The Golden Rule

Treat Others How You Wish to be Treated

This is ethically unsound.

First off, moral relativism is bullshit. Everything is relative. The right thing to do depends on the person, place, time, setting, culture, circumstance, awareness and general understanding. Moral relativism is a structural ethical scapegoat which gives people excuses to themselves and others allowing them to be ignorant and arrogant.

Moral relativism is easy but not truly ethical. It is ethical idealism.

Ethical idealism is only functional if everyone agrees and follows it in the same way but this is unrealistic and is unethical to expect it. The golden rule and ethical idealism falls apart completely the moment anyone disagrees with it or chooses not to follow it.

Now, more specifically regarding the golden rule. Examples paint a picture.

An extreme example for its impossibility of truth, would be violence out of self defense. If I harm someone out of self defense, do I wish for others to harm me? No.

Say I am a teacher and I need to get the attention of the class so I yell or raise my voice. Do I wish for others to raise their voice or yell at me? No. (I rarely yelled when I was a teacher. I did a few times.)

Say I help an old woman walk across the street. Do I wish for others to help me walk across the street? No.

Say I am promiscuous and am flirting with someone, do I wish for others to flirt with me? It depends on who you are.

Say I am angry with someone for manipulating me and I express this anger as a way of teaching a lesson and setting a boundary. Do I wish for others to be angry with me and "teach me a lesson?" No.

I can go on and on with examples.

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The truth of the golden rule exists as a form of monkey see, monkey do. This is a small grain of truth. As long as we use the golden rule as an excuse to treat others how we are treated, we will never advance as a species or society.

Just because someone acts a certain way or treats others a certain way, that is not an excuse to treat them the same. This inevitably and always hold us back.