#106: The Golden Rule (Again)

May 17, 2012

We’re all familiar with the so-called “Golden Rule” (“GR”). While there have been various formulations of the GR, probably the most common one has been this:

GR: Do unto others [only] as you would have others do unto you [under similar circumstances].

The bracketed insertions I take to be implicit in the usual formulation.

Now what is it that this imperative is trying to do?

The fact that the GR includes a reference to one’s self can mislead us by focusing our attention in the wrong place. The GR need not be stated with a reference to one’s self. The GR still works, however well, if we write it, for example, in this way:

GR1: Do unto others [only] as you would have others do unto your dearest loved one [under similar circumstances].

Thus, the direct self-reference is not an essential element of the GR.

The direct self reference is used only because it is usually assumed that most people love themselves an awful lot, perhaps more than anyone else. And why is this discussion of the reference in the GR important? Because the GR is a test of the generalizability of a contemplated act. If the act is not generalizable, then it is morally unacceptable. But what does it mean for an act to be “generalizable”?

Let’s say that Leroy is thinking of mugging Lloyd for his money. Leroy is a philosophically reflective mugger who would prefer to act morally, so he says to himself: I’m thinking of mugging Lloyd. Well, would I want everyone to do what I’m thinking? Not just mugging Lloyd, but mugging whoever has something that they want. If I form a generalization out of my act, would it be acceptable to me? Let’s try it.

For any person x and any person y, if y has something that x wants, let x mug y for it.

Is this acceptable to Leroy? He can’t tell unless he tests it, and the way to test it is to substitute the name of a person for y. But which person? Well, the strongest test is one involving the person Leroy cares most about. It might be himself, but it might equally be his momma, Maybelle, or his girlfriend, Chlamydia, but the question for Leroy is: Am I still ok with this act when its target is myself or momma or Chlamydia? If he says No, then, according to the GR, he ought not to mug Lloyd, mugging Lloyd would be wrong. If he says No, then his act is not generalizable, and his act is wrong.

The intuition guiding this approach to morals is that the rightness or wrongness of an act should be totally independent of who the people involved are. It’s this intuition that underlies the well-known platitude that “justice ought to be ‘blind’,” that is, unaware of the identities of the parties to a legal action. With the generalization test, we check to see whether the act is acceptable regardless of whose name is substituted for the individual variables. If it is, then the act is morally acceptable, if not, then not.

II

How blind should morality be? It’s clear that the “blindness” of the law has to be a very restricted one. Judges and jurors have to know the facts of a case in order to make their decisions, and those facts always identify the parties very clearly. So, where’s the “blindness”?

The blindness, presumably, pertains to the application of the law, not to the appraisal of the circumstances of a case.

In the case of the law, the point of the “blindness” platitude is that the wealth, status, or power of an individual has no relevance in the application of the law: the rich and the poor, the powerful and the impotent, the important and unimportant, and even the anonymous citizen and I are equal, we like to believe, and receive their just desserts in exactly the same way. 

III

We must now ask whether the general substitutivity test is an effective one for moral acceptability; in other words, does the GR do the job for which it is intended?

We said above that the choice of one’s self as a test in the GR is based on the idea that if we are personally willing to be subject to an act generalization, it must be an ok act, since we do love ourselves, perhaps more than any other.

And, yes, this does make the GR a very strong test. The question is whether it is a strong test of moral acceptability. The reason I say this, is that the same thing that makes the self-reference a strong test places it in violation of the “blindness” intuition.

The person applying the GR is, in a sense, like a juror considering the moral acceptability of a generalization by appeal to his own laws (which are his moral intuitions). But when this juror considers the generalization with his own name substituted for y, he should be immediately disqualified from serving. He has the strongest possible personal rather than moral reason for rejecting any generalization that involves an unpleasant outcome for him. He cannot, arguably, be morally objective about the the generalization.

Does Leroy want himself to be mugged? Of course not, but is it because his moral intuitions rebel at the thought of anyone being mugged or is it because he, personally, doesn’t like the idea of being mugged? It might be one, it might be the other, it might be both, but, given the strength of self-interest, I would venture to guess that it would be the latter.

IV

Yet, the GR has been popular for several thousands of years. What accounts for this? As with most natural matters, there are probably numerous contributing causes. One obvious one is the futile fantasy of the powerless that if they only do the things that they themselves find pleasant to others, the others will reciprocate in kind. This is an example of hope over intelligence, much like Obama’s 2008 election. In addition to that, there was the very early abdication of responsibility to a supernatural judge for the meting out of just desserts: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” was the instruction to mere humans. If you form no moral judgements, then there are no people you might have to do unpleasant things to and you can use the behaviours that you personally enjoy as a guide in dealing with them, hence the GR.

But probably the most pernicious one is the desperate belief that everyone is “underneath, pretty much like me.”

I call it a “desperate” belief because there are people who just cringe at the thought that there are angry, brutal, primitive hordes out there whose inner lives are utterly unlike anything these people can imagine and who want their destruction. These people cling to the belief that even these hordes are “underneath, pretty much like me.” Far at the backs of their minds, there is the fleeting thought, “If they’re not, OMG, what could, what would, we do?”

The belief that everyone is “underneath, pretty much like me” is likely supported by a weakness of imagination that prevents their seeing how murky the GR thought experiment is. When they ask themselves, “Would I have others do this unto me [in similar circumstances],” they fail to look for the details of this alternate world. Why would the others be wanting to do this to me? Would I have done something to deserve it or provoke it? Would I be exactly the same as I am now in this alternate possible world? These are all things they should really demand to know before answering either yea or nay. If people want to punish me for a crime in the alternate world, a lot of my answer would depend on whether I actually did the crime in that world. The GR thought experiment leaves a lot about the setup of the experiment undefined.

And from the belief that “underneath, everyone is pretty much like me,” they make the move to the idea that what is good for me and bad for me is exactly what is good and bad for everyone else. There are two things wrong with this thought:

1) It is simply not true that everyone is pretty much the same, and

2) Even among those who are pretty much the same, some deserve reward and others punishment, where the latter is something that we would not personally like.

V

If not the GR, then what?

The problem, as I see it, is that the GR runs afoul of “interestedness,” which is the opposite of “blindness.” If there is to be a test for moral acceptability, it should be one that is as proof against personal interest as it is possible. Thus, it seems to me, that another thought experiment along the lines of the GR might do the trick.

GR2: In a world in which I do not exist, for any person x, any person y, where A is a contemplated act, let x do A unto y.

If we reject the GR2 for a specified act, then that act is morally unacceptable. Leroy, for example, would ask himself: If I’d never been born and I had no special interest in any one on earth, am I ok with anyone mugging anybody else who has something they want?

This is a much tougher question to answer than the GR, which reinforces my point that it is self-interest that makes the GR work. Once we remove self-interest, all that is left is moral intuition, but moral intuition is present to very different degrees in different people. The fact that Leroy might have difficulty answering this question further illustrates what I said above: It’s not true that underneath we are all pretty much the same.

VI

Rational people will recognize that there are often times when it is both practically and morally right to do unto others what we would not have done unto us; and rational people will recognize that the reason that this is morally acceptable to them is that those people will deserve what is done unto them, while they do not.