Do unto others

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Tiassa, Dec 30, 2000.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Jesus v. Hillel, or something like that.

    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

    Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you.

    I've been ranting about this one for a few posts now. I think I've got the fundamental idea down well enough to throw it out for debate:

    * Do unto others encourages you to act. It is in proactive involvement that one achieves the concept. One must argue against their involvement. Finding no good reason to not proceed (as people generally do), one proceeds.

    * Do not do unto others encourages you to not act. Wheras your first thought, by the common Golden Rule, justifies your reasons for action, your first thought under this version justifies your reasons for inaction.

    By one system you act because you have a reason to act. By the other, you act because you have no reason not to.

    As relates to how we humans get along in the world, I submit that it is "negative" version, the Do not version, which is more appropriate. But that part's just my opinion.

    Of course, having lived through the 1980's, it might simply be that we need new definitions of simple words. "Do unto others" would have you send your family to prison because it was that important to break Dad of his demonic addiction to marijuana. It might not be the fault of the philosophy, though. It might be that we need to look to those adherents whose best "help" to offer was twenty years in the state pen. (I know a guy who won't speak to, or of, his brother. Years after the fact, I dared ask my friend's father why this was. Apparently, they had sent the boy to rehab for marijuana. He was an addict, y'know; imagine a teenager drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Anyway, even after pot rehab, the boy wasn't allowed home. Some years later, he would die, at about age 19, of a heroin overdose, after living four years on the street. What loving compassion, eh? The father, to this day, mourns that debacle. My friend still hates his brother.)

    I'll stop now for decency, propriety, and so forth, but mostly because I do, really, have a job. I suppose it would be worth making an appearance since I'm being paid for it.

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    thanx,
    Tiassa

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    Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.--Denis Diderot
     
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  3. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    tiassa,

    We've touched on this before and I still don't like the negative clauses. But it is really ignoring the real issue.

    It is about freedom of action. If someone does something to me that I don't like then that is an infringment of my freedom. So the 'do unto' option is really saying; only do to me what I would like you to do. The problem comes with you trying to determine what things I like. I might list them later in case we ever meet.

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    But I much prefer the phrase 'do anything you want that doesn't interfere with the freedom of others'. That is a much clearer and positive perspective than the negative don't do position.
     
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  5. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Cris--

    I tend to agree with you 100% on that point. Where I get into nitpicking the semantics of the Golden Rule is in the practical application.

    Do you recall Bloom County, the '80's cartoon strip? There was an episode that started with Milo apologizing to his father. For what? Well, the cops were there to take him away; his own son had called in his drug abuse. "So, what was he using, son?" Milo responded: "Cigarettes, beer, caffeine ... the hard stuff."

    Milo didn't see his actions as infringing upon the senior Binkley, but rather that he was reaching out and doing his father a favor that he hoped the old man would do for him (or anyone else)--this assumption of motive derived from "Do unto others".

    Thus I submit, were I Milo Binkley:

    * Would I want my own blood relations to sell me out to the cops? (No.)
    * Does this mean that I should let my father be consumed by his addictions? Counterpoint: Is this the only option?
    * Thus: Would I want my own blood relations to leave me to my own destruction? (No.)
    * What, then, to do? Perhaps then we can shift back out, if no happy medium is available, and apply Do unto others, in order to consider how we might hope our relations would address the situation.

    So, even I've learned a quick lesson that I can't fault the idea itself. I do worry, however, about how such a simple rhetorical difference as the two versions of the Golden Rule affect any decisions which might be related to how one regards that rule.

    Perhaps the difference is this (maybe):

    The only difference I would recognize is: you determine what things are "best" for me. It is the assumptions of responsibility and authority, I guess, that I resent. At least, those are the first assumptions I recognize when good intentions go awry.

    thanx,
    Tiassa

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  7. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Tiassa,

    I agree with your argument completely it is just the ugly wording that I find objectionable. And thanks for the more appropriate phrasing of my previous post ‘you determine what things are "best" for me’. That more accurately captures what I was fumbling to describe.

    The ‘Do not do’ phrasing reminds me a lot of Boolean algebra. There should be a way to reverse the negatives to form a positive statement with the same result. I can do this easily with NOR and NAND gates, but English is not my strength.

    The best I can do is the phrase ‘Live and let Live’. This implies no action and no interference, which I think is the same thing as ‘do not do…’.

    But as an example of both our approaches – I have had little to do with disabled people and that lack of contact always makes me feel awkward in their presence and I have an overwhelming desire to give them help, sorrow and pity come into this I suspect. But that action is often not welcome. I have learnt that many such people are fiercely independent and can be offended if you give help without being asked. I have known this for many years and have always adopted the tactic of not giving any help unless specifically asked.

    But back to your post –

    “* Thus: Would I want my own blood relations to leave me to my own destruction? (No.)”

    I believe my answer would be yes. But then I AM fiercely independent, a loner, I would be relatively happy as a desert island castaway. And this is the key issue isn’t it, at which point do we decide that we should ‘do unto others’ as opposed to taking no action. You are arguing for the ‘do unto others’ in this case. I would take the purist approach and stick to the ‘no interference unless asked’ policy.

    It is easy to argue for non-interference when the issues are clear-cut, but as you have demonstrated in your example it is the ‘muddy’ and gray areas that are the real issues. I could perhaps argue that I would interfere (assist) when the relation is no longer able to ask for help, but then it will probably be too late. Perhaps the compromise is to make it very clear that you are willing to help and then wait for an indication of a request. This is quite different from ignoring the issue (total inaction).

    I hate to bring this up, but aren’t we in the arena of the ‘good Samaritan’ parable.

    I attended a first-aid course several years ago, and one of the teachers heavily stressed using barriers (gloves and masks) when trying to help someone who is clearly in need of help. The emphasis was a direct result of having caught an unpleasant blood disease from not using barriers.

    So ‘doing unto’ is fraught with real personal dangers as well as potentially offending those who do not want help. And ‘not doing unto’ gives us other difficult moral dilemmas.

    So perhaps my ‘Live and let Live’ would work well here since ‘let live’ does indeed infer some appropriate action, i.e. it does not allow ‘let die’.

    Have you ever read any of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories? The first law of robotics states that a robot may not injure a human or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. The second law is that a robot must obey the orders given it except if such orders would conflict with the first law. And the final and third law states that a robot must protect its own existence unless that would conflict with the first two laws. Most of the stories revolve around the exploration of how these seemingly simple laws work in reality. The first law fairly well relates to our argument. A typical story would be where a human decides to undertake a perfectly normal but potentially hazardous task – a robot would immediately step in and prevent the potential harm from occurring. The designers then have to modify the programming so that the first law is weakened enough to allow the human to work. This of course causes other problems when you do want the robot to step in. Sounds very familiar to our own argument.

    Enough for now.

    Cris


    [This message has been edited by Cris (edited December 30, 2000).]
     
  8. Oxygen One Hissy Kitty Registered Senior Member

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    I don't know if this is relevant to the conversation or not, but I was inspired by my commute this morning, which was in heavy fog with severely limited vision. I was on an open stretch of highway that ran pretty straight for almost 50 miles. The speed limit there is 55mph, but the Highway Patrol lets you get away with up to 65, which is perfectly safe under optimal conditions. This morning was not by a long shot considered optimal conditions, so I cut my speed to 45, sometimes dropping as low as 35. People were flying by me at about 55-65 mph. I believe it was because that was how fast you were allowed to go.

    There was a fatality on my commute this morning. One of those people who was doing what was allowed failed to see a rack-bed semi truck and drove under it at 55 mph and got decapitated. Happy New Year, Daddy's dead.

    The thought that came to mind might relate to:

    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

    Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you.


    My thoughts were:

    Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

    I believe this applies to dealing with other people as well as with traffic laws.
     

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