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

[Bradski]

Perceived by whom? This would, again, appear to be tautological: “A creature has dignity when it is perceived to have dignity.”

No, I didn’t say that, either. To repeat: ‘Bestowing dignity is recognising that a sentient creature has worth, or value’. Dignity flows from its having worth. It’s a character that you perceive of that creature that you personally believe has worth in itself. If you don’t think it has dignity, you don’t feel it has any worth and vica versa.

Why does a human person have inherent dignity?

Close friends and family have worth to me. They have value. I don’t think that needs further explanation. So it’s reasonable to assume that everyone else feels the same way about their family and friends. So everyone has value or worth to someone else. If you recognise that worth in others, then you can grant them dignity. If you see no worth, then you would have no problem treating them in an undignified way.

And why is that? What makes a human person “valuable and worthy” but a plankton “valuable but not worthy”?? You said it’s not sentience that is the qualifier. So what is it that gives an entity its inherent worth?

If you think that a plankton feels some attachment to other plankton or that a plankton would feel happy or sad or distressed in regard to another plankton’s situation or even its own, then you can consider it valuable and worthy and grant it dignity. I said earlier that just being sentient doesn’t automatically grant you dignity but anyone would have a hard time suggesting that something that wasn’t sentient could be worthy of being considered dignified.

Interesting. You feel that there are some areas in which I am incorrect in my discernment of what is moral and immoral. So there is an objective morality to which you appeal, yes? IOW: morality is less like, “I think turnips are the best root vegetable, and you don’t. That’s fine for you. Not for me.” And more like, “This is a circle, and if you think it’s a square you are incorrect”, yes?

I believe that there are degrees of morality. It’s not all black and white. I think I said earlier that some things are wrong and some things ‘less wrong’. Lying would normally be considered morally wrong but telling someone a lie to protect them from being hurt may be the right thing to do. There’s the relativity as I see it. You might lie to protect someone and think it’s the right thing to do but I wouldn’t.

So is there an objective morality which is true in all cases, which is waiting ‘out there’ for me to discover? I am pretty certain that there is not. However…taking very careful aim at my own foot…I have two problems nagging at me.

The first is that there are some things I can envisage which no-one in their right mind would consider morally acceptable. That would imply that there is either an objective morality of a morality which we could describe as ‘common to all’. Is that the same thing said differently? Is it just a matter of how we define it?

And the second is my belief, and I would suggest that it is backed by evidence, that the world is becoming a more moral place. Yes, there are conflicts and murders and rapes and any number of immoral acts, but overall we are all becoming more ‘civilised’. There seems to be a greater awareness of what constitutes a moral life. So we’re heading in a particular direction. So where is that direction taking us? Ever towards that ‘objective morality’? Or are we just agreeing more and more what is ‘common to all’.

 

[Bradski]

There is an inconsistency here because you say

1. “…we have different obligations. It cannot possibly be any other way”
   But then add
2. “I can’t see that there can be two equally correct answers to a moral problem. Therefore one is wrong (or less right)”

The question you seem to be dancing around is whether “being wrong” means the racist is obliged to change her behaviour even though she may think there is nothing morally wrong with it. This is the question, at heart, that Roscoe was asking and PR is implying is the case.

Roscoe asked whether anyone has a right to tell others what to do. In a sense, this is a meaningless question because it is not a person that “tells” another what is right or wrong, it is morality itself that does. The person relaying their position is merely the agent for morality and is simply passing on the answer to the question in much the same way as a scientist passes on the truth about physics or chemistry, to the best of their ability.

As rational beings, we are obliged to accept the truth whether that be in science or morality. If something is morally wrong, we are obliged to live by that knowledge.

We are, individually, obliged to act as we best see fit. So if I say that it’s OK to do XYZ, you are quite at liberty to tell me that you believe that it’s wrong. But if you tell me that it’s wrong, however you personally came to that decision, the reasons that you must give me must stand up to investigation. You have to have a logical reason why it’s wrong other than ‘it just is’. Which is exactly what I hear when you bring the divine into the argument (nnd if there is no other argument than God wills it, then we end up with Euthyphro’s argument).

So I think (as would you) that the racist is obliged to change her mind. I feel that you and I are fully within our rights to tell her that she is wrong. The question is, what arguments would convince her. Would you prefer that she changes her ways because someone has convinced her that it is wrong in itself or would it be better to help her understand what racism actually is, what it does, how it affects people and then let her decide herself if she needs to change?

As PR said: Logic and reason are how we test moral questions. I need to hear logic and reason applied without recourse to anything divine.

I suspect what underlies this issue is the difference between obligation (or permissibility) and culpability.

A human being who has grown up in a culture where the practice of cannibalism is sanctioned by their society may be less culpable for killing and eating another human, but that is not the same as being morally permitted to engage in killing simply because their social group deems it so.

But my argument is that, whatever we think, people in that culture are acting morally as far as they understand. Whether we agree or not is another matter.

Given this, a human being being who claims others “do not have a right to tell him what is moral” simply does not understand what morality means. Indeed, we have an obligation to make morality clear to each other and to seek clarity where differences exist. I would argue that we are obligated to listen to differing viewpoints as an aspect of moral deliberation.

Couldn’t agree more.

However, in the end, when dealing with issues of morality, one must come to a decision. [Behavior A] is either moral or immoral. We may be able to see the “sides” which complicate the issue, but that does not mean that morality is not objective.

But if someone asks: Is killing wrong? then the first response surely must be: In what context? It has to have context to have any meaning and if that is so, then the context can obviously change and we then have relative morality.

However, the one option a moral agent does not have regarding moral questions is to conclude that it does not matter which side is taken - that is entirely what makes it a moral question after all, i.e., that we are obliged to accept the decided answer to every moral question.

We cannot choose to simply sidestep the question completely and pretend both sides of a moral question CAN be correct, because THAT is making a determination that the question is NOT a moral one after all because whatever choice is made is inconsequential.

The point of moral questions is that the answer DOES matter and the choices ARE monumentally consequential. In fact, there is an obligation to find the “right” answer that is implicit in moral questions.

I tend to agree with most of that. But there are situations where there is no simple right or wrong answer that can be ‘common to all’.

 

[meltzerboy]

No, I didn’t say that, either. To repeat: ‘Bestowing dignity is recognising that a sentient creature has worth, or value’. Dignity flows from its having worth. It’s a character that you perceive of that creature that you personally believe has worth in itself. If you don’t think it has dignity, you don’t feel it has any worth and vica versa.

Close friends and family have worth to me. They have value. I don’t think that needs further explanation. So it’s reasonable to assume that everyone else feels the same way about their family and friends. So everyone has value or worth to someone else. If you recognise that worth in others, then you can grant them dignity. If you see no worth, then you would have no problem treating them in an undignified way.

If you think that a plankton feels some attachment to other plankton or that a plankton would feel happy or sad or distressed in regard to another plankton’s situation or even its own, then you can consider it valuable and worthy and grant it dignity. I said earlier that just being sentient doesn’t automatically grant you dignity but anyone would have a hard time suggesting that something that wasn’t sentient could be worthy of being considered dignified.

I believe that there are degrees of morality. It’s not all black and white. I think I said earlier that some things are wrong and some things ‘less wrong’. Lying would normally be considered morally wrong but telling someone a lie to protect them from being hurt may be the right thing to do. There’s the relativity as I see it. You might lie to protect someone and think it’s the right thing to do but I wouldn’t.

So is there an objective morality which is true in all cases, which is waiting ‘out there’ for me to discover? I am pretty certain that there is not. However…taking very careful aim at my own foot…I have two problems nagging at me.

The first is that there are some things I can envisage which no-one in their right mind would consider morally acceptable. That would imply that there is either an objective morality of a morality which we could describe as ‘common to all’. Is that the same thing said differently? Is it just a matter of how we define it?

And the second is my belief, and I would suggest that it is backed by evidence, that the world is becoming a more moral place. Yes, there are conflicts and murders and rapes and any number of immoral acts, but overall we are all becoming more ‘civilised’. There seems to be a greater awareness of what constitutes a moral life. So we’re heading in a particular direction. So where is that direction taking us? Ever towards that ‘objective morality’? Or are we just agreeing more and more what is ‘common to all’.

I’m not sure the world is becoming a more moral place, at least not in the sense of a unified morality. On the contrary, I think we are going in our own direction with regard to morality. Perhaps we are more tolerant of differences in moral beliefs than previously, and in this sense are more civil with respect to one another’s beliefs, but I don’t think we agree more concerning an objective morality.

 

[PRmerger]

It is the point. If it’s relative or open to interpretation it’s not absolute.

I will concede that beautiful poetry is relative.

However, you need to address the point that it is inutile to demand that mathematics be used to evaluate poetry.

You do see how that is an ineffective paradigm by which we judge poetry, yes?

 

[PRmerger]

No, I didn’t say that, either. To repeat: ‘Bestowing dignity is recognising that a sentient creature has worth, or value’. Dignity flows from its having worth.

So you haven’t yet answered the question: what gives a human person worth? Its sentience? Is that a correct explication of your position?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m not sure the world is becoming a more moral place, at least not in the sense of a unified morality. On the contrary, I think we are going in our own direction with regard to morality. Perhaps we are more tolerant of differences in moral beliefs than previously, and in this sense are more civil with respect to one another’s beliefs, but I don’t think we agree more concerning an objective morality.

The problem with tolerance is that it doesn’t resolve the deep issues between moral perspectives, it simply ignores them under the umbrella of being tolerant.

As those moral differences deepen and become irreconcilable, the facade of tolerance will break apart and the “liberty” of those with power will undermine or subdue the liberties of those without.

This is precisely what has happened with abortion. The political power of women with a voice has simply overwhelmed the voiceless unborn. The unborn, largely because they have no voice have been relegated to non-person status by political fiat.

The morals of the less endowed, politically speaking, will simply be ignored or overwhelmed by the quest for liberties by the more powerful. Liberty is, at best, amoral.

Any political system that is based solely on the power of the majority will always be susceptible to the problem of political might (majority rules) makes right. The Casey Decision enshrined that ultimate flaw as law.

Morality functions as the governing control for liberty. Having a sound moral system is the only means by which the excesses of liberty (even of the majority) can be kept in check. A neutral (or natural) moral system must be the final arbitrator or the political system will impose political might rather than moral right.

The existing moral stasis will always be challenged by those who seek greater liberty and thus tension will always exist between liberty and morality. That tension exists within each of us and within every human society.

The danger in the current situation is that we have in the modern western world an inchoate admixture of moral positions that have been lumped together by globalization. That moral soup has no legs - no common base - from which to adequately assess, morally speaking, the overwhelming demands by libertarians that personal liberties be viewed as civil “rights.”

The fact that we do have varying moral positions has led to the assumption of moral relativity as the de facto position, so there is no neutral moral standard or ground from which to assess the moral quality of those demands concerning personal liberty.

Libertarians have seized the opportunity within the existing moral vacuum to push forward their ostensibly morally neutral, but, in reality, morally flawed view that personal liberties ought to be paramount.

My own view is that the situation is a powder keg waiting to ignite. The personal liberties of some will always bump up against the personal liberties of others. So liberty cannot be the standard by which differences or conflicts about liberty are to be resolved.

A common morality is the only possible solution because liberties by their very nature must have limits in human society and must be abided (seen as obligatory) by every member of that society in order for the tension between personal liberty and the welfare of all to be balanced.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

I will concede that beautiful poetry is relative.

However, you need to address the point that it is inutile to demand that mathematics be used to evaluate poetry.

You do see how that is an ineffective paradigm by which we judge poetry, yes?

Peter was saying that we could know an absolute answer when it comes to morality. I was just asking for clarification. How can we know when we’ve arrived at an absolute answer in terms of morality. Is there some test?

You made the poetry analogy, not me. Are you equating morality to poetry? In that it is open to interpretation, with no set answer. I would find that surprising.

Maybe you could be more clear in what conclusion you were trying to draw.

 

[PRmerger]

But if someone asks: Is killing wrong? then the first response surely must be: In what context? It has to have context to have any meaning and if that is so, then the context can obviously change and we then have relative morality.

Well, yes, context is always important.

And what you describe above is quite Catholic.

To wit: Catholicism proclaims that the morality of a particular action is dependent upon:

• The act itself
• The situation
• The motive

That is, some things may be moral because of one’s motive. But if one’s motive changes, it may become immoral.

However, to conclude, “Therefore, everything is relative” is, ironically, an absolutism that ought not be applied here.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Ah, a “Question of Balance”.

Just open your heart
And that’s a start.

And he thought of those he angered,
For he was not a violent man,
And he thought of those he hurt
For he was not a cruel man
And he thought of those he frightened
For he was not an evil man,
And he understood.
He understood himself.

Upon this he saw that when he was of anger or knew hurt or felt fear,
It was because he was not understanding,
And he learned, compassion.

And with his eye of compassion.
He saw his enemies like unto himself,
And he learned love.
Then, he was answered.

 

[PRmerger]

Peter was saying that we could know an absolute answer when it comes to morality.

True, dat.

I was just asking for clarification. How can we know when we’ve arrived at an absolute answer in terms of morality. Is there some test?

Yes. But it is not through empirical science, and controlled studies.

You made the poetry analogy, not me. Are you equating morality to poetry? In that it is open to interpretation, with no set answer. I would find that surprising.

Morality here is equated to poetry only in that I would never demand that you analyze poetry by using mathematics alone.

Similarly, you ought not demand that morality be analyzed by using empirical science alone.

 

[PRmerger]

As PR said: Logic and reason are how we test moral questions. I need to hear logic and reason applied without recourse to anything divine.

I think that logic and reason have been applied to almost every moral question you’ve ever addressed here, Bradski.

I know that I never appeal to the Scriptures or to the Catechism when attempting to dialogue with an atheist*. That would be as fruitless, of course, as a Muslim appealing to the Koran to convince me that Jesus is not divine.

*Please take this absolute in context. I may have appealed to the Bible or to the Catechism in dialogue with atheists in order to provide apologia for why Catholicism proclaims something, but I never do this in an attempt to convince an atheist. I appeal to logic and reason alone.

 

[PRmerger]

Close friends and family have worth to me. They have value. I don’t think that needs further explanation.

Of course it requires further explanation.

They have worth to you, why?

So it’s reasonable to assume that everyone else feels the same way about their family and friends.

Someone may then conclude, “So it’s reasonable to assume that everyone feels the same way about their family and friends, and therefore anyone who has no family or friends is worthless.”

You respond to this, how?

If you think that a plankton feels some attachment to other plankton or that a plankton would feel happy or sad or distressed in regard to another plankton’s situation or even its own, then you can consider it valuable and worthy and grant it dignity. I said earlier that just being sentient doesn’t automatically grant you dignity but anyone would have a hard time suggesting that something that wasn’t sentient could be worthy of being considered dignified.

So if it’s not sentience that gives one her worth, then what is it?

Are you saying that it’s your perception of another that gives her worth? It’s all based on how you view others?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Yes. But it is not through empirical science, and controlled studies.

What pray tell is the test?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Well, yes, context is always important.

And what you describe above is quite Catholic.

To wit: Catholicism proclaims that the morality of a particular action is dependent upon:

• The act itself
• The situation
• The motive

That is, some things may be moral because of one’s motive. But if one’s motive changes, it may become immoral.

However, to conclude, “Therefore, everything is relative” is, ironically, an absolutism that ought not be applied here.

To clarify…

The fact that there are three dimensions to moral choices and actions does not, as Bradski seems to claim, make morality relative because an assessment of the three dimensions together can render any similar act involving similar motive and circumstances as consistently moral or immoral.

The fact that any person who commits Act A, under Circumstance B, with Motive C, will make that moral choice always moral or immoral. Just because an assessment of moral decisions or actions is dimensionally complex does not mean the assessment is relative.

What is NOT being claimed is that Person Z is committing an immoral act given A, B, and C, but person W is not, just because they are different persons. Morality is not relative between individuals. It holds for all persons equally and absolutely, given that the act, circumstances and motives are the same.

 

[PRmerger]

What pray tell is the test?

Logic and reason. That is, philosophical science.

Moral relativism is refuted by applying one’s logic and reason.

 

[Bookcat]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58

scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a6.htm#III

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

A common morality is the only possible solution because liberties by their very nature must have limits in human society and must be abided (seen as obligatory) by every member of that society in order for the tension between personal liberty and the welfare of all to be balanced.

Isn’t the only way to truly have a shared morality is a Theocracy? Wouldn’t they destroy the liberty of Religious freedom? Sort of a catch 22.

Again the old saw, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

Religion is something that we take unto ourselves because we see the truth of it. If another man doesn’t see the truth of it, he won’t take it up. He may see another truth that you are not willing to pick up. Each man carries his own mantle. If there is a disagreement, as long as one isn’t hitting the other in the nose, they can co-exist.

‘Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.’ - Thoreau

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58

scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a6.htm#III

Would you say that the Golden Rule is one of the principles or underpins Catholicism?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Logic and reason. That is, philosophical science.

Moral relativism is refuted by applying one’s logic and reason.

How con you have an “absolute” when you have multiple answers?

 

[PRmerger]

Isn’t the only way to truly have a shared morality is a Theocracy? Wouldn’t they destroy the liberty of Religious freedom? Sort of a catch 22.

How would it be a theocracy if every woman is allowed to pursue an education?

How would it be a theocracy if no man is permitted to rape a woman?

How would it be a theocracy if no child were ever molested?

I don’t understand what you are proposing?

Again the old saw, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

What about if this other man is attacking my child?

Religion is something that we take unto ourselves because we see the truth of it. If another man doesn’t see the truth of it, he won’t take it up. He may see another truth that you are not willing to pick up. Each man carries his own mantle. If there is a disagreement, as long as one isn’t hitting the other in the nose, they can co-exist.

‘Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.’ - Thoreau