Stupid golden rule! Here's a better one!!

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Last night I had an incredible amount of clarity about the golden rule and a better new rule.

Someone told me a story about giving $8000 dollars of casino winning to planned parenthood, and how happy the parties involved were.

And I had a flash of insight… All of us want people to be happy to see us, there is actually no exception to this if you really think about it. All of us also want to be happy to see others, again, no exception.

Then I started thinking about whether this was the golden rule or not and I had another flash of insight!!

The golden rule has popped up in almost every culture going back many thousands of millennia , and there’s a very serious flaw with it!!

Flaw of the golden rule: if I tortured people, poisoned them, killed them etc… I would always want to be set free for doing it or to do this again, that’s not my personality, but if I were to put myself in their shoes, I would always let them free!! The golden rule says nothing about doing to yourself what you’d do to yourself!! So basically, the golden rule sucks.

So my new rule is do stuff to make others happy to see you and you happy to see them.

2

I am pretty sure that you would have made everyone a bit happier if you had just stated that one rule and left out the explanation.

The real question is whether you can actually obey your rule. :sunglasses:

3

And if you and they are Nazis?

As with most thing, the more you think about it the less “simple” it becomes:

onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_gam … _rule.html

Still, there will always be objectivists who try to pin down What It Means. And then [more often than not] they will try to persuade you of What It Should Mean instead.

4

Here’s another good golden rule; there are no golden rules. This way you wont be disappointed when a rapist fucks yo ass because that’s how he likes it baby. :mrgreen:

Your rule is ok though. It’s just that there are people i wouldn’t be happy to see. I was watching the news and a guy in a factory was asked what he thought of paying taxes to fund the unemployed, he complained and said he’d rather not pay as much tax. I thought to myself, a) there wont be factory workers in the future, so he’ll be unemployed, and b) so your tax will go down by a small amount, then housing prices will inevitably eat up any excess, and you’ll be back at square one, but with a worse society. So selfish &/or stupid people are out.

Thing is there cant be universal rules which apply to all particulars, and people are individuals. Equally, people who do bad things [in my experience] tend to validate their behaviour based on such golden rules, they feel they haven’t been treated how they would treat others. Without such expectation maybe they wouldn’t have any basis to that, or would just take the world for what it is.

_

5

Perhaps taking large amounts of certain drugs would make me more outgoing and energetic, and dull my intolerance of idiots. Would the golden rule support divorcing myself from my natural state and perception?

6

^^ natural states can be a bit linear, and it isn’t until you take yourself out of the ‘stream’ [instinct, usual thoughts etc] that you can step back and gain an external perspective. That doesn’t necessarily mean drugs or drink, but there’s only so many holidays you can take eh!

7

Most naturally magnetic people do that naturally already Ecmandu, and without the need for drink or drugs as an aide.

You seem to be advocating one state is right/better than the other OH, but on what grounds is that so?

8

There are plenty of long-term heroin addicts who are perfectly intelligent, witty, smart people who are fun to be around, whose lives I would not encourage everybody to emulate.