The Golden Rule Has Been Downgraded

Being raised a Christian I thought I knew what the "Golden Rule" was. Both the church I attended and my parents taught me to, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And neither my parents nor the church used any qualifiers to restrict me from applying that rule to everyone I met.

As I grew older I discovered that Christians were not the only people who had this philosophy and that it could be found in almost every religion. Of course the other religions used their own words like, "That which is hateful unto you, do not impose on others" (Judaism) and "Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you" (Confucianism).

Today however I learned that there are now several golden rules. There is a Golden Rule savings rate, a Golden Rule (fiscal policy), Fermi's golden rule and Ronen's golden rule for cluster radioactivity. And what I used to call the Golden Rule is now called the ethic of reciprocity.

Now to be sure I knew the correct new name I searched online and found several places that defined the ethic of reciprocity as:

The ethic of reciprocity, more commonly known as the Golden Rule, is an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others. Reciprocity is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, though it has its critics. A key element of the golden rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people, not just members of his or her in-group, with consideration.

It looks like the Golden Rule has been downgraded from a religious Rule to a moral Ethic!

Now I have a few issues with this downgrade.

1. Did anyone get their God's permission?
   
   
2. Where as God's rules have to be obeyed or you suffer the consequences, ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality and often change significantly over time.
   

Of course making the Golden Rule an ethic does offer some benefits. People now control it's definition and

1. They can control who it applies to. In other words they can say the ethic only applies to people like themselves..
   
   
2. They can change it's definition to something like, do more for those who have the most in the hope they'll give you some.
   
   
3. They can decide it's no longer an moral ethic since it no longer applies to anyone.
   

I read somewhere that only those without power and those who have sympathy for them have moral ethics. And while I didn't initially believe this, the more I think about it the more I tend to agree.

Take the current arguments over health care reform that are going on right now. As I see it the arguing camps are:

1. Those who have health care and don't care about anyone else. (See number 1 above.)
   
   
2. Those who don't have health care and think things will get better if we leave our health care system alone. (See number 2 above.)
   
   
3. Those who do/don't have health care and think everyone should have it. (The current ethic of reciprocity.)
   
   
4. Those who make the decisions about health care and think keeping it a major, for-profit business is the most important issue. (See number 3 above.)
   

So I'll go back to one of my questions about making the Golden Rule an ethic -

Did anyone get their God's permission to make this downgrade?

If no one did then those who aren't following the rule are in big trouble and need to start preparing for their consequences.

Susan