“Do unto others as you would want done unto you.”
What do I do if someone attacks me with the intent to hurt me?
“They have violated the Golden Rule, and as such -”
Stop there. Nothing in the Golden Rule itself satisfactorily explains what is to be done when our own rights are violated. The only supposed practitioners of such a rule would be the truly pacifist Mennonites. Yet even then, their shunning is "unwanted." Is there truly anyone who lives by this rule, without inventing their own bylaws to explain how they handle “special cases”?
Indeed, this is the downfall of the Golden Rule in a secular context. There is no basis within the rule to account for “special cases,” i.e. any case in practice. You must transition the rule to something that at least has conditions for its own violation to be practical, or create special rules for every “special case.”
The latter half “as you would want done unto you” bears repeating, as it has no account for a myriad of factors: taste, trauma, bad intent, and summarily any meaningful difference between two people. If I would want my wife to prepare me dinner when I arrive home from work, am I thus obligated to prepare her dinner? If my wife is keen to make the same dish every evening, but I am loathe to it, who makes the compromise in their dining tastes?
Many adherents of the Golden Rule protest: it is metaphysical, it asks of you that you treat others kindly! That is, rejecting the absurd and explaining away differences of opinion as something to be “worked out” or otherwise offering an explanation that is not intrinsic to the Golden Rule.
Yes, for such a Gold-ish Rule, it does require a large amount of elaboration into case-by-case rulings. It also needs a vast number of supplementary rules for practical reasons, so one does not do Bad Things by nature of the nonspecificity of the rule. This is why secular positions on the Golden Rule are to be regarded as fanciful simplicities. The Golden Rule is not compelling as a central tenet of some grand philosophy. In fact, it necessitates individual ruling for every case based on whims and anachronistic perspectives.
Thus, of what use is the rule? If the Golden Rule was worth using, would it require so much additional material with no logic for its specific ruling, apart from ones tastes?
What do I do if someone attacks me with the intent to hurt me?
“They have violated the Golden Rule, and as such -”
Stop there. Nothing in the Golden Rule itself satisfactorily explains what is to be done when our own rights are violated. The only supposed practitioners of such a rule would be the truly pacifist Mennonites. Yet even then, their shunning is "unwanted." Is there truly anyone who lives by this rule, without inventing their own bylaws to explain how they handle “special cases”?
Indeed, this is the downfall of the Golden Rule in a secular context. There is no basis within the rule to account for “special cases,” i.e. any case in practice. You must transition the rule to something that at least has conditions for its own violation to be practical, or create special rules for every “special case.”
The latter half “as you would want done unto you” bears repeating, as it has no account for a myriad of factors: taste, trauma, bad intent, and summarily any meaningful difference between two people. If I would want my wife to prepare me dinner when I arrive home from work, am I thus obligated to prepare her dinner? If my wife is keen to make the same dish every evening, but I am loathe to it, who makes the compromise in their dining tastes?
Many adherents of the Golden Rule protest: it is metaphysical, it asks of you that you treat others kindly! That is, rejecting the absurd and explaining away differences of opinion as something to be “worked out” or otherwise offering an explanation that is not intrinsic to the Golden Rule.
Yes, for such a Gold-ish Rule, it does require a large amount of elaboration into case-by-case rulings. It also needs a vast number of supplementary rules for practical reasons, so one does not do Bad Things by nature of the nonspecificity of the rule. This is why secular positions on the Golden Rule are to be regarded as fanciful simplicities. The Golden Rule is not compelling as a central tenet of some grand philosophy. In fact, it necessitates individual ruling for every case based on whims and anachronistic perspectives.
Thus, of what use is the rule? If the Golden Rule was worth using, would it require so much additional material with no logic for its specific ruling, apart from ones tastes?
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