7 ms·

The closest we have to a "neutral rule" is "The Golden Rule": "Treat others as you would like them to treat you." It has a long history, both secular and reli

by femto 29d ago

The closest we have to a "neutral rule" is "The Golden Rule": "Treat others as you would like them to treat you." It has a long history, both secular and religious. Pretty well everything flows from it, and if someone is doing "the wrong thing" whilst claiming to obey it then they are probably deluding themself. The rule is suited to enforcement, since if someone does something "wrong", rather than immediately attacking them you can reasonably ask "Would you like it if I did this to you?". Limitation of power is built in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

BoingBoomTschak 29d ago
And lex talionis as a byproduct.
- no-name-here 28d ago
  Eye for an eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_for_an_eye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_for_an_eye
- femto 28d ago
  That's a complete misreading. Eye for an eye is "treat others as they treat you" Golden rule is' "treat others as you WANT them to treat you". It's the complete opposite of eye for an eye. If someone is being badly treated by others, most would want to be well treated instead, so the Golden Rule would say that you treat others well, even if others are treating you badly.
no-name-here 29d ago
I'd say expecting non-hypocrisy is also a top item. Someone says x behavior from a leader is disqualifying? OK, maybe that's their earnestly held belief and so worthy of consideration even if I disagree with their view. But if their behavior is the opposite/shows hypocrisy and suddenly isn't disqualifying? That should be a red line. Because even the "golden rule" leaves a lot of wiggle room - for example, should marital infidelity (or x) be a dealbreaker for electing someone? Maybe, but looking at hypocrisy (and thereby actions) might provide better insight as to what those groups actually believe is the "correct" standard? > The closest we have to a "neutral rule" is "The Golden Rule" Mostly agreed, but a surprisingly large percentage of the population seems truly unable to feel empathy for others (and can even show glee at others being negatively impacted by something) unless it personally affects them (a prerequisite for "Would you like it if I did this to you?" to work?). They can be gung-ho about laws that negatively affect others but upset if it affects them. For example, the countless examples of "Community members vote for politician promising illegal immigrant deportation, then upset/disagree that long-time beloved community member deported", or "Voter voted for politician promising criminal-record-immigrant deportation, then upset/disagrees that partner with past criminal record deported".
altmanaltman 28d ago
What if I like to treat myself terrible and hurt myself everyday? It's okay for me to treat others that way? Just because something has a long history (secular or otherwise) doesn't give it any merit by itself. If we need some standard to judge against what is morally acceptable in the case I presented (no this doesn't apply if you like to hurt yourself and others) then you are back to defining a standard which cannot inherently be neutral.
- no-name-here 28d ago
  1. I believe GP was suggesting "golden rule" as the basis for governmental-wide rules to be enacted, not that each person should use unique rules based on their own "do unto me" preferences. (If actually applied, "What if this were done to me" also helps to get around the issue of people enacting rules only on other groups, as they wouldn't actually want to be personally treated the way they're proposing.) 2. Regardless, if basing rules on whether someone would want those rules to apply to them does not have merit, is there some better basis you'd recommend?
  - altmanaltman 28d ago
    1. Yes, fair enough. 2. Yes, this is where I would push back because one can also assume there is no "better" basis in the strict sense that you can intellectualize morality/virtue only to a certain extent. And it is possible to argue that morality/virtue is often as much a psychological process as a purely intellectual one. So the idea isn't that the golden rule doesn't make sense or that it is objectively weak, but it doesn't map to the idea of actual morality in action. For example, a person may logically believe in the golden rule but that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that the agent is not fully logical and will not always strictly adhere to a rule just because it is aware of it and aware of it as being Good. In that sense, what use is the golden rule if we are free to ignore it at all (which we often do)? That doesn't mean I'm saying the golden rule is objectively wrong again, but in ranking morality and deciding on very abstract ideas of what Good and Bad are, we ignore the actual psychological forces that are extremely relevant when it comes to the execution of morality in action. So to answer the question, the better basis would be to understand the psychological forces behind why we feel the golden rule is objectively a good and then examine them to understand if we are following the golden rule because we actually think it is good or because we live in a society where it is good and we will be shamed if we don't believe it. One might say it doesn't matter as long as people actually follow the golden rule but another interpretation is that the golden rule by itself doesn't tell us anything (or very little) about the moral character of the person applying it. So just expecting people to follow that rule after knowing it is placing too much trust in the human animal who is often wild and not thinking logically. It is then upon the animal to tame itself and it may do so out of servitude or out of independence and both might lead to equivalent surface values and match the basis perfectly as being morally good while in reality, both have very different meanings for their morals. 2 is, of course, mainly inspired by Nietzsche. I'm working on a short story where he and Plato debate whether a painting is objectively good or bad called A Canvas Called Virtue.

by femto 29d ago

BoingBoomTschak 29d ago

And lex talionis as a byproduct.

no-name-here 28d ago
Eye for an eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_for_an_eye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_for_an_eye
femto 28d ago
That's a complete misreading. Eye for an eye is "treat others as they treat you" Golden rule is' "treat others as you WANT them to treat you". It's the complete opposite of eye for an eye. If someone is being badly treated by others, most would want to be well treated instead, so the Golden Rule would say that you treat others well, even if others are treating you badly.

no-name-here 29d ago

I'd say expecting non-hypocrisy is also a top item. Someone says x behavior from a leader is disqualifying? OK, maybe that's their earnestly held belief and so worthy of consideration even if I disagree with their view. But if their behavior is the opposite/shows hypocrisy and suddenly isn't disqualifying? That should be a red line. Because even the "golden rule" leaves a lot of wiggle room - for example, should marital infidelity (or x) be a dealbreaker for electing someone? Maybe, but looking at hypocrisy (and thereby actions) might provide better insight as to what those groups actually believe is the "correct" standard? > The closest we have to a "neutral rule" is "The Golden Rule" Mostly agreed, but a surprisingly large percentage of the population seems truly unable to feel empathy for others (and can even show glee at others being negatively impacted by something) unless it personally affects them (a prerequisite for "Would you like it if I did this to you?" to work?). They can be gung-ho about laws that negatively affect others but upset if it affects them. For example, the countless examples of "Community members vote for politician promising illegal immigrant deportation, then upset/disagree that long-time beloved community member deported", or "Voter voted for politician promising criminal-record-immigrant deportation, then upset/disagrees that partner with past criminal record deported".

altmanaltman 28d ago

What if I like to treat myself terrible and hurt myself everyday? It's okay for me to treat others that way? Just because something has a long history (secular or otherwise) doesn't give it any merit by itself. If we need some standard to judge against what is morally acceptable in the case I presented (no this doesn't apply if you like to hurt yourself and others) then you are back to defining a standard which cannot inherently be neutral.

no-name-here 28d ago
1. I believe GP was suggesting "golden rule" as the basis for governmental-wide rules to be enacted, not that each person should use unique rules based on their own "do unto me" preferences. (If actually applied, "What if this were done to me" also helps to get around the issue of people enacting rules only on other groups, as they wouldn't actually want to be personally treated the way they're proposing.) 2. Regardless, if basing rules on whether someone would want those rules to apply to them does not have merit, is there some better basis you'd recommend?
- altmanaltman 28d ago
  1. Yes, fair enough. 2. Yes, this is where I would push back because one can also assume there is no "better" basis in the strict sense that you can intellectualize morality/virtue only to a certain extent. And it is possible to argue that morality/virtue is often as much a psychological process as a purely intellectual one. So the idea isn't that the golden rule doesn't make sense or that it is objectively weak, but it doesn't map to the idea of actual morality in action. For example, a person may logically believe in the golden rule but that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that the agent is not fully logical and will not always strictly adhere to a rule just because it is aware of it and aware of it as being Good. In that sense, what use is the golden rule if we are free to ignore it at all (which we often do)? That doesn't mean I'm saying the golden rule is objectively wrong again, but in ranking morality and deciding on very abstract ideas of what Good and Bad are, we ignore the actual psychological forces that are extremely relevant when it comes to the execution of morality in action. So to answer the question, the better basis would be to understand the psychological forces behind why we feel the golden rule is objectively a good and then examine them to understand if we are following the golden rule because we actually think it is good or because we live in a society where it is good and we will be shamed if we don't believe it. One might say it doesn't matter as long as people actually follow the golden rule but another interpretation is that the golden rule by itself doesn't tell us anything (or very little) about the moral character of the person applying it. So just expecting people to follow that rule after knowing it is placing too much trust in the human animal who is often wild and not thinking logically. It is then upon the animal to tame itself and it may do so out of servitude or out of independence and both might lead to equivalent surface values and match the basis perfectly as being morally good while in reality, both have very different meanings for their morals. 2 is, of course, mainly inspired by Nietzsche. I'm working on a short story where he and Plato debate whether a painting is objectively good or bad called A Canvas Called Virtue.