Is the Golden Rule a Foundational Moral Principle or A Rule of Thumb?

[Peter_Plato]

The act of creation does fill a need, especially on the human level. If you aren’t compelled to create, you don’t.

Only if you need to be “compelled” in order to create. If you are only moved by compulsions, then that will be true, for you.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

If you act only on existing wants or compulsions, you have no means by which to assess if the wants themselves ought to be fulfilled. What your position entails is that if you want something you ought to pursue it and if you want something stronger than you want something else then, as a mere determination by the strength of wants, you should pursue the stronger want. You have no means by which to assess the legitimacy of any particular wants except by the feature of their strength. If you want something more than something else, you should pursue the stronger want.

What if a person only wants what is harmful to others? By what determination can you say to that person: “You ought not want that!” YOU can’t because your position, as a moral one, is that people should (or simply do) follow their wants. You have no mechanism (such as obligation) by which to deny wants, since wants, for you, take precedence as a simple matter of fact.

Furthermore, this says nothing about conflicting wants among different groups of people. Politically, you are left with a model that mandates that the wants of the majority are going to dominate the wants of all minorities for the same reason you think stronger wants simply will dictate what any person, as an individual, wants. Again, your view of what a person is is going to affect how you see politics (and morality as its ground) working.

Political “right” is going to collapse into a right of the majority to impose its wants on minorities. So appealing to emotion, rather than sound ethical principles will be the dominant strategy and what got Obama and virtually every politician in modern western democracies elected. The tail - or, rather, the lower organs - wags the dog.

If your model for morality is aligning with gods will, it is still a compulsion. There is a reason for it. It maybe reward. It may be punishment it may be what you think is expected of you. You still “want” to act a certain way. Reason can guide the want but it’s still a want.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If your model for morality is aligning with gods will, it is still a compulsion. There is a reason for it. It maybe reward. It may be punishment it may be what you think is expected of you. You still “want” to act a certain way. Reason can guide the want but it’s still a want.

Those may be your stipulations of “God’s will” and perhaps YOUR reasons for aligning with it, but they are not mine.

To debunk your thesis, justice and a concept of right could properly conclude that since God is omniscient and omnibenevolent then his judgement regarding my destiny would be the “right” one regardless of whether that entails my punishment or reward.

I may have, for example, become convinced that the overall worthiness of my past life (derived from a complete understanding of good) only merits punishment, but that is irrelevant to my doing his will from here on in - regardless of the final outcome for me, but because his will is “right,” above all else. That is the point of detachment.

You stake your claim on reducing “will” to “want,” which likewise depends upon accepting your (biological? neurological? ego-centered?) view of what a human being is. If we disambiguate needs, wants, desires and intentions, intentions do not depend upon “wants” or “needs” in terms of personal deficits, which is the snake oil that you keep peddling.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Those may be your stipulations of “God’s will” and perhaps YOUR reasons for aligning with it, but they are not mine.

To debunk your thesis, justice and a concept of right could properly conclude that since God is omniscient and omnibenevolent then his judgement regarding my destiny would be the “right” one regardless of whether that entails my punishment or reward.

I may have, for example, become convinced that the overall worthiness of my past life (derived from a complete understanding of good) only merits punishment, but that is irrelevant to my doing his will from here on in - regardless of the final outcome for me, but because his will is “right,” above all else. That is the point of detachment.

You stake your claim on reducing “will” to “want,” which likewise depends upon accepting your (biological? neurological? ego-centered?) view of what a human being is. If we disambiguate needs, wants, desires and intentions, intentions do not depend upon “wants” or “needs” in terms of personal deficits, which is the snake oil that you keep peddling.

You have failed to demonstrate the difference between will and want. You attempted but it still comes down to a want. Human and divine. You want to align with god’s will, what ever the justification, it’s still a want. It is the choice you make. You want one and not the other.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You have failed to demonstrate the difference between will and want. You attempted but it still comes down to a want. Human and divine. You want to align with god’s will, what ever the justification, it’s still a want. It is the choice you make. You want one and not the other.

Based upon your ambiguation of want and will. You, definitionally, make the word “will” mean, trivially, the same as “want” and then insist they are the same. Of course, they are the same - to you.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Based upon your ambiguation of want and will. You, definitionally, make the word “will” mean, trivially, the same as “want” and then insist they are the same. Of course, they are the same - to you.

I want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.

:thankyou:

Up in my neck of the woods, we’ve moved on to :christmastree1:

But you go ahead and have a GREAT one!

 

[Eric_Hyom]

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by the greatest commandments; this would have been the greatest way he could respond to each and every situation in his life. But how did Jesus love all his neighbours as he loved himself, Judas who betrayed him, the soldiers who nailed him to the cross? Jesus was an innocent man, with the power and authority to ask God for justice. But it seems that nothing, and no one should stand in the way of Jesus loving all his neighbours as he loved himself, and we know that he prayed on the cross, ‘forgive them Father’

It seems that every time Jesus suffered injustice here on Earth, he forgave, in order that he should continue to love the sinners as he loved himself. If Jesus can forgive the people who had him killed, then it should give us hope that we can be forgiven also. What kind of a burden do we place on Jesus with our sins?

After his resurrection does the divine nature of Jesus, follow his human nature? When Jesus ascended into heaven, does Jesus still forgive us, in order that he should continue to love each and every one of us as he loves himself?