‘Imagining yourself on the receiving end of your own behaviour is a good way to decide whether you’re doing what you think is right or wrong.’
Natalie Haynes, author and patron of Humanists UK
The Golden Rule is expressed in different ways but often takes the form:
‘Treat other people as you’d want to be treated in their situation.’
It is also sometimes expressed in a negative form:
‘Do not treat others in a way you would not like to be treated yourself.’
(This negative form is sometimes referred to as the Silver Rule, but many people see the two forms as different applications of the Golden Rule.)
How can the Golden Rule help?
The Golden Rule asks us to consider the consequences of our actions and their impact on other people. Following it can promote kindness and care for those in difficulty, because this is what we would likely want in their situation. It can help to encourage fairness, equality, and respect for other people. It discourages lying, bullying, cruelty, and theft, because few of us like to suffer in this way.
Where does the Golden Rule come from?
The Golden Rule has arisen independently in many different locations around the world and throughout history. It can be found in the writings of many religions and philosophies in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Humanists do not believe it has any divine source, but rather it is a pragmatic product of the fact that we are social animals who evolved to live together in communities and have developed the natural capacity for empathy – we can imagine each other’s feelings. Treating others well helped social groups to build trust, to collaborate, and to survive.
When humanists highlight the Golden Rule as an important feature of their moral decision making, they find themselves criticised in a variety of ways: ‘It is too simple!’, ‘It doesn’t always help!’, ‘Rules create more problems than they solve!’. Below we have set out some of these challenges and how a humanist (or anyone else) might respond to them.
We should not treat other people the way that we would like to be treated because other people might not like the same things as us.
The playwright George Bernard Shaw quipped, ‘Do not do to others as you would that they should do to you. Their tastes may not be the same,’ and, ‘The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.’
It is true that people are different. Other people might not share our tastes and desires. We might prefer chocolate; they may prefer cheese. We might be excited by danger; they may find it terrifying. We might prefer to always be told the truth; others may prefer the occasional white lie. Some people therefore argue that the Golden Rule demonstrates a lack of empathy as, in applying it, we are thinking only of our own desires and not considering how other people wish to be treated.
However, something has gone wrong if people apply the Golden Rule in this way. A better way to think about the Golden Rule is, instead of thinking about our own specific likes and dislikes, to consider our more general desires to be happy and to avoid suffering, to have our wishes taken into account and our fears avoided. Many of us share these more general needs.
I should not buy my friend salt and vinegar crisps because I like salt and vinegar crisps. I should buy her whichever flavour of crisps she likes, because I would like to be bought the flavour of crisps that I like. Many children are able to recognise and articulate this way of applying the Golden Rule.
This therefore requires that we don’t just think about what we would want, but try to imagine we were the other person, with their tastes and preferences, and think about how they would like to be treated. It demands that we apply empathy. Sometimes people call this the Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would want done to them. However, others recognise this simply as a more rational approach to applying the Golden Rule. Used well, then, the Golden Rule operates on a level above our particular individual tastes and desires. And this is the level on which most people sensibly apply it.
But what if we do not know their particular likes and dislikes?
This is, of course, possible. We often face the problem of imperfect knowledge. Sometimes we are able to accurately imagine the needs and desires of others, particularly when we know them well, and in many situations this will suffice. But it is often impossible to do this perfectly, and it is harder when we know a person less intimately. In some situations, we are able to simply ask the other person to fill us in on any information we are lacking: ‘What’s your favourite flavour of crisps?’. But this will not always be the case. The best we can do is try to take action based on the best information available to us at the time, accepting that we will sometimes get it wrong.
Some humanists therefore prefer the negative version of the Golden Rule, arguing that we can be more confident, but still not certain, that, if there is something we would not like to happen to us, it is best we do not do it to someone else.
The Golden Rule can’t solve more complicated moral dilemmas.
Not all moral questions are simple. Some can be complex or ambiguous. They involve situations in which our needs, desires, and values come into conflict with each other, or with those of other people. The simplicity of the Golden Rule can sometimes fail to give us clear guidance or information on exactly how we ought to act.
However, this criticism is perhaps asking too much of the Golden Rule. Many would argue that no single moral principle works perfectly for all moral dilemmas (that is why they are dilemmas). Few make the claim that the Golden Rule solves all our moral problems. It is perhaps better thought of as a helpful general principle that can guide our behaviour in many situations. Should I step on that child’s toe? Should I tell the man he has dropped his wallet? Should I say thank you to the woman who has helped me? What would I want in their situation?
The Golden Rule can help us with our general conduct. If more people followed the golden rule most of the time, then society will likely be a more comfortable place to live than if people rarely or never did.
Does the golden rule force us to never treat people in ways we would not like to be treated, whatever the circumstances?
Take the case of a judge considering whether a criminal should be sent to prison for stealing. Should the judge think about how she would like to be treated in the criminal’s situation? How much should she take into account the wishes and desires of the criminal? The criminal might not want to go to prison. Nor may the judge if she found herself in the criminal’s position. Does following the golden rule mean that we should never treat other people in ways that we would not want to be treated, regardless of the circumstances? That might mean we would never punish someone.
Instead, in this case, many would argue that we should not merely think about what the criminal wants, or what we would want if we were the criminal. Instead, we need to take into account other needs and desires, like what the victim, the community, or wider society would want, and what a fair judge would conclude was the best thing to do in this particular situation.
This is because moral questions often involve multiple people (and sometimes other animals). Our actions can have wider consequences. This can help us to consider not just what we might want in the criminal’s situation, but what we might accept ourselves in their situation as a fair and appropriate way to be treated given our understanding of the wider picture. That still requires some application of the Golden Rule.
Is it not possible that we or the other person desires the wrong thing?
What if another person is not of sound mind in the present moment and wishes to harm themselves? Or is angry and wishes to take violent revenge on somebody who has harmed them? We may recognise that, in their particular situation, we might also want the same. Does the Golden Rule then prevent us from trying to stop them?
In such a situation, we might consider that we generally want to act in ways that are rational and considered, rather than impulsive in the heat of the moment. Detached from the impulses facing the other person, we can find ourselves in a potentially advantageous position and bring the bigger picture to bear on the situation, thinking about the other person’s likely wider desires and goals.
What if someone’s desires are misguided due to misinformation or poor education? Again, we can consider whether we and they would prefer to act in ways that were informed by the best information available. That may give us the cause to intervene and prevent somebody from doing as they wish in the moment. However, we should always consider whether we are acting overly paternalistically and if our actions are overstepping our rights to infringe on other people’s autonomy. No one doubts that this can sometimes be difficult to judge.
Does the Golden Rule ask too much of us?
Some argue that the Golden Rule is too demanding. It is impossible, they argue, to consider others in the same way as ourselves all the time. It forces us to treat everyone equally, whether a stranger or friend. However, the fact that something is sometimes difficult does not mean that it must be rejected altogether. Ethics is an ongoing process of balancing our own needs with those of others and sometimes it can be reasonable to put ourselves or those close to us first. There is value, for example, in establishing bonds with family and friends.
In deciding whether to help a stranger in the moment if that would hinder some obligation we have to ourselves or to a friend, we can take that into account in imagining how we would wish to be treated in their situation knowing that such an obligation existed. Applying the Golden Rule can involve consideration of the wider picture and the impact on others whom our actions might affect.
Is the Golden Rule a non-negotiable demand?
No. It is perhaps best not to think about it as a ‘rule’ in the sense that it must always be followed (that is not the way humanist ethics tends to work). Rather we can recognise it as a principle, among others, that can help to guide our behaviour. Sometimes other moral principles may carry more weight. Recognising its general value should not stop us from thinking for ourselves about the particular situation. When a humanist says they try to follow the Golden Rule, that rarely means unquestioningly at the expense of any deeper moral thinking.
If the Golden Rule isn’t perfect, should we abandon it?
Philosophers can, and should, pick holes in the Golden Rule. It is healthy for us to do the same with all moral claims. Some of the apparent flaws in the Golden Rule can be corrected when we think about how we might best define or apply it. Critics might say that the responses above have stretched the definition of the Golden Rule too far. It has lost its original simplicity. That may be true, but many people do not apply the Golden Rule in such a simplistic sense in practice.
However, there are still situations in which the Golden Rule on its own can’t tell us what we ought to do. Therefore, its general utility does not mean that we don’t often need to think more deeply about our actions. Many would agree that other moral principles often come into play. The Golden Rule can’t guide all our moral decision making on its own. Sometimes the decision over how much weight to give it can be complicated.
Nonetheless, we need not abandon it. It is perhaps better not understood as a universal moral law (‘rule’ is perhaps the wrong label to attach to it), but instead thought of as a helpful practical tool among others. It provides answers to many of our day-to-day ethical questions, answers that often receive broad agreement, and that help us live well together. In many situations it can be a useful starting point when thinking about how we should act. It provides a prompt to us to apply empathy and imagine what it would be like to be in somebody else’s position. The Golden Rule need not take precedence over other moral principles. Nor does it require us to ignore them. However, if we choose not to apply the Golden Rule, then there is value in asking what justifications we have for not doing so.
The bigger question, then, is perhaps not whether the Golden Rule is the all-powerful arbiter of what is right and wrong (few humanists would claim that), but whether encouraging people to observe it is generally helpful in building a more ethical society. Would you prefer to live in a world in which people broadly applied the Golden Rule or one in which they didn’t?
If you’re a teacher you can find resources to support teaching about humanist ethics and the Golden Rule here.
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