He later wrote Emile and Social Contract in to complete a comprehensive historical, psychological, educational, and political agenda. Second Discourse is the earlier part of a much greater plan to reveal the nature and existence of pure natural humans, to address social ills, to rectify those ills through education and to recreate a social contract in which human goodness could be restored in society.
This master plan enables Rousseau to return goodness to nature, humanity and God. His discussion on inequality exposes the social causes of evil that can be addressed in a rightly constituted society. It attacks other perceptions of Rousseau as an atheist or unorthodox theist as Hobbes had been in Leviathan. First, he defines God as: This being who wills and can perform his will, this being active through his own power, this being, whoever he may be, who moves the universe and orders all things, is what I call God.
To this name I add the ideas of intelligence, power, will, which I have brought together, and that of kindness which is their necessary consequence; but for all this I know no more of the being to which I ascribe them. Barbara Foxley, M. Dent and Sons, ; New York: E. Dutton, , Bobo 11 Second, he conflates God and nature, which implicates humans and society indirectly: Whether matter is eternal or created, whether its origin is passive or not, it is still certain that the whole is one, and that it proclaims a single intelligence; for I see nothing that is not part of the same ordered system, nothing which does not co- operate to the same end, namely, the conservation of all within the established order.
Bobo 12 argues the superiority of the philosophical life over the life of the citizen. Second, philosophy can be nurtured or corrupted in society. Third, his society provides a better solution to the philosophical task than his contemporary Enlightened one does. The Savoyard Vicar provides the positive affirmation of religious convictions in Rousseau. Rousseau does not intend to annihilate religion entirely. His arguments declare a separation of Church and State.
For example, he indicates in Chapter VIII: For it is of great importance to the state that each citizen have a religion that causes him to love his duties.
But the dogmas of that religion are of no interest either to the state or its members, except to the extent that these dogmas relate to morality and to the duties which the one who professes them is bound to fulfill toward others. However, religion broadly speaking is necessary. Bobo 13 addressed which Second Discourse does so well. Validity of Judgments Rousseau correctly criticizes Hobbes on many levels.
Rousseau proved to be a man ahead of his time in this evolutionary perspective. In regard to sovereignty, Rousseau does have a better perspective about the will of the collective in participating actively in society rather than relinquishing the individual will to a sovereign with irrevocable rights. The semantical debates between Rousseau and Hobbes seem to be mutually incriminating. Establishing bases for language games is always a challenge.
The issue of nature, law, authority and numerous legal terms cannot possibly be determined across centuries. Semantical attacks can be made of any generation against another. He does not have any basis for his assumptions other than the fact they undermine his predecessors and conflict with his theodicy. His cleverness does not merit implicit acceptance of his theory. His historical presuppositions have very little grounding outside his own perspective.
The advantage of introducing history into political philosophy impacted German Idealism; however, future attention does not address the deeper issue that Rousseau establishes his own philosophical grounding without appealing to the arguments Hobbes raises.
Rousseau sees corruption where Hobbes sees progress and stability. They both place emphasis upon self-preservation and competition in the social sphere. They both emphasize consent of the governed despite the fact Hobbes sees this as a single transfer of will to the sovereign.
Both understand society in contracts through collective interests. As mentioned earlier, both see a state of competition and internal struggle leading to a sovereign or magistracy.
Both see legal process as a necessary function of social life. It is in the third book of the Social Contract, where Rousseau is discussing the problem of government, that it is most essential to remember that his discussion has in view mainly the city-state and not the nation.
Broadly put, his principle of government is that democracy is possible only in small States, aristocracy in those of medium extent, and monarchy in great States Book III, chap. In considering this view, we have to take into account two things. First, he rejects representative government; will being, in his theory, inalienable, representative Sovereignty is impossible.
But, as he regards all general acts as functions of Sovereignty, this means that no general act can be within the competence of a representative assembly. France, Geneva and England were the three States he took most into account. In France, representative government was practically non-existent; in Geneva, it was only partially necessary; in England, it was a mockery, used to support a corrupt oligarchy against a debased monarchy.
Rousseau may well be pardoned for not taking the ordinary modern view of it. Nor indeed is it, even in the modern world, so satisfactory an instrument of the popular will that we can afford wholly to discard his criticism. It is one of the problems of the day to find some means of securing effective popular control over a weakened Parliament and a despotic Cabinet.
The second factor is the immense development of local government. It seemed to Rousseau that, in the nation-state, all authority must necessarily pass, as it had in France, to the central power. Devolution was hardly dreamed of; and Rousseau saw the only means of securing effective popular government in a federal system, starting from the small unit as Sovereign.
This is made clearer by the fact that the legislator is not to exercise legislative power; he is merely to submit his suggestions for popular approval. Thus Rousseau recognises that, in the case of institutions and traditions as elsewhere, will, and not force, is the basis of the State. This may be seen in his treatment of law as a whole Book II, chap. The Social Contract renders law necessary, and at the same time makes it quite clear that laws can proceed only from the body of citizens who have constituted the State.
Humbly speaking, in default of natural sanctions, the laws of justice are ineffective among men. No critic of the Social Contract has found it easy to say either what precisely its author meant by it, or what is its final value for political philosophy. The difficulty is increased because Rousseau himself sometimes halts in the sense which he assigns to it, and even seems to suggest by it two different ideas. Of its broad meaning, however, there can be no doubt. The effect of the Social Contract is the creation of a new individual.
The same doctrine had been stated earlier, in the Political Economy, without the historical setting. May it not equally be led away from its true interests to the pursuit of pleasure or of something which is really harmful to it? And, if the whole society may vote what conduces to the momentary pleasure of all the members and at the same time to the lasting damage of the State as a whole, is it not still more likely that some of the members will try to secure their private interests in opposition to those of the whole and of others?
All these questions, and others like them, have been asked by critics of the conception of the General Will. Two main points are involved, to one of which Rousseau gives a clear and definite answer. It is indeed possible for a citizen, when an issue is presented to him, to vote not for the good of the State, but for his own good; but, in such a case, his vote, from the point of view of the General Will, is merely negligible.
Not at all: it is always constant, unalterable, and pure; but it is subordinated to other wills which encroach upon its sphere. The fault [each man] commits [in detaching his interest from the common interest] is that of changing the state of the question, and answering something different from what he is asked. These passages, with many others that may be found in the text, make it quite clear that by the General Will Rousseau means something quite distinct from the Will of All, with which it should never have been confused.
The only excuse for such confusion lies in his view that when, in a city-state, all particular associations are avoided, votes guided by individual self-interest will always cancel one another, so that majority voting will always result in the General Will. This is clearly not the case, and in this respect we may charge him with pushing the democratic argument too far. The point, however, can be better dealt with at a later stage.
Rousseau makes no pretence that the mere voice of a majority is infallible; he only says, at the most, that, given his ideal conditions, it would be so. The second main point raised by critics of the General Will is whether in defining it as a will directed solely to the common interest, Rousseau means to exclude acts of public immorality and short-sightedness.
He answers the questions in different ways. First, an act of public immorality would be merely an unanimous instance of selfishness, different in no particular from similar acts less unanimous, and therefore forming no part of a General Will. It is probable, indeed, that he never quite succeeded in getting his view clear in his own mind; there is nearly always, in his treatment of it, a certain amount of muddle and fluctuation.
These difficulties the student must be left to worry out for himself; it is only possible to present, in outline, what Rousseau meant to convey. The treatment of the General Will in the Political Economy is brief and lucid, and furnishes the best guide to his meaning. The definition of it in this work, which has already been quoted, is followed by a short account of the nature of general wills as a whole. The influence of all these tacit or formal associations causes by the influence of their will as many modifications of the public will.
The will of these particular societies has always two relations; for the members of the association, it is a general will; for the great society, it is a particular will; and it is often right with regard to the first object and wrong as to the second. The most general will is always the most just, and the voice of the people is, in fact, the voice of God. The General Will, Rousseau continues in substance, is always for the common good; but it is sometimes divided into smaller general wills, which are wrong in relation to it.
In this passage, which differs only in clearness and simplicity from others in the Social Contract itself, it is easy to see how far Rousseau had in his mind a perfectly definite idea.
All such wills are general only for the members of the associations which exercise them; for outsiders, or rather for other associations, they are purely particular wills. In the Social Contract, he only treats of these lesser wills in relation to the government, which, he shows, has a will of its own, general for its members, but particular for the State as a whole Book III, chap.
This governmental will he there prefers to call corporate will, and by this name it will be convenient to distinguish the lesser general wills from the General Will of the State that is over them all. So far, there is no great difficulty; but in discussing the infallibility of the General Will we are on more dangerous ground.
Book IV, chap. When, therefore, the opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so. Though he sometimes affirms the opposite, there is no security on his principles that the will of the majority will be the General Will.
At the most it can only be said that there is a greater chance of its being general than of the will of any selected class of persons not being led away by corporate interests. The justification of democracy is not that it is always right, even in intention, but that it is more general than any other kind of supreme power. Fundamentally, however, the doctrine of the General Will is independent of these contradictions. This is brought out clearly in the Social Contract Book I, chap.
We might, over and above all this, add to what man acquires in the civil state moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.
This one chapter contains the gist of the Kantian moral philosophy, and makes it quite clear that Rousseau perceived its application to ethics as well as to politics. The morality of our acts consists in their being directed in accordance with universal law; acts in which we are guided merely by our passions are not moral.
Further, man can only possess freedom when his whole being is unified in the pursuit of a single end; and, as his whole being can be unified only in pursuit of a rational end, which alone excludes contradiction, only moral acts, only men directing their lives by universal law, are free.
In Kantian language, the will is autonomous i. Rousseau, as he says Book I, chap. Rousseau bases his political doctrine throughout on his view of human freedom; it is because man is a free agent capable of being determined by a universal law prescribed by himself that the State is in like manner capable of realising the General Will, that is, of prescribing to itself and its members a similar universal law.
The General Will, then, is the application of human freedom to political institutions. Before the value of this conception can be determined, there is a criticism to be met. The freedom which is realised in the General Will, we are told, is the freedom of the State as a whole; but the State exists to secure individual freedom for its members. A free State may be tyrannical; a despot may allow his subjects every freedom.
What guarantee is there that the State, in freeing itself, will not enslave its members? This criticism has been made with such regularity that it has to be answered in some detail. Rousseau sees clearly that it is impossible to place any limits upon the power of the State; when the people combine into a State, they must in the end submit to be guided in all things by the will of the effective majority.
Limited Sovereignty is a contradiction in terms; the Sovereign has a right to all that reason allows it, and as soon as reason demands that the State shall interfere, no appeal to individual rights can be made. What is best for the State must be suffered by the individual. This, however, is very far from meaning that the ruling power ought, or has the moral right, to interfere in every particular case.
Wherever State intervention is for the best, the State has a right to intervene; but it has no moral right, though it must have a legal right, to intervene where it is not for the best. The General Will, being always in the right, will intervene only when intervention is proper.
Since the General Will cannot always be arrived at, who is to judge whether an act of intervention is justified? But how is it possible to avoid such a conclusion? Rousseau has already given his reasons for objecting to a limited Sovereignty Book I, chap. No doubt the machinery will be imperfect; but we can only try to get as near the General Will as possible, without hoping to realise it fully.
The answer, therefore, to the critics who hold that, in securing civil liberty Rousseau has sacrificed the individual may be put after this fashion. Liberty is not a merely negative conception; it does not consist solely in the absence of restraint. The purest individualist, Herbert Spencer for example, would grant that a certain amount of State interference is necessary to secure liberty; but as soon as this idea of securing liberty is admitted in the smallest degree, the whole idea has undergone profound modification.
This principle once admitted, the precise amount of State interference that is necessary to secure freedom will be always a matter for particular discussion; every case must be decided on its own merits, and, in right, the Sovereign will be omnipotent, or subject only to the law of reason.
The rights of man as they are preached by the modern individualist, are not the rights of which Rousseau and the revolutionaries were thinking. When, therefore, government becomes despotic, it has no more right over its subjects than the master has over his slave Book I, chap.
This natural right is in no sense inconsistent with the complete alienation supposed in the Contract; for the Contract itself reposes on it and guarantees its maintenance. The Sovereign must, therefore, treat all its members alike; but, so long as it does this, it remains omnipotent.
If it leaves the general for the particular, and treats one man better than another, it ceases to be Sovereign; but equality is already presupposed in the terms of the Contract. It is more profitable to attack Rousseau for his facile identification of the interests of each of the citizens with those of all; but here, too, most of the critics have abused their opportunity.
The second point Rousseau proves by showing that the omnipotence of the Sovereign is essential to the preservation of society, which in turn is necessary for the individual. His argument, however, really rests on the fundamental character of the General Will.
He would admit that, in any actual State, the apparent interest of the many might often conflict with that of the few; but he would contend that the real interest of State and individual alike, being subject to universal law, could not be such as to conflict with any other real interest.
So why do I take who I am or who they are so seriously?. Unlike every other ethic, agape provides no basis for according ourselves special first-person discretion or privacy. The self-other gap is transcended. In principle, when we raise our spoon filled with breakfast cereal at the morning table, the matter of whose mouth it goes into is in question.
Some agapeists would not go this far, instead keeping our self-identification intact. But there is good reason to go farther. And of course there are the turn the other cheek precepts of Yeshua, which push in this direction. In any event, ethics is not built for such concerns. It is a system designed to handle conflicts of interest, the direction of interests toward values and, perhaps, the upgrading and transformation of interests into aspirations.
Agape would function, within the golden rule, as something more like a song or affirmation for the self-transformations achieved. It is the very admirable diminution or lack of self-interest, in agapeistic love and in social discrimination that puts an agapeistic golden rule out of reach. Its double dose of moral purity and perfection puts it doubly out of reach. We arguably cannot be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect or complete. We also cannot realistically strive toward it, and most likely should not.
Secularly, its beautiful intentions have unwanted consequences. We wish to be loved for us, for our self-identity and the values we identify with. When we are not loved this way, we do not feel loved at all—not loved for whom we are. We are entitled to it. We build rights around it. And we feel callously disregarded when a loving gaze shows no special glint of recognition as it surveys us among a group of others.
This is less egoism than a sense of distinctness and uniqueness within the additional expectations of realized relationship. Putting the matter more generally, human motivational systems come individually packaged. They are hard-wired to harboring and pursuing interest.
And a valid ethics is designed to serve human nature, even as it strives to improve it. If we can transcend human nature, then we need a different system of values, or perhaps nothing like an ethical system.
We have risen beyond good and evil, indifferent to harm of death.. We are born, and remain psychologically individualized throughout life, not possessed of a hive mind in which we directly share our choice-making and experiences. We are each unquestionably possessed of this natural, immutable division of moral labors, which gives us direct and reliable control only of our own self.
Hence we are held responsible only for our own actions, expected to do for ourselves, provided special standing to plead our own case of mistreatment, and accorded great discretion in our own individual sphere, to do as we like. When agapeistic morality puts our very nature on the spot, bidding us to recast basic motivations to suit—when it sets us in lifetime struggle against ourselves—it fails to acknowledge morality as our tool, not primarily our taskmaster.
These considerations provide the needed boundary line to situate the golden rule this side of a feasibility-idealism divide. The golden rule is indeed designed for human nature as it is and for egos with interests, trying to be better to each other. Christian agape, like Buddhist indifference and non-attachment is said to be inexpressible in words. It can only be understood correctly through direct insight and experience.
Granted, adherents of these ideals place the achievement of spiritual insight out of common hands. Only a few of the most gifted or fortunate adherents achieve it in a lifetime. As such, spiritual love cannot be the currency of the golden rule as we know it, negotiating mutual equality for the vast majority of humanity in everyday life.
What agapeists may be onto is that the golden rule has a dual nature. At a common level, it is a principle of ethical reciprocity. But for those who use its ethic to rise above good and evil in a mundane sense, the golden rule is a wisdom principle. It marks the transcendence of interested and egoistic perspectives.
It points toward its sibling of loving thy neighbor as thyself because thy neighbor is us in some deeper sense, accessible by deeper, less egoistic love.
Philosophical treatments of the golden rule itself come next, with an evaluation of their alternative top-down approach. One reason philosophers emphasize the juxtaposition of ethics and human nature stems from the moralistic, if not masochistic cast of ethical traditions.
Moral suspicion of medieval shira laws in Islam is another. Ethics in general has also been feminized to encompass self-caring as well, a kind of third-person empathy and supportive aid to oneself Gilligan Here, a clarified golden rule notion can fit well. For philosophers, however, even a clarified or unbiased depiction of the golden rule cannot overcome its shortfalls in specificity and decisiveness.
Ply the rule in the handling of complex and nuanced problems of complex institutions and it is at sea. We cannot imagine how to begin its application. Exercise it within networks of social roles and practices and the rule seems utterly simplistic. This said, the irony should not be lost here of critics setting the rule up to fail by over-generalizing its intended scope and standards for success.
Maximum generalization is the dominant philosophical approach to the rule. And in this form there is no question that its shortfalls are many. The rule seems hopeless for dealing with highly layered institutions working through different hierarchies of status and authority.
Yet the rule has been posed by philosophers as the ultimate grounding principle of the major moral-philosophic traditions—of a Kantian-like categorical imperative, and a Utilitarian prototype. As noted, this is a tribal or clan rule, cast in highly traditional societies and nurtured there. There is no evidence that it was ever originally intended to define human obligations and problem solving within the human community writ large, or in complex institutional settings in particular.
In small-group interactions what would normally be tolerated as diversity of opinion and practice can be legitimately identified as problematic instead. Being like-minded, most often group members have expressed commitment to common beliefs, values, and responsibilities.
But more important, the rule is vastly more detailed and institutionalized here than it seems because of its guidance by established practices, conventions, and understandings. Moreover, this corollary may not sanction an actual comeuppance of offenders, in violation of golden-rule spirit, functioning instead as a threat or gentle reminder of joint expectations. Marcus Singer, in standard philosophical style, portrays the golden rule as a principle, not a rule. This is because it does not direct a specific type of action that can be morally evaluated in itself.
Instead, it offers a rationale for generating such rules. It starts from an abstracted logical ideal, elaborating a theory around it by tracing its logical implications. Of course, philosophy need not start from the beginning when addressing a concept, nor be confined by an original intent or design or its cultural development.
The rest is chaff or flourish or unnecessary additives. Still, the distinction between principles and rules may not be as sharp as claimed. General rules rules of legal evidence, for example also can be used to derive more specific rules based on their logics; principles need not be consulted.
Consulting community reciprocity standards or conventions might be one. Thus, do nice things by consulting community standards would proceduralize a rule to generate more specific action directives. Again, no consultation with principles are needed. Most philosophical principles of ethics are explanatory, providing an ultimate ground for understanding prescriptions.
These also can be used to justify moral rationales. The rule is not portrayed, then as a stationary intellectual object notched on the wall of an inquiring mind. It takes on a life for the moral community living its life. This conceives ethical theory on the model of scientific theory, especially a physical theory with its laws of nature. These latter approaches typically use examples of ethical judgments that the author considers cogent, leaving the reader to agree or disagree on its intuitive appeal.
Hare apparently feels that they are. But wishes, choices, preferences, and feelings of gladness certainly do not seem the same thing. Choices can come from wishes, though they rarely do, and one feels glad about the results of choices, if not wishes, generally.
Choosing is usually endorsing and expressing a want, whether or not it expresses a preference among desired objects. This is a tricky phrase. An alternative rendering is how you prefer they treat you, singling out the want that has highest priority for you in this peculiar context of mutual reciprocity, not necessarily in general.
Further alternatives are treatments we would accept, or acquiesce in or consent to as opposed to actively and ideally choose or choose as most feasible. These are four quite different options. Or would we have others do unto us as we believe or expect they should treat us based on our or their value commitments and sense of entitlement?
Are the expectations of just the two or three people involved to count, or count more than the so-called legitimate expectations of the community?
Such interpretations can ride the rule of gold in quite different directions, led by individual tastes, group norms, or transcendent religious or philosophical principles. And we might see some of these as unfair or otherwise illegitimate. In such contexts, philosophical analysis usually answers questions, clarifying differences in concepts, meanings and their implications. I may choose, wish or want that you would treat me with great kindness and generosity, showing me an unselfish plume of altruism.
But if I then was legitimately expected to reciprocate out of consistency, I might consent, agree, or acquiesce only in mutual respect or minimal fairness, at most. From this consent logic we move toward Kantian or social contract versions of mutual respect and a sort of rational expectation that can be widely generalized. But we move very far from the many spirits of the golden rule, wishful and ideal. We move from expanding self-regard other-directedly to hedging our bets, which makes great moral difference.
In psychology, by contrast, it has been identified with self-esteem and locus of control. These are quite different orientations, setting different generalizable expectations in oneself and in others. It is not clear that generalizing self-love captures appropriate other-love. Common opinion has it that love of others should be more disinterested and charitable than love of self, or self-interest.
We feel that it is fine to be hard on ourselves on occasion, but more rarely hard on others. We are our own business, but they are not. They are their own business. It seems morally appropriate to sacrifice our own interests but not those of others even when they are willing.
We should not urge or perhaps even ask for such sacrifice, instead taking burdens on ourselves. Joys can be shared, but not burdens quite as much. We are to be nicer, fairer, and more respectful of others than of ourselves. In fact, ethics is about treating others well, and doing so directly. To treat ourselves ethically is a kind of metaphor since only one person is involved in the exchange, and the exchange can only be indirect. We are not held blameworthy for running our self-esteem down when we think we deserve it, but we are to esteem others even when they have not earned it.
Kant, by contrast, poses equal respect for self and other, with little distinction. We are to treat humanity, whether in ourselves or others, as an end in itself and of infinite value. He also poses second-rung duties to self and other toward the pursuit of happiness—a rational, and so self-expressively autonomous, approach to goods. This might be thought to raise a serious question for altruism—the benefiting of others at our expense.
Given duties to self and duties to others, even pertaining to the pursuit of happiness, it is not clear what the grounds would be for preferring others to oneself. Yet one would be honored as generous, the other selfish. Throughout his ethical works and essays on religion, however, Kant speaks of philanthropy, kindness, and generosity in praising terms without giving like credit to self-interest.
Some would criticize this penchant for treating others better than ourselves as a Christian bias against self-interest, too often cast as selfishness. But it seems in line with the very purposes of ethics, which is how to interact with others, not oneself. Most of the population originally introduced to the golden-rule family of rules was uneducated and highly superstitious, even as most may be today. The message greets most of us in childhood.
Its Christian trappings growing most, at present, in politically oppressive third-world oligarchies where sophisticated education is hard to come by. Likely the rule was designed for such audiences. It was designed to serve them, both as an uplifting inspiration and form of edification, raising their moral consciousness. Selman Otherwise well-educated and experienced folk can be remarkably unskilled at such perspective-taking tasks.
How we properly balance empathy with cognitive role-taking is a greater sticking point, plaguing psychological females and feminist authors as much as the rest. Such integration problems make it unclear how to follow the golden rules properly in most circumstances. And that is quite a drawback for a moral guideline, if the rule is an action guideline.
We might then be advised to seek a different approach such as an interpersonal form of participatory democracy, as was previously noted. Again, these are precisely the sorts of uncertainties and questions that philosophical analysis and theory is supposed to help answer by moving from common sense to uncommonly good sense.
But at some point they move to considerations that serve distinctly theoretical and intellectual purposes, removed from everyday thinking and choice. Their morally relevant qualities cannot compete in importance with our other personal features. Indeed, we cannot identify with, much less respect these one-sided, disembodied essences enough to overrule the array of motivations and personal qualities that match our sense of moral character and concern.
The theoretical rationality of maximizing good, even with prudence built in, is obviously extremist and over-generalized. But as philosophers say, the logics of good and reason in Utilitarianism cannot help but extend to maximization—it is simply irrational, all things considered, to pursue less of a good thing when one can acquire more good at little effort. If so, then perhaps all the worse generalization and consistency, which will be avoided by being reasonable and personable.
Many of us wish theory to upgrade common sense, not throw it out the window with the golden rationale in tow. Both present and likely future philosophical accounts may be unhelpful in bringing clarity to the golden rule in its own terms, rather distorting it through overgeneralization.
Still, the crafting of general theory in ethics is an important project. It exposes ever deeper and broader logics underlying our common rationales, the golden rule being one.
It is important for some to review these fundamental issues for treating the golden rule philosophically. Relative to a commonsense understanding of the golden rule, it is a heady conceptual experience to see this simple rule of thumb universalized—inflated to epic proportions that encompass the entire blueprint for ethical virtue, reasoning, and behavior for humankind.
Such is the case with Kantian and Utilitarian super-principles. Now to see that faith reinforced by the most rigorous standards of secular reasoning is quite an affirmation. It can also be recruited as a powerful ally in fending off secular criticism.
Often we fail to recognize that extreme reductionism is the centerpiece of the mainstream general theory project. The whole point is to render the seemingly diverse logics of even conflicting moral concepts and phenomena into a single one, or perhaps two. It is very surprising to find how far a rationale can be extended to cover types of cases beyond its seeming ken—to see how much the virtues of golden kindness or respect, for example, can be recast as mere components of a choice process.
Character traits, as states of being, appear radically different from processes of deliberation, problem solving, and behavior after all. But the most salient psychological features of virtuous traits fade into the amoral background once the principled source of their moral relevance and legitimacy is redefined.
Universalization reveals how the basically sound rationale of the golden rule can go unexpectedly awry at full tilt. This shows a hidden chink in its armor. But reducing principles also can overcome the skepticism of those who see the rule as a narrow slogan from the start. The rule can do much more than expected, it turns out, when its far-reaching implications are made explicit. Universalization, in principle, reduces to absurdity in this sense. This is what philosophical research on the matter turns up.
One liability concerns justice. Wishing forgiveness, or at least to be given a second chance, has much to be said for it. A kind of paradox results, which Christians will recall from the Parable of the Laborers in the vineyard Matthew The rule provides a moral advantage to both punisher and perpetrator in this case.
Looking across situations, imagining the social practices and legitimate expectations that result, social members who commit offenses will suffer the luck of the draw.
The accountability mechanism of society will not establish a uniform policy of punishment or recompense. You got judge X or you mugged a nice guy—wish I had. For moral individualists or libertarians, this is no problem. Who can complain about getting either fair treatment or beneficial treatment? We accept this discretionary arrangement in many everyday settings. Consider how this same sense of being mistreated and perhaps resentful will arise in most small groups of peers.
Why the favoritism—you value her that much more than me? And that is unjust. Moral liberals will be especially offended by this result. As with many conflicts between moral camps, both sides have a point, which each side seems committed not to acknowledge.
And thus far, no way of integrating these rival positions has gained general consensus. Like any general principle, perhaps, the golden rule also seems incapable of distinguishing general relationships and responsibilities from special ones—responsibilities toward family members, communities of familiars and co-workers, not the wide world of strangers. A proper explanatory principle will allow us to derive such corollaries from its core rationale.
Note : the platinum rule is sometimes referred to by other names, such as the copper rule or the inversion of the golden rule. Another notable criticism of the golden rule is the fact that, in certain situations, its application can lead to undesirable outcomes, when it conflicts with other guiding principles, including both moral principles as well as other types of principles, such as social or legal ones.
For example, if someone is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, the golden rule would suggest that we should let them go, because we would not want to be imprisoned ourselves. This remains the case even if we use the platinum rule, since the prisoner would likely also prefer to avoid going to prison. However, this issue with the golden rule can be dealt with in a general manner, by viewing this principle as one of several principles that we use to guide our behavior as individuals and as a society.
Specifically, in the example described above, the golden rule would not be enough to prevent that person from going to prison, because most individuals and societies choose to place other laws and ethical principles above the golden rule, while still taking the golden rule into account.
The basic way to implement the golden rule is to treat other people the way that you would want to be treated yourself. Furthermore, when doing this, you can use additional techniques, which will help you implement this rule effectively:.
0コメント