The Golden Rule ? Sense or Bullshit?

[genkaus]

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.

Frankly, I don't believe you. But that's beside the point. The point here was that a lot of people do lie and manipulate - even if you are one of the few who don't - which I don't think you are - and yet the society works just fine.

Then lying and manipulating people isn't such a good idea in the long run. How is my example irrelevant?

Here's how its irrelevant. You specifically pick an example where lying and manipulating end up having adverse (and foreseeable) consequences for the liar and manipulator and from that generalize that lying and manipulating is a bad idea. Its the same as arguing how an unmarried woman who liked having sex got an STD and concluding that therefore premarital sex is always bad.

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.

It is legal. Which country do you live in?

"If you send me 200 dollars I'll help you meet the love of your life" - there, I just lied to you.

"If you love your country, you should vote for a Republican president" - that would be emotional manipulation.

And I'm not going to jail for that.

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.

I'm saying that we already live in such a world. For all our moral trumpeting of the golden rule, we drop it in an instant if we have a reasonable belief that they are not going to do unto us what we want them to. The people to whom I've told most lies would be those closest to me and they have lied to me many times over as well - and yet we trust each other.

The fact is, I have no expectation that my telling the truth is going to make it more or less likely that I would be given the truth. I could be the most truthful person in the world and people are still going to lie to me at about the same frequency as they do now. That's because for most people - like me - the consideration of future honesty is irrelevant to their need to lie. In fact, the reason I usually tell the truth about something embarrassing is not because I expect truth from them in the future, but because when I lie to them about something even more embarrassing, they'd believe me.

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.

That is what empathy means - your capacity to put yourself in another's situation and think about what you'd want and how you'd feel.

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.

I think you are the one ignoring the role of empathy and emotions in application of the golden rule. Psychopaths and sociopaths have emotions - without those they wouldn't have wants. You say that applying the golden rule would be beneficial to the society and thus ultimately to ourselves, but that is not what people think about while applying it. Any potential benefit far down the line is too meager an incentive - especially when compared to a definite benefit right now. The purpose of putting yourself in some else's place is to invoke an empathetic emotional response. The idea of making someone else happy creates an automatic positive emotional state within you, while making them upset creates a negative one. It is that emotional state which forms the primary reason for following the golden rule. How well this state stacks up against other considerations is a different matter.

The reason why psychopaths don't follow the golden rule is because this emotional response is absent. Intellectually, they may understand that the other person would feel bad or good as a result of their actions, but that doesn't matter to them. Since they understand that there is no reason to expect others to do the same unto them and there is no emotional deterrent, they see no reason to follow the golden rule - so they don't.

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.

First of all "what it says" is not how its interpreted. This is an extremely common criticism and counter-criticism of the golden rule, which you should know already. There are countless examples - I'm a masochist, therefore, I should torture other. The counter given to this is that the golden rule actually means - "Do unto others according to their desires, interests and values as you'd have them do unto you according to your desires, interests and values". That is how most people consider the golden rule.

Secondly, as I've said before, there is no certainty that it would get you where you want.

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.

That is what I mean by the benefit being too uncertain. There is no certain reason to believe the I have decreased the possibility of my wallet being returned if I decide to keep this one. Similarly, there is no certain reason to believe that my returning the wallet would increase the possibility of my wallet being returned in future. Any benefit, in either scenario, is far too unreliable and simply pales in comparison to the certain benefit right now.

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.

If the motive doesn't matter then let's just get rid of the golden rule. Besides, the golden rule doesn't say anything about the consequences. It gives you no reason to believe that others would do unto you as you want them to, it simply tells you that you should.

Also, we do charge for education. Its just that those getting educated aren't the ones paying.

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.

No, it isn't. If I decide to keep the wallet, all I can predict is that the person who lost it would most likely be upset. Maybe this trauma would darken his heart and he'd wander the streets collecting lost wallets never to be returned to their owners. Or maybe he'd start a one man crusade of changing the society by returning all the lost wallets. Either way, I can't predict which is more likely. So, why do you think it'd be a good thing to consider?

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.

See above.

"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.

That was a joke.