The Golden Rule is endorsed in oneform or another by most cultures and majorreligions and is still espoused byphilosophers, business ethicists, and popularbusiness authors. Because it also resonateswith undergraduate business majors, it can bean effective teaching tool. This paperdescribes a way of teaching the Golden Rulethrough a series of business-oriented examplesintended to bring out its strengths andweaknesses. The method described alsointroduces students to some basic moralreasoning skills and acquaints them with a widerange of moral issues that arise in business. Kant's (...) Formula of Humanity is discussed in thefinal section as a principle that overcomes atleast some of the Golden Rule's defects. (shrink)

: For the purposes of interpretation and constructive engagement, the structure and content of Confucius' version of the Golden Rule (CGR) is examined by elaborating its three dimensions as suggested in the Analects. It is argued that the CGR, which consists of two intertwined central ideas in Confucius' ethics, shu and zhong, involves three interdependent and complementary dimensions: (1) the methodological (i.e., the methodological aspect of shu), which consists of the principles of reversibility and extensibility; (2) the internal starting point (...) (i.e., the substantial aspect of shu), which somehow points to the fundamental virtue ren and constitutes the internal starting point for applying the methodological principles of the CGR; and (3) the external starting point (i.e., zhong as one's sincere and devoted commitment to those established social constituents specified by the li, regardless of the involved moral recipient's social status), which constitutes the external starting point for applying the methodological principles of the CGR. (shrink)

According to the so-called golden rule, we ought to treat others as we want to be treated by them. This rule, in one form or another, is part of every major religion, and it has been accepted by many philosophers with various ethical views. However, if the literal golden rule is interpreted as an absolute rule, it is problematic. In this paper, I introduce a new version of this famous principle that is similar to various classical definitions. According to this (...) variant, the rule can be formulated in the following way: If you want it to be the case that if x were in your situation and you were in x’s situation then x would do H to you, and you have a good will, then you ought to do H to x. I show how this version can be derived from a small set of highly plausible premises, and I defend it against some of the most interesting and/or common objections against the golden rule in the literature. I conclude that we have good reason to believe in this rendition of the principle. (shrink)

This essay explores the correlation between shu 恕 and ren 仁 in Confucius’ teachings and its broader implications concerning the role of the golden rule. It first shows that whereas the golden rule is premised on equality between agent and recipient, Confucius’ correlation of shu with ren aims mainly at establishing a more solid foundation for the hierarchy-specific duty of the ruler to care for the ruled. It thus reveals that this conflict arises from the golden rule’s incompatibility with asymmetrical (...) relationships, a long-standing issue concerning its validity as a moral axiom. It then addresses this conflict by demonstrating that the golden rule can effectively function in conformity with humanity even in asymmetrical relationships by way of inducing an agent’s viewpoint to shift from existing sociopolitical asymmetry to one-to-one human equality. On this basis, lastly, it examines the concurrence of the ideas of shu, human nature, and ren in ancient China. (shrink)

The Golden Rule, most commonly expressed in the form "do to others what you would have them do to you", has attracted criticism for failing to provide practical guidance in case of moral disagreement and for being susceptible to irrational outcomes. I argue that the alleged limitations are not a defect but just what makes the Golden Rule an effective tool of socio-ontological transformation towards ideal agency.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologies that will have significant impact on the development of humanity in the near future. They have raised fundamental questions about what we should do with these systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve, and how we can control these. - After the Introduction to the field (§1), the main themes (§2) of this article are: Ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e., tools made and used (...) by humans. This includes issues of privacy (§2.1) and manipulation (§2.2), opacity (§2.3) and bias (§2.4), human-robot interaction (§2.5), employment (§2.6), and the effects of autonomy (§2.7). Then AI systems as subjects, i.e., ethics for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (§2.8) and artificial moral agency (§2.9). Finally, the problem of a possible future AI superintelligence leading to a “singularity” (§2.10). We close with a remark on the vision of AI (§3). - For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, outline existing positions and arguments, then analyse how these play out with current technologies and finally, what policy consequences may be drawn. (shrink)

An overview of Dai's ethics, highlighting some overlooked or misunderstood theses on moral deliberation and motivation.

The golden rule says: ‘Treat others as you want to be treated’. This article organizes contemporary interpretations of the rule into three groups: the ‘material’ golden rule, the ‘relativistic’ golden rule, and the ‘formal’ golden rule. The article also argues that (a) the relativistic golden rule is the weakest, (b) the formal golden rule is virtually irrefutable, (c) the material golden rule is less evident than the formal one, but not necessarily false and (d) the formal golden rule and the (...) material golden rule are not incompatible—they can complement each other. This assumes that the substantive assumptions of the material golden rule are real. (shrink)

Moral relativism familiar in the Western philosophical tradition, according to David Lyons, is either agent relativism or appraiser relativism or appraiser group). As Lyons has convincingly argued, they are both problematic. However, in the ancient Chinese Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi, we can find a different type of moral relativism, which I call patient relativism. In the essay, I aim to argue in what sense Zhuangzi is a patient relativist and how patient relativism can avoid the problem of agent relativism and (...) appraiser relativism. (shrink)