Submitted 1 month ago by Lumisal@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
It should be “Treat others the way they treat others”.
thats just eye for an eye. The golden rule is supposed to be a more virtuous. Now that being said you can meta it out like treating others the way you think you should be treated if you acted like that person was acting.
“an eye for an eye” is more reactive compared to this. In this case, it’s not about waiting for the person to harm you, but acting preemptively if they have a history of harming others.
I guess a modern example would be Putin. Let’s say he randomly walks into a bar unprotected for some reason in Comoros, but the Islanders know who he is and what he’s done as well.
In this case, Putin has done absolutely nothing to the people of Comoros, and his actions have had no effect on the island either. Yet, by this rule, he should be treated the same way he has treated Ukraine by the Islanders regardless.
As someone else has pointed out though, if you don’t know the person at all, then the default golden rule is fine enough.
Your observation is correct, but your conclusion is wrong. “Treat others as they want to be treated.” Different people have different needs.
Except OPs rule would essentially be identical.
When you see someone “treating others as they want to be treated” than that is what you’d do to them. Hence following that rule when it is deserved.
But unlike with “treat others as they want to be treated”, OPs version would mean you respond to malice in kind.
But responding to malice in kind is not always the right option. It is usually only the correct choice when the malicious person has no potential to change. Responding to a badly behaved teen with poor treatment only exacerbates the problem. On the other hand, responding to an oligarch with firm resistance would be the right choice.
The oligarch wants to be treated harshly because that is their core value by which they think the world operates, while the teen is often acting in a defensive posture to avoid harm to themselves and would respond to a more gentle hand.
And what if I don’t know (yet) how they treat others?
Well it was a shower thought not a philosophy one.
But with more thought on it, I’d still say the default rule by itself is broken, so perhaps it should be:
Treat others the way you want to be treated, unless you know how they treat others - then treat them as they do unto others.
This rule is however also broken. For example, if I come to you to ask for help, but you unkindly decline (cause unbeknown to me, you are really having a bad day), you will never receive any help from others, because you treated my like this. And as I will then reject your request for help, I will then be also excluded in the future from help from others. I.e. this rule will spiral into a bad state, because there is no forgiveness.
To solve this, we would need to make a new addition. And then we will be able fo identify another edge case, requiring another edge case. And this continues on and on.
The intention of these simple ethical/moral/social rules is to be as simple as possible, while still being a good approach. The are not intended to be absolutely followed, but to be a rule of thumb, until more information is available, to adapt properly to the situation.
You all looking at this through the lease of a civilized society.
The American version is “treat others like if you piss them off, they’ll shoot you, so be nice, but not too nice or they’ll sue you for harassment.”
Wow, nice jingoism
Thanks!
I only say is a self-mockery of our culture.
There’s like a bunch of “golden rules.”
The only one that seems to be true is:
“He who has the gold, makes the rules.”
😮💨
I thought it was “might makes right”. Can’t keep the gold otherwise.
The only flaw is that it’s incomplete. It should say “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you if you were them.”
Yeah, that’s a better version too.
Stephen Covey covered this in 7 Habits - treat others the way they want to be treated.
I don’t think that’s a good idea if that other person is, say, a pedophile.
I see everyone else has tried to improve the Golden Rule and completely missed your attempt to add a kill the killers loophole.
At least you got it
Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
That’s very naive. Your way leads to bad actors doing whatever they want while good actors suffer and are not able to fight back.
That beautiful world you dream of doesn’t exist, never did and never will.
I have examples from my own life where I treated people with decency after they mistreated me, and it ended up changing how they acted toward me in the future.
I also have multiple examples where I came at them with hostility, and that only led to further escalating hostility.
You can still punish people without an eye for an eye.
If a person loses control of their car and kills a pedestrian, an eye for an eye would mean the perpetrator would be killed.
A just legal system would put them in jail, make them pay financial restitution, and suspend their license.
Our actual legal system gives them a slap on the wrist and says don’t do that again
Counterpoint: Getting rid of the people making others blind makes more of the world see.
The issue with this, is that interpretation of actions as positive or negative treatment towqrds others are subjective. Treating someone who thinks they’re being a good person badly because you don’t think they’re authentic about it leads to a lot of circular nistreatment.
I don’t think it’s circular, I think it’ll burn itself out eventually.
That’s like the shit brown rule
Navigating the world requires a bit more discernment. Hugging a teenage bully and speaking to him with kind words does more for society and the bully himself than just “treating him like he treats others”, but it also requires more wisdom and self-control, for example.
Now my experience is purely anecdotal, but the bullies stopped bullying once I fought back, and even more so once I got others to also join me in physically fighting back.
WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 6 days ago
Since knowledge is woefully inadequate this would necessarily boil down to “treat others as you assume they treat others,” which is exactly the moral standard already followed by trigger-happy cops, ICE agents, MAGAs and racists in general.
Is that really the best you can do?
As far as the Golden Rule goes, itt immensely improved by framing it negatively - do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you.