Talk:Golden Rule (ethics)

I feel extremely glad to remedy WP's lack of a useful, practical article on the "golden rule." ("Ethic of reciprocity," I think we can all agree, is not very useful to the average citizen, although good on history and the academic side of the golden rule.)

I note that my upper case "Golden Rule" title or pagename does not follow WP guidelines to usually use lower case, but I don't really care one little bit. So I followed what WP currently does for this particular name. For7thGen 04:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

My wording for the first paragraph, now more precisely worded, should now be: "Similar wordings, listed in Ethic of reciprocity, can be found in virtually all written-language cultures, moral codes and religions, from humankind's earliest writings to the present. This shows that, in virtually all cultures with written languages, the golden rule is a fundamental moral principle." I have to depend on others for the history of the golden rule, so I'll have to abide by whatever wording the Ethic of reciprocity (which covers the history area) ends up with, whether "virtually all" or not. This is a matter for experts to judge and I do NOT want to become expert in history.

Ethic of reciprocity should give the exact issue and page numbers for the book The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant to verify the date from ~1970-1640 BCE. I can't spend $32 for the book so I can't verify my wording "from humankind's earliest writings to the present" just yet. When Ethic of reciprocity is cleaned up, I hope that quote will then be verified. For now, my wording "from early writings to the present" is of course verified in Leviticus. For7thGen 07:46, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops, changed my mind. I reminded myself, I want this article to "win friends and influence" U.S. citizens, so rather than the hardness of precision, I want softness and friendliness. So I changed it back to Horncomposer's version (thank you, Horncomposer). That means I can no longer use the wording "This basic (=fundamental) moral principle," in the second-to-last paragraph, so I rewrote that paragraph, precisely, and then softened it from "are not acting" to "may not be acting." For7thGen 17:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Clarification, especially the next-last paragraph, about consistency: After even more thought, I finally realized that readers need that consistency topic clarified. And I'm always willing to try to help the reader. For7thGen 00:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Dropped automatic numbering of footnotes
Because of the deep division between users who autonumber their footnotes and users who autonumber their embedded external links (eLinks), I have decided to treat the latter as they would like to be treated, i.e., decided to give up autonumbering of the footnotes in this article until simultaneous autonumbering becomes possible. So I'm adopting historical ordering of a bulleted list of footnotes in the Footnotes section and of the same footnotes in the text, so no maintenance is needed (other users just drop a new footnote at the end of the list and use the next available footnote number, or are free to use autonumbered eLinks, or whatever they wish to do). Thus the order of appearance is currently 3 1 4 1b 2 in the text. However, these manually numbered footnotes (using ref_label and note_label templates) seem to be right on the edge of working -- for their backlinks in the Footnotes section, the numbers 1,3,4, and 5 work fine, but I could not make a superscript 2 click-link appear, the  appeared instead. Therefore I settled for, for this one case. As I say, these templates may somehow be on the hairy edge of working. I myself don't choose to report this at Bugzilla just yet, but anyone else may choose to do so, after confirming the problem to their own satisfaction. For7thGen 15:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

still not perfect
JFK's way of stating the golden rule might be better than the more common "do unto others as you would have done unto you" but it is still not perfect. The problem with the golden rule is everyone wants different things, and also some of those things are bad. Like if you see a hot girl you might want her to jump you and start tearing your clothes off, but that doesn't mean you should do that to her. But JFK's version has similar problems. Suppose you knew someone who was in prison, and if you were in their situation you would want someone to help you break out? It is easy to think of many other similar examples where difficulties would arise. I think a better way is "love your neighbor as yourself" because although it is more passive since it doesnt say to do anything, this is actually better because it keeps it more general, and if you love someone it implies that you would do good things to them and treat them very well. Of course it should be extended to everyone, not just to neighbors - "love each person as yourself." The only remaining problem is if you hate yourself. So maybe "Love each person as most people love themselves" but that sounds stupid, so how about "Love each person as one would love oneself." I think everyone gets what the Golden Rule is trying to say but when you take it literally it doesnt work. I'm just looking for the best way to state it. anyone have any ideas? TheTruth12 09:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there needs to be a separate page for JFK's version of the golden rule. 7thGen claims that this is the useful version, but really it is barely more useful than the other versions (see my above argument). I think this article should just be part of the regular Golden Rule article. TheTruth12 09:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Love one another as you would love yourself.
 * TheTruth12, you apparently missed the footnote on the more useful version of the golden rule, which clearly states who authored it.  Please go back and look again (it was not JFK).  I sort-of said that JFK successfully used it, although of course he could not have used Harry Gensler's statement of it, really, because JFK was speaking about 30 years earlier.  And I haven't looked at this article for a long time, and didn't realize how small the break was between JFK and the improved version itself.  I've fixed that now.


 * And I do agree with you that the more useful version is still not perfect. I've looked at Harry Gensler's book on ethics (see his website mentioned in the above footnote), and I think he would agree with you and me that no perfect statement of the rule is possible.  Probably he and I both feel that he came as close to it as a human can do.  I actually like your version too, but Harry Gensler has worked on the golden rule and on ethics for decades, with good results -- his version helps or guides the user as I tried to spell out.


 * Since you are not a registered user, of course you don't have a talk page for me to use for this reply. And I should add, since your other WP contributions are mostly religious, that my interests are not religious at all, but ethical instead.  And what "regular Golden Rule article" are you talking about?  I suppose you meant Ethic of reciprocity.  For7thGen 22:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

i agree, there doesnt seem to be a perfect way of saying it, but somehow we have an implicit notion of what it may mean. i made a mistake thinking that it orignated from JFK, but it is more clear in the article now. i meant the "Ethic of reciprocity" article. I am interested in both religion and ethics.

I've got it! "Care for others as much as you would like others to care for you." This is about a feeling rather than actions, but that's good b/c it is more general and so avoids the problems of the other wordings, and naturally you would want someone to care for you enough that it would motivate them to act kindly toward you. Also it says "as much" instead of "as" or "how," b/c the rule is not to treat others the exact same way you want to be treated, but to treat them as well as you would like to be treated. If you care for someone the way you care for yourself, you would treat them in a kind way that is likeable to them, even if it would be less likeable to you. The only problem i still see is people who hate themselves. I think this is the best way to state the concept that i have seen. I guess since i havent earned degrees or written books on ethics, it can't be in the article. Maybe someday.TheTruth12 01:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge
Shouldn't this be merged into "ethics of repriocity" or whatever it's called? They're the same subject, really. -Alex, 12.220.157.93 00:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC).
 * Yes, I was thinking the same thing myself. It's hard to imagine how they could be separate articles, especially in their current state. Scott Ritchie 08:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not disagree with merging them, under the title Golden Rule (ethics), which I wrote originally. Without an article of this name, someone else will surely add one -- no self-respecting encyclopedia can be without one. And I would like to merge the two articles. Maybe a miracle will occur and I'll somehow find the time to do it within a month or two. For7thGen 09:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to merge them now. I shall preserve most of both articles, preserving all that I reasonably can and still get a coherent integrated article. I am not "cleaning up" ethic of reciprocity as discussed on its talk page:
 * Removed NPOV tag, following deletion of "Exceptions" section (see above). Added clean up tag, as the article looks like it needs it. Does the title need to be moved to "The Golden Rule" with the "Ethic of reciprocity" a redirect? The Golden Rule is the more common phrase. --nirvana2013 21:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I need more detailed info about what to clean up. I invite you, nirvana2013, to do it yourself. I think you can tell which parts of the integrated or merged article are which: The 1st paragraph will be from my Golden Rule article, the rest of the intro will be from reciprocity, the first 2 sections will be from GR and the remaining sections will be from reciprocity. I will add more here after I finish. For7thGen 23:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Done, more-or-less. I am not competent to remove the article ethic of reciprocity. I am leaving removal, and redirecting of that name, for someone else. I did clean up that article somewhat, as needed, but did not touch its History list. I included all its external links, which are now #1-6 in Other links, even though I wish I had time to check them out. One link was already in my footnote 2, and needed there, so I omitted that one.

I did get The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, first item in the History list, from the library, but it is really a transcribing (into a standardized version of hieroglyphics), rather than a translation into English. I believe one would need to get a copy of his thesis on this topic, to see his translation. There are plenty of websites with a sample of the English translation, which I enjoyed, but they don't include the quoted passage. I similarly tried to locate about 5 more non-Bible items on that History list, trying to provide source documentation, but was unsuccessful. I'll post this same comment on reciprocity's talk page, and on Scott Ritchie's and on nirvana2013's, for their info and so either one can finish up this job.... For7thGen 01:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Improvement of article to have "the formal tone expected"
I hope the main culprit was my footnote 2, and I believe I've changed it to attain the "professional tone expected of an encyclopedia." I knew it fell short, but there are other things more important, so I gave it the old college try... I believe the article itself always has been almost a model article in this regard, except for my currently unconventional footnote numbering, changed for good reason as discussed above. If the WP community thinks they have to be numbered in order of appearance rather than in chronological order, okay, I'll do that and the footnotes will then be conventional.

I did look at the guideline for improving articles and found my article itself to be a model article. I looked at the link on things to avoid, found no problem, not even my use of Encycopedia Brittanica as a source -- which I believe is frowned upon in our community but which I couldn't avoid. How can one find any website which says that the term "golden rule" goes back 400 years? A book could be found to use as a source, of course... Well, I did avoid using that footnote (#3) by rewording the first sentence of the article, without spoiling the sentence totally. Thus, the remaining footnotes are now in order of appearance as well as chronological order.

So I will need help to see what specific words or sentences in the article remain as culprits. (I do realize that some people will object to an article on the golden rule that tells how to apply it. If that is the problem, I'm sorry, we'll have to take it to the Wikipedia community to decide.)  But any other problem I'm sure I'll be able to agree to redo as needed. And I very much liked the posted notice allowing me to change the article and to ask for help on the talk page, which I am now doing.

I just looked at the article's history, and I saw that removal of personal reference was called for. So I did that. Thanks for your help, Scott Ritchie. And I checked your user page and contributions, to get acquainted. I too would like to improve our voting system, such as by an instant runoff system, which both main parties should like. For7thGen 11:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)