Golden Rule

Christian theology

For Augustine of Hippo, the Creator wrote the Rule as a conscience in everyone's heart to warn us directly against hurting others and to remind us of our being created as social beings. In it, God concentrated his will as a practical guide for everyday action. As a common proverb, it appeals to self-love, which connects love of God and love of neighbor and makes these commandments understandable to the natural man (De ordine II,25). In Mt 7,12 only the good will was meant, not every will. "Willing" in Scripture in any case meant only that which corresponded to God's will, since it always called evil willing "coveting" (De civitate Dei XIV,8). - Augustine understood the rule anchored in conscience as the epitome of the divine law, and therefore also related it to the relationship with God and presupposed a naturally recognizable idea of the good to distinguish between good and evil willing.

The Decretum Gratiani (c. 1140) equated the Rule with the natural law contained in the revealed Law (Torah) and Gospel. It commanded all to do to others what was desirable for themselves and forbade inflicting on them what was undesirable for themselves. Introduced as a commandment, the rule here implicitly referred to biblical commandments as a criterion for deciding on the content of its application.

Peter Abaelardus specified the positive form of the rule: it demands only good deeds towards one's neighbor, not bad deeds that one is willing to accept from him. It therefore presupposes knowledge of the commandment of love. Petrus Lombardus supplemented the negative form: One must not inflict on the other only that which is unjust (iniuste). According to Duns Scotus, both forms presuppose the "right judgment of reason" about what one might desire. Scholasticism thus declared the rule insufficient for just action, since it did not contain the standard for it.

For Martin Luther, the generally known rule meant that the commandment to love one's neighbor was in itself understandable to every human being, so that no one could excuse himself before God with ignorance of his will (Lecture on the Epistle to the Romans, 1515/16). It addresses the sinner by making his own ego and his desires the standard of behavior toward others. Only Jesus Christ revealed the reason and goal of the rule: We are to serve our neighbor completely and to put his good before our own, that is, not to seek a balance of interests with him. To love him as ourselves does not mean to love him apart from ourselves, but as a person for his own sake: even when he is worth nothing. For we also love ourselves even when we are of no value to others. Thus the rule laid down by Christ leads to the realization that basically no one follows it and can follow it without giving up his self-love (usus elenchticus legis). Only this opens the way to pure faith (sola fide) in the fact that Jesus alone realized love of God and neighbor, so that his grace alone (sola gratia) frees us to do so. In the little sermon on usury (1519) Luther said:

Philosophy of the Enlightenment

In view of the Thirty Years' War and its consequences, the educated sought new ethical foundations for social coexistence in the Enlightenment from around 1648 onwards, which were also independent of religion and denomination.

Thomas Hobbes described the rule in his main work Leviathan (1651) as the "sum of the laws of nature", which enabled the transition from the anarchic "war of all against all" to a legal order governed by the monopoly of force. For from the initially unlimited striving for self-preservation, it would have to be clear even to the meanest people that they would always have to live in mortal fear if everyone allowed themselves everything against others. One would only have to exchange places with those affected by one's own deeds in order to recognize whether these were in one's own interest. From this grows the insight that no one is allowed to do to others what he recognizes as harmful for himself. From there, one could grant others the same freedoms and rights that one would be satisfied with if everyone respected them.

The early Enlightenment philosopher Samuel von Pufendorf presented a critique in 1672: Taken literally, the rule was not generally applicable and could not establish law. For according to it, a judge would have to acquit a robber and murderer instead of sentencing him to the death penalty; a beggar would only have to be given as much as he asked for, not how much he needed to live. Even if one did not take into account the random wishes of others, but their actual needs and rights, the rule could not establish the principle of equality, according to which all people are equal by nature, but already presupposed it and was inferred from it.

Following this criticism, Christian Thomasius declared in 1688 that the negative and positive form of the rule could only be applied among equals, not between masters and servants. However, his addition "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" was hardly accepted.

In 1690, John Locke also criticized the use of the rule to establish natural law. Someone who had never heard of it, but could understand it, would ask for a reason for following it. This, he argued, obliged the one proposing it to explain its truth and reason. This would depend on an external presupposition from which it could be rationally derived. Moral ideas are not innate, since they are then neither questionable nor justifiable.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, on the other hand, saw in the rule of 1765 a practical, "instinctively" recognizable truth that nevertheless required rational reflection and explanation. It seemed to assume a just will as universally valid, without specifying the standard for it. However, its true meaning was that one could achieve an even and impartial judgment by exchanging roles with those affected by one's own actions. The rule could therefore be applied even without prior consensus on the norm of justice, since the common basis of action could be found by putting oneself in the position of others. It is only in its application that it becomes clear whether the intended actions or omissions are legitimate.

Voltaire understood the rule in 1705 as a balance between passion and reason. Anthony Ashley Cooper (1711) and George Berkeley (1731) subordinated the rule to the concept of the common good: not short-sighted self-interest, but the good of all people was the intended regulator of action. There must be a basic social consensus (common sense) on this. Thus they emphasized the necessity of the binding generalization (universalization) of ethical criteria. Accordingly, the jurist Gottfried Achenwall linked the rule in 1758 with the principle of generalization.

In 1755, Jean-Jacques Rousseau did not consider the appeal to a rational balance of interests to be a sufficient justification for morality and human rights. He contrasted the principle of rationality emphasized by Hobbes with the natural and therefore primary feeling of compassion that existed in every human being even before reason. "Instead of that sublime maxim of justice opened up by reason: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' pity gives to all men this other maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect, but perhaps more useful than the preceding: 'Take care of your good with the least possible harm to others.' In a word, it is in this natural feeling rather than in subtle arguments that one must look for the cause of the reluctance which every man, even independently of the maxims of education, would feel against doing evil." Johann Gottfried Herder, on the other hand, praised the Rule in 1784 as a "rule of justice and truth." It is as "the great law of equity and equilibrium of man guiding principle [..., which is also] written in the breast of the unman." In doing so, he renders the formula both positively and negatively: "what you would that others should not do to you, do not do to them; what they should do to you, do you to them."

Samuel Clarke described the Rule as a principle of reason serving the universal common good. In general, according to the eternal will of God, everyone should strive for the welfare and happiness of all people: This public good, he said, can be further determined at present and in the future only by refraining from any private or personal advantage or disadvantage, reward or punishment. Under this premise, the rule can be applied practically: It then exposes real inequality among people as absurd and rejects it. For every conceivable relation which someone has and exercises towards another, the other has and exercises towards him, if he is placed in exactly the same situation. From this follows:

Without extraneous corruption, all men would recognize and exercise universal equality of all. The measure of this is simple and evident, especially among equals; but even in asymmetrical relations between masters and subjects, the consistently applied rule can make impartial decisions possible, by taking into account not only all the circumstances of the action, but also all the differences of the persons affected by it. Accordingly, a judge must not consider what he would wish for himself out of the same fear or self-love as the criminal, but what he would expect for himself in the criminal's situation as a reasonable judgment oriented to the common good and therefore impartial.

Immanuel Kant unfolded his Categorical Imperative in 1785. Its first formulation, like the Rule, appeals to the autonomous freedom of choice of the individual:

Kant thus replaced the test of whether one would wish for one's own intended action as a person affected by it with the test of whether one could rationally imagine one's own volition as a law for all. He thus required that in making moral decisions one should disregard accidental circumstances and individual interests and classify them according to rationally insightful universally valid laws. Kant's second formulation explicitly excluded the abuse of other people as means for selfish ends:

In a footnote to this, Kant emphasized that this imperative was not an intellectual variant of the "trivial" rule that he cited in negative Latin form. The principle of reciprocity could "not be a general law, for it does not contain the ground of duties against ourselves, not of duties of love against others [...], finally not of guilty duties against each other [...]". Thus, he argued, one could avoid reciprocating charity by rejecting benevolence from others, or a criminal could use it to argue against his judges. Kant's critique caused the rule to recede in ethical discourse in Europe.

Following the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, the French National Assembly adopted a first constitution of the French Republic on September 3, 1791, and a second, amended one on June 24, 1793. Its Article 6 read:

However, this version did not enter into force.

19th century

Contrary to Kant's distancing, Arthur Schopenhauer identified his first Categorical Imperative in 1841 with the negative rule. This, together with the positive form, only describes the "unanimously demanded course of action by all moral systems":

In this way Kant tacitly lets egoism decide what it wants to recognize as the supreme law.

In 1863, John Stuart Mill saw the rule, along with charity, as the perfect ideal of utilitarianism, since behavior based on reciprocity was most likely to achieve the greatest possible happiness for as many as possible. Following him, Henry Sidgwick understood the rule as an intuitive, practically widely recognized, and self-evident expression of the principle of consistency in moral judgments:

However, the rule is imprecisely formulated, since one can desire the cooperation of others "in sin" and be willing to reciprocate. Because of possible different circumstances and natures of those involved, it is also not enough to do to others only what one assumes is the right thing for them to do to us. Therefore, strictly speaking, the negative form of the rule must be formulated in this way:

While this is not sufficient as a guiding principle for interpersonal moral judgments, it does place the burden of proof on the person who would complain about his treatment of others if it affected him to justify that difference by reference to the situation, independent of the persons.

Friedrich Nietzsche oriented himself towards an aristocratic, amoral, anti-egalitarian model. Therefore, he rejected reciprocity in 1887 as "unprepossessing" and "great meanness". The rule, he argued, nullified the most personal value of an act and reduced it to payments for proven services. The individual act, in particular, could not and should not be done by anyone else. In a deeper sense, one never gives back, but does something unique: this is the cause of the "aristocratic separation from the crowd" that believes in equality and reciprocity. The rule, wrongly taken for wisdom, was easily refuted. Calculus forbids actions for the sake of their harmful consequences, with the ulterior motive that an action will always be repaid:

20th century

George Bernard Shaw criticized the rule ironically in 1903:

The golden rule, he said, is that there are no golden rules.

Ernst Haeckel considered the "2500 year old" rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you in 1904 as the "basic ethical law" of his monism.

In 1913, Max Scheler described the rule as an expression of the universal principle of solidarity and an "eternal component" and "basic article of a cosmos of finite moral persons". Reciprocity is an essential part of being human, because being a person is only formed in the I-Thou relationship and determines and conditions all morally relevant behavior.

In 1917, Leonard Nelson, following Jakob Friedrich Fries, understood Kant's Categorical Imperative as a law requiring the mutual equal treatment of the free and the equal. This includes a "claim to consideration of their interests", from which he derived his "law of balancing":

Putting oneself in the shoes of the persons concerned and then deciding according to their inclinations is not enough:

In 1934, Edward Wales Hirst saw an advantage of the positive form of the rule over the categorical imperative: the latter was only valid "unipersonally" in relation to the individual's universal moral law. This precludes the misuse of others as a means to one's own ends, but under certain circumstances allows harm to be inflicted on them if it is conducive to general morality. In contrast, the "interpersonal" rule requires turning to one's neighbour, respecting him and also caring for his well-being.

Karl Popper declared in the 1930s, as part of his philosophy of science, that there is no absolute criterion for moral rightness. The rule is "a good standard" and is one of the most important discoveries of mankind, but could possibly be improved in its learning process, for example "by treating others, wherever possible, as they want to be treated". This formulation is popular as a "platinum rule" in guidebooks for managerial courses or workplace behaviour, for example.

In 1948 Hans Reiner understood the Rule as a "basic moral formula of humanity" inextricably linked with being human. He distinguished three interpretations: As a rule of empathy, it demands that one put oneself in the place of others and their situation. As a rule of autonomy, it demands that one's own actions or desires in the same situation be judged autonomously. As a rule of reciprocity or relation back, it obliges us to base our own intended behaviour on this assessment, i.e. to base it on what we want and expect from others, not on what we want for ourselves and what others actually do. This implies an ethical norm, respect for the human dignity of others, from which mutual recognition and consideration follow. Reiner thus emphasized to Albrecht Dihle the fundamental difference between the rule and the principle of retaliation.

Erich Fromm saw the reason for the popularity of the rule in 1956 in its misinterpretation: It is usually interpreted as fairness in the sense of the capitalist law of exchange, "I give you as much as you give me." According to this rule, one respects the rights of others without feeling responsible for them and at one with them, and refrains from cheating in the exchange of commodities, but also in feelings in personal relationships. Originally, however, the rule meant a willingness to assume responsibility for one's fellow man out of love for one's neighbour. Recognizing this difference from fairness is essential for the art of loving.

In 1961, Marcus George Singer examined the cases in which the generalization required by Kant's imperative morally precludes an action: What would happen if everyone/no one did that? This question, he explained in 1985, included the question required by the rule: what if someone did the same thing to you/me? This argument is based on the principle:

Therefore, he argued, the relevant factors for comparing persons and situations that justify the particular action must be asked. Therefore, in 1963, he distinguished a particularist interpretation - "do unto others as you would expect them to do unto you (in this particular case)" - from a generalist rule interpretation - "do unto others as you would want them to do unto you (on the same principle)". He rejected the particular interpretation because it assumed uniform characters and failed because of extreme inclinations of others. The properly understood rule, then, required distinguishing between momentary desires and long-term interests of the other, and giving due consideration only to the latter. - This interpretation, however, has been criticized: This distinction also assumes that others have similar interests that coincide with one's own; if one disregards the individual case, it may not even be possible to recognise these; the rule thus loses its concrete applicability.

In his theory of moral reasoning presented in 1963, Richard Mervyn Hare first analyzed the language logic of moral judgments. The sentence "A should [not] do X" contains a generalization ("everyone/no one in A's situation should do X") and a prescription ("do X in A's situation [not]!"). Thus, purely logically, one could only make such a judgment if one were willing to act according to it oneself. This would test the durability of moral judgements: if I were in A's situation, would I judge in the same way that I should [not] do X? Hare specified the role reversal: the agent does not have to imagine how he would act with his own characteristics, desires and aversions, but with those of the other person in his place. Third parties would therefore not have to ask in the subjunctive - "what would you say/feel/think if you were in his place?" - but:

In 1971, John Rawls presented a modern egalitarian contract theory in his Theory of Justice. In a thought experiment, he related the empathy required by the rule with the interests of those affected by one's own actions to a hypothetical initial situation (original position) that is the same for everyone: In this situation, everyone's own future social position and that of all others would be completely unknown (veil of ignorance), while the possible rules and laws of the social order would be completely known. Then, according to Rawls, everyone would choose those principles of justice that can bring about an ideal balance between individual and general interests.

Amitai Etzioni, an important exponent of communitarianism, related the Golden Rule to the social order for which individuals are responsible, stating, "Respect and uphold the moral order of society to the same extent that you wish society to respect and uphold your autonomy."

Hans-Ulrich Hoche agreed with Hare in 1978: the rule should not impute one's own wishes to others in the same position, but should take into account their wishes, interests and needs. He therefore suggested the formulation:

Hare's form of questioning places the actor in front of the actual situation of the other person and enables his concrete decision, with which he commits himself for this case. Questions formulated in the subjunctive betrayed an application of rules irrelevant to the individual case in question. Two of Kant's objections - his judge and misanthrope example - were also based on such misinterpretation. The correctly applied rule very well establishes the "guilty duties" and the "duties of love" against each other. Hoche therefore proposed a generalized version of the rule in 1992:

This formulation is only a "deontic reconstruction" of the oldest Western examples of rules handed down by Thales and Pittakos. Its advantage is that it "judges only a conduct in itself, quite indifferent to whom it takes place, and whether it is perhaps a conduct of the other only with and to himself." Thus it can also be applied to duties towards oneself, and can thus invalidate Kant's third objection.

Hans Kelsen saw the rule, like the principle of suum cuique and the talion principle, as a formula of justice devoid of content. It was tantamount to the principle of causing others not pain but pleasure. Such a principle, however, would abolish every legal order and every system of morality, because then, for example, criminals should not be punished, since no one likes to be punished. The rule could only make sense within a more objective order: that one has to behave towards others as they should behave towards me according to this order. This would lead to the categorical imperative. Like the rule, the categorical imperative is dependent on a pre-existing legal or moral order and can only confirm it, not define it in more detail. Ultimately, the rule then only states that one should adhere to the existing order.

Pacifism

For the Czech lay theologian Petr Chelčický (c. 1440), the rule of Mt 7:12 as a commandment of God forbade war and exposed all supposedly righteous campaigns of Christian rulers as injustice:

He saw complete renunciation of power and violence as the only credible way of life for Christians. This was also held by some Christian minorities, which today are collectively called peace churches: among them the Waldensians, and later also the Mennonites, Hutterites and Quakers. The latter also influenced some abolitionists in the United States, such as Adin Ballou (1803-1890) and William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879). Leo Tolstoy drew on these historical models in his major work, The Kingdom of Heaven Within You (1893). In it he based his "theory of Christian non-resistance" (non-violence) on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and love of enemies.

Religious dialogue

The first "World Parliament of Religions", founded in Chicago in 1893, based its unification programme on the Rule. The predominantly Christian initiators acknowledged its pre-Christian and extra-Christian dissemination, but stressed that Jesus had fulfilled it fully by his life and thus made the brotherhood of all people possible. Universal solidarity, they argued, was a necessary consequence of an individual faith in the Creator. This general liberal theism or deism established for them a common social commitment of belief systems. They wanted to use economic-cultural globalization to raise prosperity and morality worldwide.

Christian representatives of this world parliament founded a "Golden Rule Brotherhood" in New York on 26 March 1901 with the aim of uniting all religions under the "Fatherhood of God" for a solidary humanity. Members were prominent figures from education, business and politics, including several former US presidents; supporters included Mark Twain and Alfred Dreyfus. They wanted to establish an annual "Golden Rule Day" in churches, synagogues, and schools, advocated animal welfare and regular contributions to the needy at the local level, but did not get beyond the founding meeting.

The religious dialogue inspired by the Rule has been intensified since the end of the Cold War around 1990. The second World Parliament of Religions included the Rule in its "Declaration on Global Ethics" in 1993, formulating it as a long-known but as yet unrealized self-obligation of every individual: "We must treat others as we would have others treat us."

Government policy

Severus Alexander, Roman emperor from 222 to 235, knew the negative rule form Jews or Christians and, according to the Historia Augusta, had it inscribed in Latin on his palace and public buildings: "Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris!" He is said to have made it a principle of his domestic policy, and to have enjoined his officials to obey it in private as well as public conflicts. Under him the practice of religion by Jews and Christians was tolerated.

Since about 1880, the rule became popular in middle and higher social classes in the USA. US Secretary of State John Hay (1838-1905), referring to Isocrates, declared it the means of diplomacy and, along with the Monroe Doctrine, his motto in life.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy referred to the rule in a 1963 address to the nation on the occasion of race riots in Alabama to overcome segregation and discrimination against African Americans in the United States by strengthening their civil rights:

White Americans should ask themselves if they would be satisfied if they were excluded from certain restaurants and schools because of the color of their skin, that is, if they were prevented from full self-determination.

At the traditional National Prayer Breakfast on 5 February 2009, US President Barack Obama declared the Rule to be the impetus for a persistent common commitment to peace by all US citizens, regardless of their faith. Concluding his address to the Islamic world in Cairo on June 4, 2009, he emphasized that the Rule underlies every religion as the root of civilization, but belongs to none, and therefore calls for transcending national, religious, and cultural boundaries. In his speech on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on 10 December 2009, he declared holy wars - killing in the name of God - to be incompatible with the Rule and referred to warfare compatible with the Just War Theory, which takes one's own fallibility into account and combats it.

Economics

In contrast to Social Darwinism, representatives of the Social Gospel such as Charles Fletcher Dole wanted to make the rule fruitful for an economic ethics since 1896 in order to mitigate excesses of capitalism and to increase the gross national product.

After the First World War, entrepreneurs such as Samuel Milton Jones, Arthur Nash and J. C. Penney made the rule the basis of their corporate philosophy and, with generous wage increases, price reductions, extensive co-determination and teamwork, achieved enormous economic success at times. Arthur Nash described his experiences with the application of the rule in 1923 in a frequently reprinted book.

Group initiatives

Some Christian-based Scout groups for youth have incorporated the rule into their Scout Promise, such as the Royal Rangers.

Associations of humanists such as the British Humanist Association welcome the Rule as a rational, practical, and universal basis for human social behavior that does not require religious belief.

On 1 September 1997, the InterAction Council proposed a Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, Article 4 of which establishes the principle of universal responsibility with negative rule-making:

After receiving the TED Prize in 2008, the British religious scholar Karen Armstrong initiated a "Charter of Compassion". It is also intended to appeal to non-religious people and could be co-formulated by anyone on the Internet until February 2009. A "Council of Consciousness" of high-level religious leaders and thinkers pooled the proposals and issued the Charter in November 2009. It begins as follows:

Psychology

Jean Piaget (1932) and Erik Erikson (1964) described learning a behavior in terms of the rule as part of the developmental psychology of children.

In order to empirically test Piaget's developmental theory of moral judgement, Lawrence Kohlberg observed the development of moral judgement from infancy to adulthood in a long-term study and derived from this his stage theory of moral development, which he published in 1981. According to this theory, children and adolescents who are confronted with a moral dilemma sometimes make the rudimentary role reversal required by the rule at the age of ten, but only unilaterally and selectively. Only a few adults - approximately five percent of all US citizens of legal age - performed a multilateral role reversal: In doing so, they imagined the role of each participant in a situation in order to take into account their claims and expectations from their perspective, and renounced claims that they had made in the absence of perception of other points of view.

Medical ethics

Richard M. Hare drew on the rule in 1975 to assess possible exceptional cases of euthanasia. Using the example of a tanker truck that overturned after an accident and was immediately on fire, with its driver trapped underneath and asking helpers to kill him so that he would not burn alive, he explained to a Christian audience: Anyone who puts himself in the driver's shoes and asks what he would want in his place cannot possibly claim that euthanasia is always immoral and forbidden. The imaginary role reversal should make the commanded charity applicable. Only from the duty of love could such cases be judged, not from ecclesiastical dogmas and mere habituation to simple rules. The exception of granting the driver the wish to kill was by no means a precedent for creeping out the ban on euthanasia. Acute unbearable pain, no other possibility of rescue and the explicit, clear and conscious death wish of the person concerned were necessary conditions for such exceptions.

With regard to abortion, Hare also argued with the rule: one should treat others as one is happy to have been treated. If we are happy that no one has interrupted the pregnancy of our mothers, then we are obliged not to limit a pregnancy that allows others an equally happy existence. In this way, Hare was trying to avoid the direct, impossibly imaginable role reversal of an adult with a fetus.

Hare was accused of utilitarian thinking which, for example, seemed to allow abortion of the unborn in the case of overpopulation, which endangered the happiness of the living. The philosopher Vittorio Hösle criticized: The attempt to construct the idea of law from "symmetrical relations of representatives of egoistic interests" was unsuitable to protect the right to life of weaker living beings. The rule does not exclude infanticide, for example.