The Golden Rule ? Sense or Bullshit?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

I'm saying that it doesn't always bring adverse effects - sometimes, the effects maybe positive. Which is why, everyone does it - though, once again, not always. And yet, the world is safe enough. I think that people lie and manipulate more often than they apply the golden rule. And yet, lying and manipulating is not considered moral. Why is that?

It's not considered moral because it's not advantageous to advertise it as moral as it has a "victim". So if I advertise it as moral, more people will do it, and there's a higher chance of me being a "victim". It's about strategy, not about which is more advantageous to the individual, but again, to the whole. I'm gonna bring up an example in evolutionary biology to explain what I mean. There's a theory that evolution favours traits that would honestly show an individual's health and fitness. Evolution favours this, even though as individuals it's better if they can hide their flaws. It's because evolution doesn't care about those that are unfit, but if the fit ones could distinguish the health of others, they'll have healthier offsprings and the species will benefit. If you're dishonest and hide your flaws, you can land yourself a very healthy mate and have your genes passed on. But if your'e the unlucky healthy mate, you lost out, because you could've gotten a better quality mate.

So it's strategically sound for us to detect acts of dishonesty in many cases because dishonesty of others will disadvantage us even though our dishonesty could benefit us. So I think, logically, dishonesty only has value if no one knows you're doing it, so you can't say it's moral (revealing your dishonesty), or it defeats the purpose.

Likewise, the whole golden rule thing is also a strategy. If you encourage everyone to be "nice" (by their own definitions), you're more likely to be treated nicely. And so, this is the rule to promote.

You realize that they both function.

The only point on which lying is legislated upon is when certain transactions are carried out with the implicit duty of telling the truth. Here, the actual crime is not lying but perpetrating a fraud. It is not a question of being "petty", but whether reasonable duty to be mutually truthful can be presumed. Consider the campaign promises of any politician. They are almost always a pack of lies and have far-reaching consequences on the future of the society and yet they are not prosecuted for those lies.

Fraud is a type of lying. Anyway, yes, politicians get to lie. But that's hardly beneficial for the society is it? It's beneficial for the politician. Which is why your idea that if everyone were to lie and cheat with no concerns for others nothing too bad will happen doesn't stand. You say the world we live in now is already full of liars, but if that is so, you won't have another sample to compare it to. So you really can't tell if we would be better off or worse off following which path.

So what you're doing applies to the entire world but what I'm doing doesn't? Pick another example.

Why would I, since this one illustrates my point so well.

Because it's completely your personal experience.

I'm arguing that you don't even have to imagine how they'd feel.

You are imagining how you'd feel in their situation, which automatically means that you are trying to imagine how they'd feel.

Sociopaths have emotions, psychopaths are unable to feel a lot of emotions.

Yes, the ones related to guilt and remorse - which is why the golden rule doesn't work out for them.

We keep squabbling over whether you need to feel to actually deduce what the other person would want. I really think not. Because if you've been a psychopath your entire life, you'd have to somehow compensate for your lack of emotions at least when it comes to predicting or understanding others. So I really think it's possible.

You seem to be getting a bit confused as to what we are arguing about, so let's spell out a few things that we agree on:

1. Humans have an instinctive empathetic response towards someone else's suffering or joy.
2. This instinct conferred certain survival advantages by allowing us to form societies in the early stages of human development.
3. We can still see this instinct among other animals who have to live under intense survival pressure - pretty much the same situation the humans were in in the early stages of development.
4. The golden rule is the verbal form of this emotional response.
5. It is the presence of this response that gives us a reason to act according to the golden rule (as indicated by the bolded part).

Yup.

Here's what we disagree on:

1. Does this empathetic emotional response - and by extension, the golden rule - confer the same survival benefit as it did pre-civilization? My answer is no. We've come a long way since that time. The survival pressure on us is much lower than it was before the advent of civilization. And this would be a critical difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.

But why is this survival pressure lower? In a lot of countries, the selection pressure is actually rather strong. In welfare countries, however, even the poor gets some form of help from the government. Now it may seem that this is an enforced law, so is not part of the golden rule. It doesn't matter if it was established because of, or with no consideration to the golden rule, it still plays by its principles of treating others the way we'd want to be treated. I know you'll say it's because we consider all the potential benefit we'll get from doing so and I agree. We no longer have to make decisions because of the golden rule, because we now have the tools to analyze situation. But we'd often end up going the way of the golden rule because it still has survival advantage.

2. Is this instinct - and therefore the golden rule - necessary for the survival of society as a whole, as it was back then? Again, my answer is no. Before, we weren't cognizant of the definite advantages of living in a society, nor could we rationally figure out which rules to live by. So, this emotional response became a handy way to do both. Now we are developed enough to come up with better rules.

A lot of little things in life are not governed by these rules. And how much of your life is governed by these rules anyway? You may have more faith in society than I do, because there are people who are voting against welfare, who would pay employees less than minimum wages and think it's completely fine. If they were to follow the golden rule, it would actually do some good. Following it does have survival advantage. Or arriving at a similar solution through different means (analyzing what's going on) would have survival advantage.

If your point is we have to abandon the golden rule because it's less precise and we might make mistakes. I would agree. EXCEPT, in everyday interactions with people, it's just better to instinctively treat people by the golden rule for our own survival (increasing other's willingness to be nice to us). Analyzing all the situations before acting is just too much work for too little result. So the instinct is still important.

3. Does the emotional response bind us into living by the golden rule? That is, would we still live by it even if it hadn't been spelled out? I'm saying that we barely live by it now. We are fine with following it when other considerations are minor, but as soon as they start outweighing the emotional response, we choose not to follow it.

We would, just to make ourselves feel better. Humans are actually very social and do a lot of things just for the sake of social rewards. If we get over this, that's another story.

I haven't been making the case that the golden rule overrides everything. The case I'm trying to make is actually that it's one of the core values we evolved on, and it has definite survival advantage. Other behaviours/instincts we have, such as for self-preservation are equally fundamental in how humans act, precisely because it is also beneficial.

Not incapable.

Notice what you said in the previous paragraph about the instinct of empathy. "It is precisely the thing that bounds us to act according to the golden rule". Though "bind" maybe an exaggeration, I'd say that this instinct gives us an emotional desire to act according to the golden rule - a desire which maybe easily outweighed by competing desires, but a desire nonetheless. Given that its empathy that a psychopath is incapable of, I'd say that he is capable of following the rule, but has no reason to do so - no emotional gratification and no discernible survival benefit. Which is why he doesn't.

Except for actual benefits. Say an emotional person does it for emotional reasons, they would receive emotional rewards (which they value), and actual rewards (that help in survival but they may not address). A psychopath does it for the actual reward, and receives the actual reward.

Except, that's the principle of trade in practice - not the golden rule. According to the golden rule, you should be nice to her simply because you want her to be nice to you - but without any actual expectation of her doing so.

The golden rule doesn't say why, it just tells you what to do, it doesn't say why do it.

If, for example, she is rude to you and never pays you back for the coffee, according to the trade rule, you should stop being nice to her and stop bringing her coffee, while according to the golden rule, you should keep doing it because your desire for her to do the same hasn't changed.

The correct response would be to not buy the coffee, it's called the tit for tat strategy. It only works if the person reciprocates. So if my coworker is taught the golden rule, we both benefit by being in this mutually beneficial relationship of trading favours. But if she defects, and my best strategy is to stop buying coffee, we both end up in a less desirable state of having no one to trade favours with when we need to.

The golden rule predicts the person to reciprocate (at least the way i see it), because if the person doesn't, the golden rule doesn't produce any result (at the individual level, the society still benefits in some cases). But if the person does, then it becomes a worthwhile thing to do. Since the golden rule instructs a certain behaviour that will be useful only if reciprocated, it can be said that it predicts this will happen. Otherwise why instruct people to do useless things? Whether or not the prediction is accurate is another thing.

Ok, still doesn't invoke emotions. These are things one can deduce quite easily about another person.

But without emotions, there is little to no reason to act on that deduction.

I addressed this above.

In terms of interactions, following it gives you more benefit than not. Someone mentioned game theory, that's something you may want to look into if you haven't already. It outlines how reciprocity is a good strategy.

As indicated previously, I regard reciprocity to be a completely different principle than the golden rule. Reciprocity is based on an actual expectation of exchange, while the golden rule isn't.

Explained my position above, too. My position is that golden rule only works when reciprocity happens (at the individual level). If it does not then it's useless, but since reciprocity does happen so often, it makes the golden rule still applicable.

Why are you saying certain? It's ridiculous to claim something would certainly happen. And yes you have. If you lost a wallet and never found it. The next time you happen upon a wallet, you might think, hm, this could belong to the asshole who took mine. Maybe I should take this. You certainly affect someone by taking a wallet, and what that effect is, can be predicted in one way by thinking the person will reciprocate. As humans tend to do.

Or I might think, hm, this could belong to the asshole who took mine. So, if I return this, he'd feel ashamed and return mine.

Or I might think, hmm, I never take something that I haven't earned. Which is why I'll return this wallet.

Or, I might think, some douchebag took my wallet and only douchebags take another person's wallet. I don't want to be a douchebag, so, I'll return this.

Or, I might think, god judges everything and he'll send the douchebag who took my wallet to hell. But since I don't want to be there next to him, I'll return this.

Really, you can't predict how another person would think because everyone thinks differently.

You cannot predict accurately. But every time you walk up to someone and do something, you have more or less a prediction of their response. I explained why I linked prediction to the golden rule above.

You keep bringing up the immediate benefit and the benefit to you. But evolutionarily it's not about what benefits you, it's about what benefits the whole society. In some cases following the golden rule gives you immediate benefit (the coffee example above), in some cases it doesn't. But the golden rule is there because even in those cases when the benefit isn't apparent, it's beneficial for the society that you follow the golden rule. Because what is beneficial for the society, generally speaking, is beneficial for the individual.

If you act according to your own wants without regards to the effect to the society, in game theory you'd be a free rider. Too many of you and the society would break down.

First of all, the assumption that evolutionarily speaking the golden rule would benefit the whole society is incorrect. That may have been the case in a different context, but that doesn't mean that it is true now.
And so far, I have seen no evidence of it. What I have seen evidence of is that in some cases it is beneficial and in others it is harmful. Which means I do have a good reason to act against it in many cases.

Addressed this.

Secondly, my immediate benefit is relevant because, ultimately, the rule is being applied to my actions. Even in the case where its application would benefit the society which would ultimately benefit me, I'd still have to measure that potential benefit against my current benefit or loss. Simply put, why would I opt for future benefit of the society and my eventual benefit over my current benefit/loss? The only good reason given here is that the potential future benefit/loss would be greater than my current loss/benefit, but as I've said before, that is not true in many cases.

You won't. Evolution has to make you. Thus the golden rule having an emotional reward. I've said that something evolutionarily beneficial is often for the entire society than an individual. The question should be, why should an entire society give up a benefit for an individual's benefit? They shouldn't. It wouldn't benefit the society, your actions are not relevant to the big picture if it benefits you only. So it's less favourable.

And thirdly, I can act according to what I want without any regards to the effect on society and still not be a free-rider, as long as I pay for what I take. An no, that does not mean that I'm automatically following the golden rule.

But you are acting in a way that benefits the society, even if you don't want to think about it. You do it by following another rule. But if you actually stole what you want, you reap the most benefit if you get away with it. But you follow the trade rule, so why do that?

That is one of the points I've been trying to make. The golden rule does not predict reciprocation. It does not require you to act with any such expectation. Consider Red Celt's "pregnant woman in the bus" example. In that case, you are acting according to the golden rule without there being even the possibility of reciprocation. Reciprocation, I would argue, is a feature of the trade rule - where you give something and expect something in return.

Actually, the bus thing. You foster an environment where people help pregnant women up busses and when your own kin get pregnant, they have higher chances of being helped up busses.

This is not as far fetched as you may think, if you go to different countries, the type of courtesy and level of courtesy you can expect from strangers are very different. Because they cultivated a different values.[/quote]

[Creed of Heresy]

Well I also didn't mention Spain, France, Portugal, Italy... I just named off whatever first came to mind.

OK, well instead of referring to U.S. inventors, I'll just stick to California seeing as how that has the biggest population.

Hey at least you aren't calling us Florida!

[genkaus]

Alright. Let's get to it.

It's not considered moral because it's not advantageous to advertise it as moral as it has a "victim". So if I advertise it as moral, more people will do it, and there's a higher chance of me being a "victim". It's about strategy, not about which is more advantageous to the individual, but again, to the whole. I'm gonna bring up an example in evolutionary biology to explain what I mean. There's a theory that evolution favours traits that would honestly show an individual's health and fitness. Evolution favours this, even though as individuals it's better if they can hide their flaws. It's because evolution doesn't care about those that are unfit, but if the fit ones could distinguish the health of others, they'll have healthier offsprings and the species will benefit. If you're dishonest and hide your flaws, you can land yourself a very healthy mate and have your genes passed on. But if your'e the unlucky healthy mate, you lost out, because you could've gotten a better quality mate.

So it's strategically sound for us to detect acts of dishonesty in many cases because dishonesty of others will disadvantage us even though our dishonesty could benefit us. So I think, logically, dishonesty only has value if no one knows you're doing it, so you can't say it's moral (revealing your dishonesty), or it defeats the purpose.

Likewise, the whole golden rule thing is also a strategy. If you encourage everyone to be "nice" (by their own definitions), you're more likely to be treated nicely. And so, this is the rule to promote.

You realize that they both function.

Once again, you are ignoring the fact that this principle would apply equally to the golden rule. Lying can be beneficial to both parties - such as when parents lie to their children, it can be neutral - such as me lying about my private life doesn't harm you or it can be harmful to one or both. Similarly, the golden rule can be beneficial to both, neutral or end up being harmful to me. There is no reason to assume that there will always be a victim. In fact, given that the capacity to lie is so well-developed in us, I'd say evolution favors it. But I won't, since using evolution as explanation would be committing naturalistic fallacy.

However, your explanation here suggests a hypocritical motive in determining a moral tenet. It is more advantageous to me if others practice the the golden rule more often than me - which is why, I should preach the golden rule but not necessarily practice it. Whereas it is more advantageous for me if others don't practice the lying rule, while I do - so I should preach the lying rule as immoral but practice it myself. Do you see how this position goes against the golden rule?

Fraud is a type of lying. Anyway, yes, politicians get to lie. But that's hardly beneficial for the society is it? It's beneficial for the politician. Which is why your idea that if everyone were to lie and cheat with no concerns for others nothing too bad will happen doesn't stand. You say the world we live in now is already full of liars, but if that is so, you won't have another sample to compare it to. So you really can't tell if we would be better off or worse off following which path.

Are you intentionally missing the point? First of all, this shows that even fraud isn't necessarily illegal - so your idea that "the society would crumble if lying was made legal" doesn't stand. Because it is legal and the society is still standing. Secondly, I do believe that politicians lying on their manifesto is beneficial to the society. Good go, can you imagine if they actually started keeping all those promises? We'd be living under a totalitarian system or an anarchist state within a week. Third of all, the question wasn't if I could actually prove if the universal application of the lying rule would be beneficial to the society - because I can't - no more than you can prove that universal application of the golden rule would be beneficial. However, what I can show is that the lying rule is practiced more frequently than the golden rule and the society is still standing and that those practicing former end up better than those practicing the latter.

Because it's completely your personal experience.

Its not. Everybody lies. And the closer you are to someone, the more reason you have to lie to them.

We keep squabbling over whether you need to feel to actually deduce what the other person would want. I really think not. Because if you've been a psychopath your entire life, you'd have to somehow compensate for your lack of emotions at least when it comes to predicting or understanding others. So I really think it's possible.

We keep squabbling because you keep missing what it means to be a psychopath. There is a big difference between the inability to feel and the inability to empathize.

If someone truly lacks any emotions, then he would be like a robot. Whatever he does, he's not going to feel happy or sad or angry or eager or anything. That is what it means to lack emotions. Would such a person be capable of deducing and predicting someone else's emotions? We don't know. That's because we don't know of any such person. It's like asking how a blind man would understand color. And the golden rule wouldn't apply to this person because he'd have no idea how he would want others to do unto him, since any such "want" would require emotions.

A psychopath, however, is not the same person. A psychopath can feel happy or sad or angry or eager or jealous. He has emotions. So yes, he would be able to deduce and predict another person's emotions. However, that deduction would not produce an emotional response within him. Here's where empathy comes in. In any other person, the empathetic response of happiness to another's happiness would produce an emotional reason to apply the golden rule - and that reason is much stronger than any hypothetical future benefit. Since this emotional reason would be lacking in a psychopath, he'd instead choose to follow or not follow purely on a cost-benefit analysis - which means, most of the times, he'd act against the golden rule.

But why is this survival pressure lower? In a lot of countries, the selection pressure is actually rather strong. In welfare countries, however, even the poor gets some form of help from the government. Now it may seem that this is an enforced law, so is not part of the golden rule. It doesn't matter if it was established because of, or with no consideration to the golden rule, it still plays by its principles of treating others the way we'd want to be treated. I know you'll say it's because we consider all the potential benefit we'll get from doing so and I agree. We no longer have to make decisions because of the golden rule, because we now have the tools to analyze situation. But we'd often end up going the way of the golden rule because it still has survival advantage.

Are you honestly saying that the survival pressure in this day and age is anywhere comparable to pre-civilization societies? Even the worst countries are much better off than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. And no, I do not agree that welfare states play by the principles of the golden rule. As a matter of fact, I'd say that the implementation of a welfare state requires not only ignoring the golden rule, but violating it on many occasions. So no, welfare states are not an example of "golden rule bestowing evolutionary survival advantage in current society". Try another.

A lot of little things in life are not governed by these rules. And how much of your life is governed by these rules anyway? You may have more faith in society than I do, because there are people who are voting against welfare, who would pay employees less than minimum wages and think it's completely fine. If they were to follow the golden rule, it would actually do some good. Following it does have survival advantage. Or arriving at a similar solution through different means (analyzing what's going on) would have survival advantage.

They'd argue that they are following the golden rule. They'd say that wouldn't want to get something they didn't deserve or that they wouldn't want to earn anything more than what is determined by free-market economy and that they want to live in where people earn their living through labor, not handouts. Thus, according to the principle of golden rule, they would oppose the welfare program and the minimum wage law. Clearly, according to your example, there is greater benefit to be had in breaking the golden rule - not keeping it.

If your point is we have to abandon the golden rule because it's less precise and we might make mistakes. I would agree. EXCEPT, in everyday interactions with people, it's just better to instinctively treat people by the golden rule for our own survival (increasing other's willingness to be nice to us). Analyzing all the situations before acting is just too much work for too little result. So the instinct is still important.

That's half my point. I'm saying that the only place the golden rule can be applied blindly is in the trivial matters of everyday life - but the moment stakes get higher, it needs to be examined and often abandoned altogether. And that would make this moral tenet a trivial one.

We would, just to make ourselves feel better. Humans are actually very social and do a lot of things just for the sake of social rewards. If we get over this, that's another story.

I haven't been making the case that the golden rule overrides everything. The case I'm trying to make is actually that it's one of the core values we evolved on, and it has definite survival advantage. Other behaviours/instincts we have, such as for self-preservation are equally fundamental in how humans act, precisely because it is also beneficial.

I understand the case you are trying to make and it is that case I am arguing against. I'm saying that it is not one of our core values given that we often see it being too easily overridden when other considerations come in and that though there might have been some survival advantage in the past, that is not necessarily the case in the current society. As a matter of fact, I'd consider that other rules which often conflict with this one often confer a greater survival advantage. However, what I find inexplicable is why the golden role is trumpeted as not only one core value but the core value of modern morality.

Except for actual benefits. Say an emotional person does it for emotional reasons, they would receive emotional rewards (which they value), and actual rewards (that help in survival but they may not address). A psychopath does it for the actual reward, and receives the actual reward.

But the actual reward of following the rule is often negligible when compared to the actual reward of breaking the rule. Which is why psychopaths rarely follow it and which is why normal people break it the moment the actual reward for breaking it compensates for the emotional reward.

The golden rule doesn't say why, it just tells you what to do, it doesn't say why do it.

Exactly. There is no reason given to actually follow it.

The correct response would be to not buy the coffee, it's called the tit for tat strategy. It only works if the person reciprocates. So if my coworker is taught the golden rule, we both benefit by being in this mutually beneficial relationship of trading favours. But if she defects, and my best strategy is to stop buying coffee, we both end up in a less desirable state of having no one to trade favours with when we need to.

Exactly. If the application of golden rule becomes conditioned on reciprocity, then it is no longer the golden rule - it becomes the trade rule. Or, in your words, tit for tat.

The golden rule predicts the person to reciprocate (at least the way i see it), because if the person doesn't, the golden rule doesn't produce any result (at the individual level, the society still benefits in some cases). But if the person does, then it becomes a worthwhile thing to do. Since the golden rule instructs a certain behaviour that will be useful only if reciprocated, it can be said that it predicts this will happen. Otherwise why instruct people to do useless things? Whether or not the prediction is accurate is another thing.

This is where you contradict yourself. In your own words - "The golden rule doesn't say why, it just tells you what to do, it doesn't say why do it."

If the golden rule did predict reciprocity, then there would be a reason as to why do it. But the fact is, it doesn't. Expectation of reciprocation is a feature of the trade rule - where you do something expecting to be paid back in kind.

Explained my position above, too. My position is that golden rule only works when reciprocity happens (at the individual level). If it does not then it's useless, but since reciprocity does happen so often, it makes the golden rule still applicable.

And I explained why your position is at odds with your another position.

You won't. Evolution has to make you. Thus the golden rule having an emotional reward. I've said that something evolutionarily beneficial is often for the entire society than an individual. The question should be, why should an entire society give up a benefit for an individual's benefit? They shouldn't. It wouldn't benefit the society, your actions are not relevant to the big picture if it benefits you only. So it's less favourable.

And the problem is, evolution doesn't make me act accordingly. The emotional reward is quite insufficient. And the society does not have a say in my actions here.

But you are acting in a way that benefits the society, even if you don't want to think about it. You do it by following another rule. But if you actually stole what you want, you reap the most benefit if you get away with it. But you follow the trade rule, so why do that?

I'm not necessarily acting in a way to benefit the society - that's my point. To use your example, suppose I am a moderately successful businessman with a rags-to-riches story who believes that anyone can be successful if they work hard enough. I've worked for every penny I've earned and I oppose the welfare state. So here, I'm not a free-rider, follow the golden rule and am not acting in a way to benefit the society.

Change one little fact about me - that I believe that people should get aid, but I don't want to pay for it and so I still oppose the welfare state. Now, I'm acting against the golden rule, not acting in society's benefit and am still not a free-rider.

Actually, the bus thing. You foster an environment where people help pregnant women up busses and when your own kin get pregnant, they have higher chances of being helped up busses.

This is not as far fetched as you may think, if you go to different countries, the type of courtesy and level of courtesy you can expect from strangers are very different. Because they cultivated a different values.

No, it is too far-fetched.