I continue to work through “The Golden Rule” by Jeffrey Wattles (Oxford University Press, 1996), which is one of the few works acknowledged as a truly comprehensive scholarly treatment of the subject. There’s no question that it is thoroughly researched and representative of a deeply thought engagement with the topic.
I want to stop here to make a couple of interim points that I think I can fairly raise even before completing the book.
In an earlier post I distinguished between “doing” and “not doing” on the basis of what seemed an obvious distinction to me. I continue to be surprised that many others (not all but a substantial majority, it seems) do not make that same distinction. In the majority of authors I’ve read so far the Golden Rule versus Silver Rule issue seems to be seen as merely semantic.
I disagree.
“Doing” unto others is not simply the opposite of “not doing”.
Doing something, as Kant and many others have pointed out, sets in motion a chain of reactions whose end is not predictable. Mill and others believe that this lack of certainty does not argue against the doing on the basis that we can predict within reasonable limits the result of action based on historical experience. But he still must acknowledge that certainly of outcome is not possible.
Taking action; consciously setting into motion an admittedly unpredictable series of events; is fundamentally different from refraining to act.
The notion that the two rules are the same except that one is stated in positive terms and the other in negative terms seems to me to represent a fundamental error.
It might be argued that refraining from action also has consequences, and that is true of course. But the relationship between one who refrains from action, and the events that subsequently occur, cannot be seen as the same quality of relationship as the one between the person who takes action that causes subsequent events to occur.
The events that unfold after the decision by a person to refrain from acting might just as well be attributed to every person who refrained from acting in that situation. If both you and I have the opportunity to act and we both refrain, whose restraint should any result be attributed to? If a hundred individuals with opportunity to act all refrain from action, what is the result of any one person’s decision?
Is this not a clearly different case?
Stating the distinction in terms of “positive” versus “negative” also conveys an unfortunate flavor of value attribution. It might be that “active” versus “passive” doesn’t fully cure that problem but I think it takes a step in the right direction.
One of the things that Wattles does very well is to survey the historical approaches to Golden Rule thinking and to present varying viewpoints clearly and in appropriate context.
Without Wattles I would have likely never found a fascinating counterpoint between a major Jewish thinker, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known by the acronym Rambam (1135-1204), and the Christian reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546).
The Rambam, in his Sefer HaMitzvot (Book of the Commandments) explains Leviticus 19:18: “You must love your neighbor as yourself” in the following words:
“The 206th mitzvah is that we are commanded to love each other as we love ourselves. I should have mercy for and love my brother as faithfully as I love and have mercy for myself. This applies to his financial and physical state, and whatever he has or desires. What I want for myself I should want for him, and whatever I don’t want for myself or my friends, I shouldn’t want for him.” (Translation by Rabbi Berel Bell in “Sefer Hamitzoth in English”)
The Rambam re-states Hillel’s passive version of the Rule in terms of desire i.e. “whatever I don’t want…”, which does not alter the sense of “that which is hateful to you, do not do…” But he addresses the difficult issue of what it means in a positive sense to “love” one’s neighbor/brother/fellow.
Importantly, his approach to that issue is not one based on “doing” in a physical sense. The idea that the commandment to love one’s fellow is fulfilled by wishing for him what one wishes for himself is a fascinating solution to the problem stated in positive terms but not in terms of action. That doesn’t mean that the desire might not be expressed in action but the point is that action is not required to fulfill the commandment.
The Rambam presents a solution that provides a parallel structure to the “positive/negative” pair of commandments without altering in any material respect the maxim of Rabbi Hillel.
Wattles, in his discussion of Martin Luther, makes a very important point that illustrates the danger that active application of the Golden Rule presents. He makes it by reference to a sermon that Luther gave in his early career as a preacher and I’ll comment on that below. However, having found the text of Luther’s sermon I found that he specifically addresses the point of desire as a sufficient response to the commandment. He writes:
“It is possible that one may think to himself: 1) Would it not be sufficient if I wish the other person well in my heart…? Just see whether what you wish is that the other person be favorable toward you in his heart and is content to leave it at that, without doing anything for you in deed. If not then it is not sufficient for you either. For the Lord did not say: Whatever you wish that men would do to you, grant it to them in your heart; but rather ‘do so the them’…Therefore it is not enough.”
One of the things we see in Luther’s argument is that, like Kant, it is purely self-referential. That is, regardless of the profession of love for another, the real question comes down to what I want. The “other” is, in effect, only an instrument of my desires.
That is true even if I cloak the statement of my desires in a teaching that they are really God’s desires.
Wattles interprets this sermon of Luther’s and one other on the topic as expressing what he calls “an extreme and religiously terrifying moral demand”.
Writing of Luther, Wattles concludes:
“Emphasizing the importance of the positive formulation of the golden rule, he reasoned that we cannot merely conform to it by avoiding evil. It is necessary for our salvation that we do good, indeed, that we do all the good we can. He concluded that if we fall short, we are condemned to eternal punishment.”
In this view of Luther’s thinking, man must not only act but must act and act and act with all of his resources just to avoid the pains of damnation!
Religiously terrifying, indeed!
It is just this sort of extrapolation of the “active” rule that can and has caused enormous suffering in the name of “love” over the centuries.
©Charles R. Lightner