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Which is the Golden Rule that you really follow:
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.
or
Do Unto Others As They Do Unto You.
One is the Golden Rule as Jesus described it. The other is an older basis for much of our common law. A friend of mine pointed out that it has been appropriated by a Satanic church in place of the Christian rule. He was trying to make a case that many would be conservative Christians, who harp on justice and vengeance, are really Satanic. That is pushing this well over the edge. Its the same as Old Testament law so it does have a Christian context.
However, it can open up a fun discusion on human justice, eye for an eye versus human compassion and what we should strive for.
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1) The Golden Rule is meant for personal conduct... it doesn't necessarily apply to human justice constructs.
2) It doesn't necessarily violate the Christian Golden Rule to say "If I did something that bad, I would want to be punished for it." Along these lines, being flippant, does the Golden Rule apply to Masochists?
3) The Golden Rule is intended to be more proactive. The admonition to turn the other cheek would be more along the lines of an injunction against retaliatory action.
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posted
Which philosopher was it (Sophocles, maybe?) who sacrificed himself to the law despite the fact that he could have got off in order to uphold the law of the city?
If I commit a crime, I don't want people to let me off, I want them to put me in jail because that is part of being a person in my society. I don't particularly want to be killed, but then I don't believe in the death sentence.
Also, this rule is somewhat flawed already, because if you commit a murder under the "do unto others what you would have them do to you" rule then you essentially are asking for the death penalty. However, if you murder the murderer, which, according to the rule is what he is 'asking' for by committing is crime, you are merely exacting revenge and the rule is "do unto others as they do to you". (Ooops- Dagonee said this already).
I think the two ideas are closely linked and you cannot live by one and not the other.
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quote:Which philosopher was it (Sophocles, maybe?) who sacrificed himself to the law despite the fact that he could have got off in order to uphold the law of the city?
From all the accounts I've read of Socrates' death, I think he submitted to the law just to have one last chance to insult the entire freakin' population of Athens to its face, one last time.
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posted
(I seem to have all my facts wrong these past few days) But why did he want to insult Athens?
Well even if my examples and claims are wrong, I think my point still stands, whether Socrates did or not. The law isn't there to necessarily exact revenge but to maintain some sort of order.
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posted
Hm. The wikipedia article on his death (if you're into that kind of thing ) seems to back up the idea I had got from his death- that he had the opportunity to flee and refused to:
quote:Socrates's followers encouraged him to flee (see: Crito), and indeed the city fathers expected this and were probably not averse to it; but he refused on principle and took the poison (hemlock) himself. Apparently in accordance with his philosophy of obedience to law, he carried out his own execution, by drinking the hemlock poison provided to him. He was, thus, one of the first of a limited number of strictly intellectual "martyrs".
And I definately read this somewhere more reliable, so it can't be a theory that's wholly insubstantial.
I don't dispute that he may have been a jerk.
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posted
Oh, yeah. I'm not saying he didn't submit to trial and punishment. I'm saying he did it because he wanted to go out insulting all of Athens. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I don't understand though. How is following your own personal law-abding philosophy insulting to or thumbing your nose at at Athens?
They convicted him. He was deliberately annoying during his trial, so they sentenced him to death. He submitted instead of running away. It looks to me like he just wanted to maintain the higher ground.
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Dan, many consider the alternate saying the silver rule, not Lex talionis (Latin for "law as retaliation"): Golden Rule "Do unto others as I would have them do unto me." Silver Rule: "Do unto others as they do unto me." Iron Rule "Do unto others before they do it to me." link I like Varley's rewording, for succinctness and humor not as a philosophy: "Screw unto others before they screw you." from The Golden Globe
I didn't know (or had forgotten) that LaVeyan Satanists had hijacked the silver rule. But they interpet the silver rule with far more selfishness and narcissisum than most people would. I bet many Satanists (I don't know any) would prefer Aleister Crowley's maxim: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law," though Crowley did not consider himself a Satanist.
Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative doesn't exactly lend itself to bumper stickers :
quote: "The rule of the judgement according to laws of pure practical reason is this: ask yourself whether, if the action you propose were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your own will. (...) If the maxim of the action is not such as to stand the test of the form of a universal law of nature, then it is morally impossible"
Critique of Practical Reason(trans. T.K. Abbott). I don't even want to know what wordiness is alluded to by that (...)... From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity This is a great link with many examples of Golden Rules in world culture.
posted
BTW, anyone who is claiming that Lex Talionis is a Christian concept because it draws on "eye for an eye" is completely ignoring the (rather salient) fact that it was never literal. At least not as practiced by the Jewish courts.
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quote: I don't understand though. How is following your own personal law-abding philosophy insulting to or thumbing your nose at at Athens?
It's not. I think we have a fundamental disagreement on how much pleasure Socrates must have received from the delivery of his last argument. *grin*
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I agree that there is something that is fundamentally different about what we are saying. I'm not quite sure what it is, though. Ah, well, it's somewhat off-topic, anyway.
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posted
Morbo, thanks. I like the Silver Rule vs the satanic conotations. It is a basis for most governance and in some ways defines civilization.
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posted
Every time I've seen this thread title I think it's a Harry Potter spell. Maybe posting here will help me remember that I've already opened the thread and it isn't.
quote:Along these lines, being flippant, does the Golden Rule apply to Masochists?
I've often thought similar things. And because of this point, I often thought the golden rule should be: "Do unto others as they would have done unto them". Of course, since another person might have destructive desires as well, it seems to boil down to a wishy-washy: "Do unto others as is best for them."
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quote:Every time I've seen this thread title I think it's a Harry Potter spell. Maybe posting here will help me remember that I've already opened the thread and it isn't.
I keep thinking it's a spell that means "cat's claw," and I get nervous. Our little Gussie has a way of hooking you with just one claw and then doing his pretty-boy smile (a'la Trevor's avatar at sakeriver, which is pretty adorable). Then it hurts worse if you move, but it's unbearable to stay.
quote:Originally posted by beverly: "Do unto others as is best for them."
I don't think that's wishy washy at all... the problem with it is the assumption that you know what's best for them.
At some point you have to leave them their autonomy, which explains why God doesn't just forcibly put everyone into heaven... but that probably belongs in the Susan thread...
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) seems to back up the idea I had got from his death- that he had the opportunity to flee and refused to:![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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