat starts out cooperating. If the other player defects, then T4T defects in turn. If the other player cooperates again, T4T cooperates, mirroring the last move made by the other.

In a non-cooperating group, T4T will fare poorly because it will be exploited in the first instance and then fall into a cycle of recrimination. So forgiveness is needed to break the cycle. But how, and who can be trusted to reciprocate?

These are society-wide problems seen in many parts of the world and, with rapidly growing populations, they may be wicked problems. In the personal domain, how we respond will either mechanistically follow "programs" like the Golden Rule or reciprocity or it can be simply a matter of how much judgement, empathy, mood, precedent and strategy one is confident of mustering in the moment - and how much one cares about the interaction

Greta wrote: ↑Tue Oct 30, 2018 12:41 am The Golden Rule is probably practiced less than reciprocity, as suggested by Gatto and others.

In game theory, reciprocity is called Tit-for-Tat. In numerous simulations run, using all manner of strategies, Tit-for-Tat won in all cases except one, which is perhaps important. Tit-for-Tat starts out cooperating. If the other player defects, then T4T defects in turn. If the other player cooperates again, T4T cooperates, mirroring the last move made by the other.

In a non-cooperating group, T4T will fare poorly because it will be exploited in the first instance and then fall into a cycle of recrimination. So forgiveness is needed to break the cycle. But how, and who can be trusted to reciprocate?

These are society-wide problems seen in many parts of the world and, with rapidly growing populations, they may be wicked problems. In the personal domain, how we respond will either mechanistically follow "programs" like the Golden Rule or reciprocity or it can be simply a matter of how much judgement, empathy, mood, precedent and strategy one is confident of mustering in the moment - and how much one cares about the interaction

Reciprocity occurs internally as well considering the practice of a value system, regardless of the consequences effectively forms the self. I may choose to give something to someone, without expecting something in return, which in turn reciprocates back to the self as a form of habit which gives structure to further thought, feeling and action.

Reciprocation has a self reflective quality in these respects where the person is given an objective structured self through the self. Self reflection, as an internalization of the golden rule rather than the strict projection of it in the t4t paradigm, is necessitated for any form of group coherence to occur.