6 ms·

So basically "do unto others" but phrased needlessly complexly?

• CamelCaseName 3y ago
  Kant was notorious for writing in needlessly complex German
• FredPret 3y ago
  The golden rule with gilded edges
• smugma 3y ago
  Kind of, but no. This explains the “needless” complexity well, but it is complex: https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/The_Golden_Rule_Revisited#:~:text=Kant%20argued%20that%20the%20Golden,51 https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/The_Golden_Rule_Revisit...).
• andybak 3y ago
  Whether the two statements are equivalent is a topic of some debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Differences_in_situations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Differences_in_sit... > Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others. On the other hand, in a critique of the consistency of Kant's writings, several authors have noted the "similarity" between the Golden Rule and Kant's Categorical Imperative, introduced in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (See discussion at this link).
  • siftrics 3y ago
    Needless discourse. Everyone understands there must be caveats to the Golden Rule. People aren't so literal in their moral frameworks to care about the exact wording. It's not charitable to say "what about this extremely contrived situation where the rule doesn't apply!" The Golden Rule conveys 99% of the idea. No one cares about the remaining 1% except for people who have time to waste. We get it. We get the point Kant is trying to make.
• AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  More like: “act like you’d like everyone to act” Meaning, don’t be a cheater unless you want to live in a society of cheaters. Slightly different meaning from “do unto others” which is about interpersonal reciprocity.
• munificent 3y ago
  The Golden Rule operates at the small scale of an iterated prisoner's dilemma where two parties are directly interacting. Kant's wording scales up to include the emergent properties of a society which operated according to that rule. The Golden Rule doesn't cover cases like, "Should I throw this trash in a lake." because there's no concrete person being "done unto". Kant's rule does: Would you want to live in a world where everyone threw trash in the lake? Probably not.
  • PsylentKnight 3y ago
    Ok, then "be the change you wish to see in the world" but needlessly complex.