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The Golden Rule is flawed, as the Wikipedia article explains in the criticism section. Your comment bought to mind this quote from Deutsch: "The Golden Rule (t

The Golden Rule is flawed, as the Wikipedia article explains in the criticism section. Your comment bought to mind this quote from Deutsch: "The Golden Rule (treat others as you would wish to be treated) has the same fatal flaw as future-is-like-the-past inductivism: it justifies anything and nothing, depending on what attributes of the other person you choose to imagine yourself having. And so, like induction, it only seems to yield some specific moral conclusion if you had already reached that conclusion by other means." - David Deutsch. Here, "other means" is just the scientific method (conjecture, criticism) generalised to morality. So I'd say that the scientific method, (and a good epistemology in general), is a more valuable concept than the Golden Rule. https://twitter.com/DavidDeutschOxf/status/252319105200295936 https://twitter.com/DavidDeutschOxf/status/25231910520029593...

hueving 10y ago
>treat others as you would wish to be treated This is particularly problematic because it assumes you know everything about the other person's situation. "If I were acting like that, I would be thankful if someone hit me in the face to make me realize how rude I was being." "If I were poor, I would be grateful for someone who took away my government handouts so I became self-sustaining." "If I were rich, I wouldn't mind being taxed at 98%." Etc
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Yes, humans can rationalize anything. And yes, you don't know everything about the other person's situation. But the Golden Rule is still a huge step up from "Spend all your time trying to find ways to screw the other person over".
vacri 10y ago
Conversely, the scientific method has no human warmth to it. It doesn't give us much of a mechanism to build better societies given our human flaws. As an example: take the death of a loved one. The scientific method tells us "shit happens for no reason". The golden rule tells us to comfort our companion. Truth is a fine thing, but there are things in our experience that aren't limited to simple veracity of facts. And just like there are people out there who disagree on what the golden rule means, so too are there people who disagree on the scientific method - I've lost count of the number of times that I've had to say here on HN that the scientific method extends beyond 'test the null hypothesis'. > it justifies anything and nothing, depending on what attributes of the other person you choose to imagine yourself having. Only if you apply it in a flawed or superficial manner. Heuving's example of "I'd like someone to punch me in the face" is a clear example of this. The scientific method has equally poor results if you apply it in a flawed or superficial manner. In any case, regardless of opinion on which is better, they're both far more important to us as humans than atomic theory :)
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Conversely, the scientific method has no human warmth to it "My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you." https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/879764-count-zero https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/879764-count-zero If the problem domain isn't amenable to the crude reductionism puny human brains are capable of, then there are other ways of "dealing with it." (Other than applying a hydraulic press.) Science can help you be a good dog owner, but not all of the problem solving strategies and wisdom most dog owners will be the scientific method. The same goes for being a human being.

hueving 10y ago

>treat others as you would wish to be treated This is particularly problematic because it assumes you know everything about the other person's situation. "If I were acting like that, I would be thankful if someone hit me in the face to make me realize how rude I was being." "If I were poor, I would be grateful for someone who took away my government handouts so I became self-sustaining." "If I were rich, I wouldn't mind being taxed at 98%." Etc

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Yes, humans can rationalize anything. And yes, you don't know everything about the other person's situation. But the Golden Rule is still a huge step up from "Spend all your time trying to find ways to screw the other person over".

vacri 10y ago

Conversely, the scientific method has no human warmth to it. It doesn't give us much of a mechanism to build better societies given our human flaws. As an example: take the death of a loved one. The scientific method tells us "shit happens for no reason". The golden rule tells us to comfort our companion. Truth is a fine thing, but there are things in our experience that aren't limited to simple veracity of facts. And just like there are people out there who disagree on what the golden rule means, so too are there people who disagree on the scientific method - I've lost count of the number of times that I've had to say here on HN that the scientific method extends beyond 'test the null hypothesis'. > it justifies anything and nothing, depending on what attributes of the other person you choose to imagine yourself having. Only if you apply it in a flawed or superficial manner. Heuving's example of "I'd like someone to punch me in the face" is a clear example of this. The scientific method has equally poor results if you apply it in a flawed or superficial manner. In any case, regardless of opinion on which is better, they're both far more important to us as humans than atomic theory :)

stcredzero 10y ago
Conversely, the scientific method has no human warmth to it "My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you." https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/879764-count-zero https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/879764-count-zero If the problem domain isn't amenable to the crude reductionism puny human brains are capable of, then there are other ways of "dealing with it." (Other than applying a hydraulic press.) Science can help you be a good dog owner, but not all of the problem solving strategies and wisdom most dog owners will be the scientific method. The same goes for being a human being.