The Golden Rule ? Sense or Bullshit?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

You know, I notice that people use the word "moral" very liberally. I may think someone has no morals (e.g., in honour killing, i say the dad has no morals, actually he clearly does, it's just different from mine, he likely thinks i have no morals as well). So because the golden rule does not leave out what people think, i think it's still in play. By itself it isn't moral because some people have warped sense of morality, but it fosters the environment you'd want to live in.

So for example, I wouldn't say murder is ok, even if i really want A to kill B. because then, I may end up being murdered as well. So part of it is self-preservation, I think.

You are using the word pretty liberally yourself, since you refer to your own morality to judge someone else's as warped. As for the golden rule, it is moral, by itself, because it prescribes what you should or should not do.

Bolded was the point I was trying to make.

Here's the thing though, it prescribes what you should or should not do, based on what you want. So it really is quite liquid.

We don't because if too many people do it, the society would not function optimally. Your first example comes with a very important disclaimer which is "as long as it doesn't bite you in the ass". How far into the future are you looking when considering this? 10 hours from now? 20h? 10 years? 50 years? So if everyone went out today, and manipulated people into what they want, let's go for an extreme example and say con people into taking fake cancer treatments and charging them lots of money for it. If we say this is moral, and more and more people start doing it, the next time you're sick, you cannot trust anyone to treat you. You'll have to spend a lot of time researching what is real and what isn't. the same would apply, to a lesser extent, in less extreme cases.

You've given no evidence to support your assertion that "if too many people do it, society would not function optimally". As far as we know, too many people in the world regularly lie, manipulate and take what they can if they can get away with it. Haven't you ever lied in an interview?

I actually have never lied or cheated in tests or interviews or on my resume. Because I think one of the problems in this world is that incompetent people get important responsibilities. I don't want to contribute to that problem, I'll get whatever I deserve, no more, no less. I didn't do this because of the golden rule, it just makes sense to me this is what I should do to help achieve the kind of world I want to live in.

And your example here is a strawman. My given condition was "if it doesn't bite you in the ass". The timeframe is irrelevant. Even if thereis possibility of that happening on your deathbed (or putting you there), you should consider it. So, your given example doesn't apply in such a world.

Then lying and manipulating people isn't such a good idea in the long run. How is my example irrelevant? So if you think that lying and manipulating is not going to affect a society's wellbeing, then make it legal and see what happens. Obviously we cannot make it legal just to settle an argument, but there's a reason certain things are legal, and certain things aren't. It's to prevent victims. So if we were to make these things legal when they matter, then there's a possibility you'll be one of the victim within your lifetime, which is something you should consider.

Also lying and manipulating people, if you're caught, would make people less inclined to be honest with you. If you have the resources to survive in a world like that, and want to survive in a world like that, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it. The golden rule, quite plainly, caters to what you want, not what the other person wants, while taking into account the other person's reaction to your action.

Idk what to address here. I have conceded that you don't follow the golden rule all the time, so maybe you follow it while making 50% of your decisions. I don't think it's realistic to say you can be successful and not subscribe to it (do you mean at all?), i could say you can be unsuccessful and not subscribe to it. I mean both are baseless assertions. i think most of us have been in situations where while making a decision, we go "if i were in his position, what would i want me to do?". That's a variation of the golden rule, principle is the same though.

The problem is, one assertion does have more support for it than the other. The golden rule is a rule based on empathy, i.e. your capacity to understand someone else's emotions and act on them. So someone incapable of empathy would be the clearest example of someone who rarely, if ever, lives by the golden rule.

Why do you say this (italicized), when the rule says that do unto them, what you want done unto you. You don't have to understand their emotions, you just have to place yourself in their situation, and think what do you want done to you. Unless this is what you mean by understanding their emotion? Because people don't necessarily understand emotions just by placing themselves in someone else's shoes.

I'm not sure how scientific this study is, but here is it anyway:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovic...reat-ceos/
http://boingboing.net/2012/12/31/which-p...e-mos.html

According to this, the incidence of psychopathy among CEO's is four times that of general popuation. It also seems that psychopathy is more common in jobs associated with traditional ideas of success, money and power. That's because a lot of these jobs indicative of success and power require traits indicative of psychopathy - such as making objective, clinical decisions without consideration for anyone else's feelings. Which would indicate that as far as money, power and success are concerned, the less often you apply the golden rule, the more likely you are to succeed.

You're confusing emotions with the golden rule. Just because someone doesn't feel emotions doesn't mean they don't know how to react to it. How you act (the golden rule), doesn't necessarily correlate with how you feel. Especially in psychopaths and sociopaths. The golden rule doesn't say what you feel, it says what you want. Which sociopaths and psychopaths understand.

1. the rule of trade doesn't apply here.

It does if I go for the option of holding out for a reward.

Yea, i got to that part.

But you did follow the golden rule. you want an environment where if you were to lose your money, you'd rather they take it and teach you a lesson. That's how you want to be treated, so you act that way to affect others into treating you that way.

First of all, that would the interpretation of the golden rule that is rarely applied. In fact, most people argue against that interpretation because another example of the same application would be "I want to be murdered if I'm ever stupid enough to walk down a dark street - so I should murder anyone who does".

This is a correct application. What do you mean rarely applied? That's exactly what the golden rule says. I've never said the golden rule is inherently beneficial or inherently good, but it gets you to where you want to get to. Which is having others treat you the way you treat them.

Second of all, the point you were actually making was how your given application of golden rule is more beneficial and my example is simply to show that it isn't.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make. In my original example of the wallet, the person making the decision wanted wallets returned to him in the future, so I said that was beneficial for this person. If you want your wallets taken away, then this situation is beneficial for you. If you only want to take away others', but don't want others to take away yours, then you might not want to take theirs in the first place, because you increased the possibility of a less ideal situation happening to you.

The trade rule only applies once you start charging for your service, because then it becomes a trade. But you do see how it'd be problematic if we started charging for everything, right?

Nope. And it would be a mistake to think that the trade rule means always to be paid in money.

Again, you're still using the golden rule here. You want to be treated a certain way, so you treat others that way and successfully fostered the environment where others will treat you the same way.

Except, the golden rule here is a tertiary motive at best. The primary motive is the monetary benefit and the secondary motive is teaching him a lesson. My actions would've been the same even if I had no desire or any real expectation of effecting a change in environment.

Your motives affect your actions, your actions affect the environment. Your motive doesn't alter the effect of your actions on the environment. Even if you do the same thing with a different motive, the effect will be the same. The golden rule, if you thought about it before acting, simply allows you to consider the consequences and maybe change your mind.

Also if you charged for education, then the poor stay poor, and you lose out on fostering smart people to solve your problems because poor people won't afford to go to school.

The golden rule is an optional extra. And that is the point. I'm saying that rather than treating the golden rule as the primary, we can gain greater benefit by applying the trade rule instead. And unlike this example, if the two rules are in conflict, it'd still be beneficial to give precedence to the trade rule.

Did I say the golden rule is a primary rule that everyone should act by? It is a good thing to think about, that I would insist on. That your actions have consequences, and the golden rule is a very simple (not very sophisticated, for sure) way of predicting the consequences.

And by the way, once again, this is not the interpretation people seem to favor. If any and all forms of the golden rule are acceptable, then I choose the economic interpretation - "He who has the gold makes the rules".

Uhm. I stuck pretty close to the words. You could even say I took them literally. Where did I stray? If others have different interpretations, feel free to present it. And also, please tell me what this other, more popular interpretation is. Because I honestly don't know it.

"He who has the gold makes the rules". You mean he who has the power. Because if you mean money, this rule breaks down in a kidnapping situation, where it's the kidnappers who make the rules instead of those who have the money. I would say this is on par with the golden rule in terms of universality, but less instructional.