I’ve suggested for many reasons that we stop using such language as “the negative version of the Golden Rule” or even “the Silver Rule” for the admonition to avoid doing to others “what we would find hateful”.
I’ve argued that, contrary to Gensler’s view, the “do not do” injunction is not the inverse of the “do unto others” statement. That using the label “Silver” immediately and without analysis prejudices that statement when compared to a statement labelled “Golden”. That calling something “negative” has the same prejudicial effect with respect to anything contrasted as “positive”.
I have suggested that the idea of the statements enjoining us against causing harm to others, which are found in many more religious, cultural and philosophical traditions than the “do unto” statements, might better be termed The Ethic of Restraint.
The contemporary philosopher and ethicist Bernard Gert (1934-2011) wrote a wonderfully clear and powerful book called “Common Morality: Deciding What to Do” (Oxford, 2004). In it he proposes “a moral framework that can be accepted by all rational persons”.
Gert says in his introduction to Common Morality that:
“People need such a detailed description of morality only because their natural understanding of morality has been distorted by slogans, both philosophical and religious, such as the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and Kant’s Categorical Imperative.”
His view is that the teaching of ethics is seriously flawed and that the most commonly held theories, including those of Kant and Mill and their successors, are inadequate and “do give incorrect answers to some moral questions”.
Gert’s work is powerful and lucid and I will come back to his more detailed analysis, but because he does set out a compact structure of moral rules that is interesting in light of the idea of The Ethic of Restraint, I’ll make a few quick points about that here.
Before setting out his list of moral rules, Gert quotes a passage from Mill found in the last chapter of Utilitarianism (paragraph 38) that is also very much on this topic. Mill writes:
‘‘The moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another (in which we must never forget to include a wrongful interference with each other’s freedom) are more vital to human well-being than any maxims, however important, which only point out the best mode of managing some department of human affairs. . .. a person may possibly not need the benefits of others, but he always needs that they not do him hurt.’’
Gert, Bernard. Common Morality: Deciding What to Do (p. 23). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
Mill’s point is very clear and beautifully put.
In Common Morality Gert proposes ten moral rules which, if followed, create a moral system. They are:
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Do not kill
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Do not cause pain
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Do not disable
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Do not deprive of freedom
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Do not deprive of pleasure
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Do not deceive
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Keep your promises
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Do not cheat
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Obey the law
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Do your duty.
Gert says these ten rules:
“…account for all of the kinds of actions that are morally prohibited and required. They make explicit that part of the moral system that informs moral agents if some excuse or justification is needed for their behavior. They are formulated to provide a clear and usable description of that part of the moral system.” (Gert,20)
Some have suggested that the first five of Gert’s rules can be collapsed into one stating “Do not cause harm” and that the last five can be grouped under “Do not violate trust”.
Gert does not agree with the idea of “collapsing” the ten into two groups. Gert is the one to best interpret Gert and if he thinks those groupings are inappropriate, that’s fine. But the suggested grouping is helpful to the extent that it clarifies the broad direction that the rules give.
I think it’s clear that that broad direction is toward restraint.
Just as The Ten Commandments and the Seven Noahide Laws and the statement of Mill quoted above, all point clearly to the primacy of restraint as an ethic, so does the common morality of Gert.
Now, as we’ll see in subsequent posts, Gert’s explanation of these rules and his discussion of moral ideals (as opposed to rules) and his succeeding analysis of ways in which rules can be both usefully followed and usefully broken, are all important.
But the starting point is restraint, or to repeat Mill’s words:
” …a person may possibly not need the benefits of others, but he always needs that they not do him hurt.”
©Charles R. Lightner