The Golden Rule: General Arguments and Defense - Essay Example

Golden Rule 09 May 2008 Golden Rule THE GOLDEN RULE: GENERAL ARGUMENTS AND DEFENSE The golden rule serves as a guide to conduct that is believed in most major religious and moral traditions. It has been articulated either positively as a command to do unto others as you would have them do unto you; or negatively, advocating that you not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. The rule's all encompassing simplicity has attracted countless trivializing counter-examples: Should followers of fried beetles serve them as a special exotic delicacy to their guests Or masochists impose their desired torments on unsuspecting friends Such inquiries, though, miss the sense of the rule. It was not meant as a guide to practical choice separate from all other principles of conduct. It has nothing to say about specific choices, nor does it vouch certain moral principles, ideals, or virtues. The golden rule relates, rather, to a perspective thought vital to the exercise of even the most basic morality: that of trying to put oneself in the place of those affected by one's actions, so as to counter the instinctive tendency to moral shortsightedness. It instructs listeners to treat others with the respect and understanding they themselves would wish to come across, and not to cause misfortunes on others that they would detest to have caused upon themselves. The golden rule put emphasis on the ethic of empathy: treat others as you would like them to treat you. Empathy relies on understanding that the other person senses pains as you do or will feel gladness as much as you do if they are properly dealt with. If another person is mourning, you feel his/her grief and offer consolation. If another is hurt, you go out of your way to extend help and you treat the injured person with support to prevent further suffering. Empathy, however, is not equally present among human beings, nor is any person incessantly empathetic for others. Some are deficient in empathy and are selfish, irresponsible and do harm to others with out feeling any remorse. The natural tendency is to treat only a number of other people, immediate members of a select group, and to be distrustful of and unreceptive to everyone else. Empathy can stimulate on in one circumstance and hold off in another situation. Once a particular group labels that non-members are threats, empathy is switched off and group members treat outsiders as though they were intruders. Actual situations may well affect how we relate the golden rule by looking at the practical significance of differences between experiences such as: observing another, how one would feel in the situation of another, what is the feeling of another, what is the world from the perception of the other, the impact of an action on the other, how the other would judged the fairness of another's act, and taking the other's viewpoint clearly into consideration in moral decision-making. Imagining oneself, however, in the situation of another is not plainly required by the golden rule, nor is it a requirement or adequate state for sound moral judgment. At times one acts it but stays unenlightened because of unawareness or self-deception, and occasionally one comprehends intuitively what is to be performed without any definite act of imagination. We normally presuppose that we understand others intuitively, that we empathize truly, that our expressions of sympathy are appropriate. Despite our usual dependence on empathy to enlighten us about another, our emphatic feeling of others often gives the wrong impression. The golden rule instructs us to treat others as we want others to treat us, thus implicitly advancing the assumption that there are important shared aims or similarities between the self and another. Over dependence on commonalities can dull receptiveness to dissimilarity just as much as being overly impressed with dissimilarity can make people blind to empathy. If the golden rule is to be understood as encouraging complacency about empathizing with others, then the rule would seem to promote narrow-mindedness and treating others insensitively. We might be simply oblivious of differences between oneself and the other, which is a natural tendency. The capacity for connecting with others is a natural and integral part in the ambiguity of personality. Each profoundly distinctive individual identifies with other persons. Each dwells within the environment of a continuing interpersonal understanding, and relationship between people's experiences are two sided; they include the side of the driving agent and the side of the recipient, and they are understood only as the two sides are recognized: to love and being loved, to hurt and being hurt, to learn and to teach, to grow up as a child and then, as a parent, to help someone else grow up. The responsible application of the golden rule involves a connection with others which involves understanding and a proper level of shared feeling and a suitable sensible response. We may believe that living in accord with the golden rule is the only appropriate ethical foundation for a moral life, only to be informed by friends and acquaintances that we should not place other people's interests ahead of our own. We could want to follow careers that include helping people, only to be counseled that we should first make money and try our hand in philanthropic impulses in our free time. We are barraged by suggestions that it not only wrong to do something against our personal self-interest, there is something unethical with us if we do. We are violating the natural of what it means to be a being of humanity. The personalized idea of self-interest also demoralizes efforts to promote cooperation not only in our workplaces but also in our communities. How can we be presumed to live and work together, if each of us is expected to promote our own interests to the detriment of everybody else Even when people do get by to cooperate, we have no way of knowing why. Yet, the traditional wisdom of self-interest has been shown quite inadequate. If we are really as detached and avaricious as we are likely to be, one marvels how we have got along to hold close collectively at all. Thinking anew concerning self-interest is not out of order. A more forceful and universal view of self-interest than the idea of me-first-and-me-alone is bound up in the word dignity. The fundamental self-interest of humanity is dignity referring to our sense of value and worth in the general design of things. A number of us may desire to amass wealth. Others could spend the rest of their lives in a pursuit of power. Still others may be dedicated to helping and serving people. We follow and take up different aims, in many diverse ways. Nevertheless, whatever we do, reciprocally each of us needs to feel and experience our worth, that we are important to something or someone, that our lives have value. This is the spirit of human dignity. It is not self-esteem or how we sense about ourselves, though dignity rests at the core of self-esteem. Our sense of human dignity is rather the meaning that we consign ourselves as persons, as givers, and as participants in the broad spectrum of society. Dignity is the worth that we cause to be placed in our principles and ideals, even our existence, as we walk our way through humanity. GOLDEN RULE ARGUMENT FROM THE SCRIPTURES It would appear from all that is said and written that all moral teaching of the scriptures must be expressively based on the golden rule. In formulating a moral judgment about an act at all, in order to judge an act immoral, one must be able to present that it provides harm to a person. This appears to be apparent in the scriptures' moral teaching. It would seem evident that the moral instruction against murder goes along the golden rule. No one wants another to imperil their lives, and for that reason, it is considered wrong to threaten another's life. The same could be articulated for theft. No one enjoys it when a thing is stolen from them, and for similar reason, one must consider the property rights of another. No one wants his/her spouse committing adultery. Therefore, it is accepted that adultery is wrong morally. The scriptures enumerates on and on. Non-believers make sense of the golden rule. Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Seneca, and Confucius promoted a variety of the golden rule. Most religious and ethical approaches advocate an order of the golden rule. Emmanuel Kant argued that the foundation of all ethics is to act in such a manner that you act towards people as ends in themselves, more than means to an end, and your actions could be interpreted into a universal law or principle. This quantifies to a sensible parallel of the golden rule. Christians are apprehensive of showing that a central teaching of Jesus can be reasonably understood by everyone, including non-Christians. However, Christendom has always demonstrated that there is no debate between faith and natural reason. Although faith is beyond reason, there can never be any real argument between reason and faith, because it is the same divine being who shows the mysteries and instills faith, and who has bestowed the light of reason to the human intellect. When the preconditions of infallibility were not called upon, the Roman Catholic Church has blundered in the past. Lessons on slavery are usually the best case in point, and the crusades and inquisitions can also be drawn upon. These blunders could have been simply evaded if the Roman Catholic Church has basically applied the golden rule in a reasonable manner to their own beliefs before transmitting them. Blind submission to a person holding authority does not effect as a virtue that God commands. Certainly, if blind submission to a person having authority were a ground for salvation, the Nazis operating the death camps were the most sanctified people in the world. The Scriptures declare that the state has authority from God. A number of German Catholic bishops moralize anti-Semitism, and consider the Jewish faith imperils souls for all eternity. Pope Pius XII was not saying anything on the matter. For this reason, being an S.S. officer in the death camps was morally right. This is absurd of course, though some would not think so. Based on reason and the Scriptures, it follows that any issue of moral theology will need to be in harmony with the golden rule according to its teaching, and this will willingly be assented to by the faithful. The golden rule formulates the common ground that Christians accept, whether orthodox, conservative, liberal, traditionalist, or progressive. Even if one is walking in heretical path, the person may be brought back by drawing his common concurrence to the golden rule. ORDINARY PEOPLE'S FIRSTHAND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES Any prudent man proportions his belief to the available evidence. Hence, no statement is adequate to establish a miracle, unless the testimony is of such form, that its deception would be more miraculous, than the proof, which it attempts to establish. Reason presupposes that the religious experience of a miracle has not been met: witnesses have never been of undisputed good-sense and learning; the nature of man obtains a misleading pleasure in things that shock and amaze; besides, the miracles that considerably support one religion must in the same manner challenge other religions. Generally, the Christian religion was at first graced with miracles, but even today cannot be believed by any sensible person without one. What is the power of religion that appeals to all classes of people and permit common man to experience that sense of religious marvel Three remarkable events demonstrate the continuing power of religious conviction in human culture. One of these spectacular events is the massive assemblage of Islamic pilgrims attracted to Mecca annually. Devotees have come from all classes and from all walks of life. Another striking event is the annual gathering of millions of Hindus in India who flock at the Ganges River in obeisance with their ancient religious rites and ceremonies. The third is the re-showing of the shroud of Jesus in a cathedral in Turin. Visitors coming from all parts of the world came to see the Shroud of Turin. Skeptics raised doubts regarding the belief that a pilgrimage to Mecca will assure a Muslim a passage to heaven. So too the claim that immersing your body in the Ganges River will grant unique spiritual benefits. To call attention to the incredulity of these two ancient religions to the faithful will surely fall on deaf ears. Relatively for the Shroud of Turin which was established to be a forgery based on scientific inquiries and forensic evidence. Up till now, however, to the chagrin of skeptics who believed they had disproved without a doubt the phony shroud, the proponents and believers of the shroud of Jesus has gone back with even more vigor and spirit to proclaim the skeptics to be in error. For the faithful, the shroud was the authentic and unvarnished burial garment of Jesus Christ. THE GOLDEN RULE AND PRAGMATIC CONSIDERATIONS Moral utilitarianism, with its assessments of the rightness of manners of action in terms of their capability to provide the greatest good of the greatest number was one step in the advancement of pragmatic thought. It invokes the maximization approach, and there is a profound structural analogy between the argument that an action is right if its outcomes redound to the greatest good of the greatest number, and the theoretical version of a pragmatic notion of truth suggesting that an empirical claim is correct if its acceptance is maximally producing benefit. Whereas the philosophical considerations of the golden rule explored ideal, actual, and sought-after states of affairs in society, pragmatic deliberations concern realistic change. Unlike previous considerations of what is, what is absent, or what should be, pragmatism's central focus of concern is what could be done. Pragmatic change draws attention to what social improvements can be realistically accomplished in the application of the golden rule. Work Cited Honderich, T. The Oxford Companion To Philosophy. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press (1995). Read More