Ethical Decision Making in School Mental Health - Introduction (original) (raw)

Philosophical Reflections on the Golden Rule

The Golden Rule: Analytical Perspectives, 2009

The life in the golden rule is seen in its tendency to disclose multiple levels of meaning when seriously applied over time by a culture or an academic discipline. This paper presents a path of reasoning that unfolds a sequence of six levels of meaning in the rule. A sustained footnote notes many, many meanings of the idea of a moral principle that emerge through historical study of the golden rule.

What Is Wrong with the Golden Rule

International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2023

The Golden Rule ("what you want done [or not done] to yourself, do [or don't do] to others") is the most widely accepted summary statement of human morality, and even today it continues to have philosophical supporters. This article argues that the Golden Rule suffers from four faults, the first two related to the ethics of justice and the second two related to the ethics of benevolence. One, it fails to explain how to deal with non-reciprocation. Two, it fails to make clear that my obligations are obligations regardless of how I would wish to be treated by others. Three, it lacks any special value in explaining the right occasions for benevolence. And, four, it has no power to motivate benevolence.

Golden Principle

Golden Principle, 2019

This post was inspired by a number of lessons on this principle given by Shaykh Hobbollah in between his advanced jurisprudential classes on Citizenship Law and Religious Minorities. --- The Golden Rule is an ethical principle dictating how one should behave towards others. Most proponents of the principle say this ethical principle is innate to humans – it is fiṭrī – and perhaps this is why the maxim has appeared in the teachings of many different religions and is often worded in both affirmative and negative forms: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ and ‘Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated’ – respectively.

Hillel and Confucius: The Proscriptive Formulation of the Golden Rule in the Jewish and Chinese Confucian Ethical Traditions

In this article, the Golden Rule, a central ethical value to both Judaism and Confucianism, is evaluated in its prescriptive and proscriptive sentential formulations. Contrary to the positively worded, prescriptive formulation – “Love others as oneself” – the prohibitive formulation, which forms the injunction, “Do not harm others, as one would not harm oneself,” is shown to be the more prevalent Judaic and Confucian presentation of the Golden Rule. After establishing this point, the remainder of the article is dedicated to an inquiry into why this preference between the two Golden-Rule-formulations occurs. In doing so, this article discovers four main benefits to the proscriptive formulations: I) harm-doing, as opposed to generalizable moral goodness, is easier for individuals to subjectively comprehend II) the prevention of harm-doing is the most fundamental ethical priority III) the proscriptive formulation preserves self-directed discovery of what is good, thus preserving moral autonomy IV) individuals are psychologically pre-disposed toward responding to prohibitions rather than counsels of goodness.