Wattles offers a comprehensive survey of the history of the golden rule, "Do unto others as you want others to do unto you". He traces the rule's history in contexts as diverse as the writings of Confucius and the Greek philosophers, the Bible, modern theology and philosophy, and the American "self-help" context. He concludes by offering his own synthesis of these varied understandings.

Much has been said about Confucius’ negative formulation of the Golden Rule. Most discussions center on explaining why this formulation, while negative, does not differ at all in intention from the positive formulation. It is my view that such attempts may have the effect of blurring the essential point behind the specifically negative formulation, a point which I hope to elucidate in this essay. It is my first contention that such a negative formulation is consonant with other basic implicit Confucian (...) attitudes such as modesty and the belief in the inherent goodness of human nature. My second contention is that this negative formulation has the intent and/or effect of promoting growth and, more importantly, preventing moral harm. My broader thesis is that the negative version of the Golden Rule does differ significantly from the positive version and that the difference that exists might well have been intended by Confucius to highlight the nature of his most basic moral principle. (shrink)

One side of this paper is devoted to showing that the Golden Rule, understood as standing for universal love, is centrally characteristic of Confucianism properly understood, rather than graded, familial love. In this respect Confucianism and Christianity are similar. The other side of this paper is devoted to arguing contra 18 centuries of commentators that the negative sentential formulation of the Golden Rule as found in Confucius cannot be converted to an affirmative sentential formulation (as is found in Christianity) without (...) a change in its meaning. In this respect Confucianism and Christianity are different. (shrink)

The Metaphysics of Morals is Kant's major work in applied moral philosophy in which he deals with the basic principles of rights and of virtues. It comprises two parts: the 'Doctrine of Right', which deals with the rights which people have or can acquire, and the 'Doctrine of Virtue', which deals with the virtues they ought to acquire. Mary Gregor's translation, revised for publication in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series, is the only complete translation of the (...) whole text, and includes extensive annotation on Kant's difficult and sometimes unfamiliar vocabulary. A new introduction by Roger Sullivan sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. This volume will be of wide interest to students of ethics and of legal and political philosophy. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written. In Kant's own words its aim is to search for and establish the supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative. Kant argues that every human being is an end in himself or herself, never to be used as a means by others, and that moral obligation is an expression of the (...) human capacity for autonomy or self-government. This edition presents the acclaimed translation of the text by Mary Gregor, together with an introduction by Christine M. Korsgaard that examines and explains Kant's argument. (shrink)

"Throughout the centuries, moral philosophers, both Eastern and Western, considered a permanent and eternal law a necessary requirement for the formulation of a moral principle. If such a law was not empirically given, it had to be determined through reason. In contrast, early Buddhism presented a radical theory of impermanence. Interpreters of early Buddhism have been unable to abandon the presupposition of permanence, however, and hence have persisted in viewing nirvana or freedom as a permanent and eternal state to be (...) contrasted with the impermanent world of sensory experience and bondage. Ethics in Early Buddhism is David J. Kalupahana's balanced and brilliantly concise attempt to place the early Buddhist descriptions of the world of experience, the state of freedom, and the moral principle leading to such freedom within the framework of impermanence."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

A masterful series of interviews with Levinas, conducted by French philosopher Philippe Nemo, which provides a succinct presentation of Levinas's philosophy.

The traditional Christian version of the Golden Rule, some modern philosophical reformulations, and the Confucian version are compared. It is argued that the Confucian version, in contrast with its Western parallels, is based on shu as bodily or somatic interpersonal care and love, and thus should be understood first of all as a human "way" rather than as a divine rule, a way grounded in the human heart and a way for the human community.

In this article I examine an example of sympathy -- the actions of one woman who rescued Jews during their persecution in Nazi Europe. I argue that this woman''s account of her actions here suggests that sympathy is a primitive response to the suffering of another. By primitive here I mean: first, that these responses are immediate and unthinking; and second, that these responses are explanatorily basic, that they cannot be explained in terms of some more fundamental feature of human (...) nature -- such as some particular desire or sentiment that we possess. My conclusion is then that our sympathetic responses are themselves partially constitutive of our conception of what is to be a human being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 117-131 [Access article in PDF] Conscience, Citizenship, and Global Responsibilities Richard Reilly St. Bonaventure University A version of this paper was presented at the Sixth International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, in August 2000.Upon discovering that Antigone had buried her brother, Polyneices, King Creon ascertains that she indeed had known of his decree forbidding any (...) honor to be shown to the dead traitor, and asks, "You still dared break this law?" Antigone responds: Yes, because I did not believe that Zeus was the one who had proclaimed it; neither did Justice, or the gods of the dead whom Justice lives among. The laws they have made for men are well marked out. I didn't suppose your decree had strength enough, or you, who are human, to violate the lawful traditions the Gods have not written merely, but made infallible. These laws are not for now or for yesterday, they are alive forever; and no one knows when they were shown to us first. 1Thus arises the dynamic confrontation between conscience and the state in the guise of two very solitary individuals: Antigone, committed to her brother out of love and religious duty, and Creon, striving to reestablish political order so necessary to the welfare of the community. We might say, in the idiom of Saint Augustine and Martin Luther King Jr., for Antigone, "an unjust law is no law at all," or at least not one that should bind one's conscience. In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," King agonized over the lack of support, much less solidarity, of the Christian community in the effort to achieve racial justice in America. Antigone is provided no comrade (although her sister, Ismene, is sympathetic); no one of religious authority pleads Antigone's case or provides her with moral support. In this respect, Antigone's situation is mirrored in that of Franz Jagerstatter, the Austrian Catholic beheaded for his refusal to be conscripted into the army in support of the Nazi's cause. [End Page 117]Surely, one owes much to one's state, especially if it is justly ordered, safeguards individuals' rights, and promotes the common good. Both out of gratitude and a sense of fair play, one should do one's "public duty"—including upholding the law, paying taxes, voting, and otherwise participating in the political life of the community, and so on. We might say, as Jesus said, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's." 2 What does not belong to Caesar is the nature, meaning, and destiny of one's life; or to put it otherwise, what does not belong to Caesar is the allegiance or fidelity of one's conscience. This paper has three aims: (1) to show that to be respectful of life entails "global responsibilities"; (2) to articulate a rational ground for the view that "life" and "conscience" do not belong to the state; and (3) to argue that religious communities should encourage and honor individuals of conscience and that the state should recognize as a fundamental human right a citizen's noncooperation with policies or behaviors that are life-destroying. That Buddhism and Christianity are "world religions" provides each with the opportunity and the responsibility to do whatever is possible to promote peace, prosperity, and well-being of all human beings. Buddhists and Christians would do well to join together to articulate "ethical responsibilities" in a culture-neutral way to underscore their independence from political structures and ideologies on the one hand and to emphasize their global applicability on the other. Respecting Life—a Global Precept Encountering spiritual traditions nourished in other cultures allows one to rethink one's cultural assumptions. The spread of Buddhism in the West is especially potent in this regard. One of the most fundamental of all moral laws is: "One ought not to kill." But what does this really mean? What does it require of each of us? Buddhism offers important insights in this regard. In what follows, I shall offer... (shrink)

The Golden Rule has received remarkably little philosophical discussion. No book has ever been written on it, and articles devoted to it have been exceedingly few, and usually not very searching. It is usually mentioned, where it is mentioned at all, only in passing, and most of these passing remarks have either been false, trite, or misleading, though some of them, as we shall see, have certainly been interesting enough. Considering its obvious importance and its almost universal acceptance, this dearth (...) of philosophical discussion is unfortunate, and also somewhat surprising. One of the things I hope to show about it, though only incidentally, is that there are problems connected with it of the utmost subtlety, worthy of the attention of even the most minute philosophers. (shrink)

The emphasis on duly in Kant's ethics is widely held to constitute a defect. Marcia W. Baron develops and assesses the criticism, which she sees as comprising two objections: that duty plays too large a role, leaving no room for the supererogatory, and that Kant places too much value on acting from duty. Clearly written and cogently argued, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology takes on the most philosophically intriguing objections to Kant's ethics and subjects them to a rigorous yet sympathetic (...) assessment. (shrink)

Alas, you were at a Kant conference—or many philosophers’ idea of one—and if you are shocked, perhaps you are not a Kantian. For this scenario illustrates two fundamental criticisms of Kant’s vision of morality as “duty”: It is outrageous to hold that even for the hero “all the good he can ever perform still is merely duty”. And those who, like these parents, are moved to every morally significant action by a sense of duty are, far from exemplary, morally repugnant. (...) Surely many actions are good but not one’s duty, and surely it is morally better sometimes not to be moved by the thought of duty. (shrink)

The golden rule is most adequately conceived as a series of ascending principles about pleasure, sympathy, reason, brotherly or sisterly love, moral insight, and God-consciousness. The account draws primarily on Christian and Confucian traditions and on studies by contemporary philosophers. Questions are then discussed about the use of substantive moral assumptions and intuition in the rule, its supererogatory character, and the role of its spiritual level. The golden rule is proposed as a principle bearing valuable meanings from its diverse cultural (...) heritage. (shrink)