The golden rule, enunciated as: “Don’t do unto others what you wouldn’t want others to do unto you”, or in another one of its variants, “treat others how you would like to be treated” seems to be a universal notion of the ethical sense. We hear it at school, in the media and in several mystic, spiritual and ecclesiastical institutions. Both believers and agnostics repeat it.

Let’s see how it is expressed in one way or another in almost every religion and/or moral/philosophic tradition throughout human history. Some examples are (in alphabetical order):

1) Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful” (Udana-Varga 5:18).

2) Confucianism: “Do not do to others what you don not want them to do to you” (Analects 15:23)

3) Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you” (Mahabharata 5:1517)

4) Humanism: “Don’t do things you wouldn’t want to have done to you” (The British Humanist Society)

5) Islam: “None of you (truly) believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself”. (#13 of Imam-Al-Nawi’s Forty Hadiths).

6) Jainism: “A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.” (Sutrakritanga 1.11.33)

7) Judaism: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. (Leviticus 19:18)

(Quotations selected from the Scarboro Missions List)

But how intellectually solid is this notion? What does Golden Rule behavior—loving, con-senting, seducing, working, cuestioning, helping, etc.—with others imply?, would we live better if our behavior was ruled by another ethical notion? To solve this and other questionings we need to read some of its variants meticulously.

They all seem to express the same idea at first sight: they suggest that there is a type of relationship between how we should treat others and what we wish for ourselves. Nevertheless, a more careful reading allows us to see that some of these affirmations appear in a positive way (‘Do…’) and others in a negative way (‘Don’t do’…). What importance could this have?

Afirmations 1 thru 4 are negative in the sense that they only say “don’t do…” in other words, whoever assumes them as the pillar of their ethical sense, has “harm against another forbidden”—anything else is added at discretion. If the only responsibility with the other is “not doing harm” should someone who cheats on their spouse without their knowledge confess? Who would feel the need of demanding justice for another?

If our friend or neighbor lost their job, their spouse, their belongings, their health or if they suffer some problem we could act ethically by merely ignoring them. Is being indifferent to others’ suffering enough to “not do harm”?

Careful! Someone could assume that the suffering of a person is something good for then, since it’s the road to purification. They could argue that it’s due to karma, destiny or penance. According to the negative version of the Golden Rule no one would be “obliged” to help them, since ignoring them would suffice for not doing them harm. ‘Not doing harm’ in practice could imply that we have the task of leaving others alone.

In another sense, we could say that versions 5 thru 7 are positive since the call us to “act”. But these sentences are those that present us even more complex questions. This is due to a simple reason: what I like others to do to me, not necessarily is what others would like done to them.

The positive versions of the Golden Rule compel, those who assume them as a central notion of their behavior, to lend help to the suffering—under the premise that if they were in “another’s shoes” they would want to be helped—. In fact, it demands that we take others to whatever it is that we wish for ourselves.

Careful! “There’s no accounting for taste.” What would happen if this positive principle of the Golden Rule is applied to masochists? The selfish? The Marxists? The Nazis? The Fundamentalists? The boxers? The polygamists? The monogamists? The Buddhists? The odd ones? The others? Why would one suppose that whatever is good for themselves, what they believe, what does them good, who thinks that that their truth is the universal maxim would apply these principles to their neighbor?

The Golden rule must be transformed to enunciate: “don’t do unto others what they wouldn’t want done”, instead of: “don’t do unto others what you wouldn’t want done to you” or “do unto others what you would like done to you”. In sum, we should put ourselves in another’s shoes, and not impose our own shoes to another. This is the way for an authentic respect for dignity and multiculturalism, con-senting with the neighbor and an ethic guideline for the XXI century.

Published in Opinión y Análisis
El Universal
October 3th, 2009