Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

The Golden Rule Revisited

Paul Walker and Ally Walker wonder if the Golden Rule could be a stand-alone ethic.

Each of us, when faced with a moral decision, is aware at some level that there is a better choice and a worse choice that we could make. Can the Golden Rule be a stand-alone ethical code to guide our behaviour, and by so doing, enhance our flourishing as human beings?

The Golden Rule as Jesus formulated it is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31). There is a similar idea in most moral traditions. For example, in Confucianism: “what you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others” (Analects/Lunyu 12.2 and 6.

…