Matthew 7:12
¹² “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.
Mark 12:30-31
²⁸ One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Micah 6:8
⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
All translations above from: Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
In the Hebrew Micah’s verse reads as follows:
הגיד לך אדם מה־טוב ומה־יהוה דורש ממך כי אם־עשות משפט ואהבת חסד והצנע לכת עם־אלהיך (פ)
“He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God;
I’ve written several times about the problematic nature of the Matthew statement as a formula for ethical living. Many have recognized and written about its difficulties. Many of them solve the problems, in their view, by changing the language of the verse.
The passage from Mark is even more difficult to consider as a formula for actual human behavior but is certainly powerful as a prophetic aspiration. As we’ve noted, it also provides the opportunity to affirm the central theological message of the Judaism motivating Mark’s questioner. Whether it was, in that context, a religious or a politically-motivated statement is open to question.
But the Mark verse does not address behavior among humans in any concrete way and the Matthew verse fails as a practical guide because of its self-reference and potential for harm.
I’ve been working on the final piece of a three-part ethic that I believe can overcome the problems presented by the idea that a fully-developed program of behavior can be encapsulated in a single statement.
The first element of the system recognizes the proposal of Rabbi Hillel – which is sometimes called the “negative version” of the Golden Rule or “The Silver Rule” — as far more universally held across time, culture, philosophy and religious tradition. It is typically stated: “That which is hateful to you, do not to another”. I’ve been calling that The Ethic of Restraint.
The second element of the system has two parts. The first derives from the Matthew verse and accepts the analysis that the message of that verse exhorts us to behavior that is “consistent”. That is: “Treat others as you would be willing to be treated under the same circumstances.” I’ve been calling that The Ethic of Consistency.
Part two of the second element, which I’ve been calling The Ethic of Consideration, provides for the greater freedom of action (and greater responsibility to act) in cases of closest relationship.
The Platinum Rule suggested by Karl Popper, provides that the Golden Rule can “perhaps” be improved up by providing that “where possible” we should do unto others as they would want us to do unto them. This implies a relationship that is close enough for one individual to know what another wants. And that is probably the case in our smallest circle of relationships.
The Ethics of Consistency and Consideration I’ve called collectively The Ethic of Respect.
The third element of the system also has two parts and those two are called collectively The Ethic of Repair (although I’m still struggling with that label).
Part one of Repair is The Ethic of Reflection, which suggests that a person, even one with a well-developed practice of Restraint and Respect, still owes it to himself and others to critically reflect upon his actions and their consequences.
This recognizes the impossibility of our always anticipating the actual results of our actions or of always acting consistently with our intentions and beliefs. Human beings make mistakes and even when right action is done, the results can vary from our expectation. It is not enough to hold appropriate beliefs and act correctly on correct intention, we have to ask if unintended consequences have caused harm. And, if so, the knowledge of that harm should become a part of our understanding of possible consequences when a similar situation arises again.
Actual experience should inform future behavior.
Beyond the clear correctness of learning from error or unintended consequence, if we have done harm it is also appropriate to consider what sort of atonement for that harm is appropriate. It is not always possible or even appropriate to attempt to make direct amends for damage done to others. But there is good reason to consider what is appropriate and what is possible. There is ample evidence in twelve-step programs, for example, of the power of atonement or the making of amends.
The reasons for atonement are both moral and psychological and The Ethic of Restitution recognizes both what is right as between the one who has done harm and the one harmed, and the power of atonement to resolve moral and psychological conflict in the one who has harmed.
This structure of Restraint, Respect and Repair has grown from my exploration of the issues raised in Golden Rule scholarship, in moral philosophy, in psychology and (to a lesser extent) in anthropology. And the segmentation of Respect and Repair have likewise suggested themselves in an organic way, without forethought.
It now occurs to me, however, that this three-part system of resolving the problems in the single-statement idea of the Golden Rule, map in a very coherent way onto the wonderful single-statement message of the prophet Micah. Micah tells man what it is that God wants. His message has three parts.
God wants that we do justly (or justice).
The Hebrew word used here is mishpat. Mishpatim (pl) are laws the reasons for which man can understand. The Ethic of Restraint, I believe, aligns quite well with this idea of understandable justice. Above all it is rooted in the idea proposed by Hillel and many others, enjoining us to refrain from doing to others what we ourselves would find hateful. It is echoed thousands of years later by John Stuart Mill when he remarks that what we need first from our fellow man is that he do us no harm.
God wants that we love mercy.
The Hebrew phrase ahavat chesed combines the ideas of love, loving kindness and mercy. The consistency and consideration aspects of The Ethic of Respect are practiced in more direct, personal and loving relationships than are subject only to the Ethic of Restraint. The flavor of Mark’s words can be found here. And here, especially in the Ethic of Consideration we find relationships of the sort that confer more extensive rights to act and to presume knowledge of the desires of others. We implicitly (and even explicitly) grant family members, partners, close friends and even neighbors rights to act towards us in ways that we do not grant to others.
God wants that we walk humbly with Him.
A willingness to honestly assess the rightness of our actions, the impact of those actions on others, the consistency of those actions with principles we hold to be true and important is the willingness to practice humility.
It understands that we make mistakes, sometimes deliberately but often not. It understands that life is complicated, that situations are difficult, that people are not straightforward.
How can we not harm? How can we not – more often than any would like to admit — act in ways that violate our own beliefs and best intentions? And when we do harm is it not appropriate to attempt to make some restitution?
There are traditions in which active and explicit reflection on one’s actions is an important practice. And some of those couple the reflective process with an atonement element. Most of those, however, deal with an atonement to God.
Some religious traditions, such as Judaism, specifically acknowledge that harm done to another requires atonement to be made to the one harmed. The twelve-step practices, more than any other than I am aware of, stress the importance of direct atonement wherever possible.
Anyone who has experience with a disciplined practice of reflection and atonement will acknowledge the importance of humility both in the practices themselves and in their results.
It seems to me, then, that Micah, in a text dated to the 7th or 8th century BCE, well before Buddha, well before Confucius, well before Hillel or Matthew, has provided a single, three-part verse that can resolve many of the problems confronted by Golden Rule scholars and aligns very closely with the structure we’ve been developing here.
The Ethic of Restraint is congruent with Micah’s admonition to justice.
The Ethic of Respect is congruent with Micah’s admonition to love mercy.
The Ethic of Repair is congruent with Micah’s admonition to humility.
This is a first thought on this idea and more thought and study will be required, but it has strong intuitive appeal.
©Charles R. Lightner