Analyses Of The Golden Rule And Its Contemporary Meaning

The golden rule is "Don't unto others as you would have them don't unto you " , or "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you " . The same idea can be found in many civilizations, but the terminology of the golden rule appears firstly in the East. It has important meaning and situation in the Christian theology, Kant's ethical philosophy, the egoism, the utilitarianism, the emotionalism, and the meta-ethics. It's true that these theories give us much ideological resources form different directions, but they also make us falling in dilemma and argument endlessly about the golden rule. I find that there are three questions about the golden rule mainly: 1,The "Law" aspect of the golden rule, namely it's rule, principle and so on; 2,The "Golden" aspect of the golden rule, namely it's first situation and universal character in ethical rules; 3,The relations of persons, ego and others, human and things or nature which included in many expressions of the golden rule. From analyzing these three questions of the golden rule, we can find that those east theories above are on the way to metaphysics of the normative ethics, the universalism and individualism. In fact, if we want to understand the golden rule correctly, we would to understand the dialectical relations of the rule and the inherent moral spirit, the universal character and the specific characters, and the moral relation of the ego and others. The philosophy of praxis, especially the Marxian concept of praxis, the virtue ethics and the way of "zhong and shu " in the Confucian tradition open another field of vision for us to understand the golden rule. Enlightened by these theory, We can see that the golden rule is a important principled rule which bases on social and historical praxis, and which includes some virtue, for example equality, justice, benevolence, friendship, and toleration and so on, and which displays some universal moral spirit, and also includes particularity of diverse cultures. The golden rule which has above meaning can guide us for building the harmonious society and the globe ethics today, for coping many really moral questions, for dealing with the relations of persons, mankind and nature.