Since writing my earlier post on The Silver Rule, I have had more time to reflect on it, bounce it off other people, and have had requests for some follow up. I will now deliver.
The Golden Rule is simply evil. I know this sounds nutty as hell, but it describes perfectly all the evil that has been done out of good intentions. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is why the Spanish Inquisition committed its horrors. Torture, being preferable to Hell, becomes a charitable act if it will save you from eternal damnation. Sick but no less sick than what governments do in the name of the "greater good."
The Silver Rule avoids this by adhering to the dictum "Do no harm." You may or may not go to Hell, but that is not my doing. I am not responsible for saving you from eternal damnation, so I'm not going to try and help you by sodomizing you with a hot iron or putting you on the rack. Suddenly, that Silver Rule thing seems way better.
The defect in the Golden Rule is twofold. First, it puts the judgment of what is good or bad in your hands and not the hands of the one you are trying to help. This is why religious people can be so pushy. This is also why we lock up people and allow them to be sexually assaulted to protect them from getting high on marijuana. Second, it enjoins us to act. We are not allowed to be passive. We must take an active role in helping other people. This is where all busybodies in the world come from. They destroy lives in order to assuage their own guilt and whitewashing the negative by pointing to the positive they do. It becomes almost mathematical but usually ends in self-deception.
The Silver Rule is superior because it follows one principle which is to do no harm. You are allowed to help people as long as it does not violate this rule. You focus more on consequences instead of intentions. You realize that most of the time the best thing to do is to do nothing. Naturally, this leads to criticisms from Golden Rule people.
The main criticism I hear is that the Silver Rule makes people less compassionate. It makes them not give a damn. What if someone was having a heart attack or was drowning? Are we to just let them die? The fallacy is that because the Silver Rule does not enjoin us to do positive actions then we are automatically prohibited from doing them. This is not the case. There are many motivations for helping people such as friendship, compassion, or just because you want to be a hero. The Golden Rule has only one--guilt.
When deciding to help someone, you must ask two questions. Can I help this person without hurting them? Does this person want my help? If you can answer yes to both questions, then you may proceed. You don't get to do like Dr. House and kidnap someone or administer treatment without their knowledge or do whatever tricks he performs and justify it all by the end result. You don't get to decide what is good for other people. They must decide. If they choose wrongly, you are free to disassociate, refrain from action, or just tell them to fuck off. These silver rule ethics are exactly what guide the medical world today thanks to Hippocrates. This is why you can refuse lifesaving drugs, and hospitals can refuse to give you morphine to feed your addiction. Unfortunately, busybodies and do-gooders are interfering in this area and fucking it up.
Hippocrates said, "First, do no harm." This is the paramount consideration. Don't hurt people. Now, if that was all there was to it, we wouldn't have medicine. Yet, we have hospitals, doctors, and clinics. That is a lot of good coming from people pledging not to do harm. So, the Silver Rule is not incompatible with helping others.
The reason Golden Rule people despise the Silver Rule is because it puts the value judgments in the hands of the other person instead of their own hands. This is why tyrannical types love the Golden Rule so damn much. In fact, this is the only part of it they love. When I actually put them to the test on their own ethics, they become hypocrites and try to slip the Silver Rule in the backdoor.
My favorite scenario on this is the homeless person who wants a place to stay the night. When I put this to Golden Rule people, this is a typical dialogue:
ME: I am homeless and need a place to stay.
GOLDEN RULER: There are lots of shelters.
ME: They are all full. It is cold, and I will freeze to death.
GR: You can stay in my shed.
ME: Your shed? Is it heated?
GR: Well, no. But you are dirty and can't stay in my home.
ME: I can't use your shower? Am I not good enough to use your shower or sleep on your couch? Wouldn't you want someone to do you that favor if you were down on your luck?
GR: Well, you're probably some drunk or drug addict. I don't know. I just don't want you in my house.
ME: So, is this the Golden Rule in action?
Now, I'm not faulting the Golden Ruler for his actions there. According to the Silver Rule, he doesn't have to do a thing for me, the homeless guy. But the Golden Rule says otherwise. Since this will probably result in his home being turned into a flophouse for vagrants, the Golden Ruler must satisfy his sense of guilt by putting the responsibility on others. This is why they end up becoming socialists. This allows them to feel good without having to pay for it. They make others pay for it instead. Remember this the next time you see Bono on the Riviera.
The other flaw in the Golden Rule is how it debases other people. In their hypocrisy, Golden Rulers end up making value judgments on the people they feel they need to help but don't want to help. In my homeless person scenario, I'm not a laid off factory worker who is desperate for work. I'm always a bum with hygiene issues, little education, and a substance abuse problem. Of course, this may match reality for most homeless people, but I don't judge them for this. But Golden Rulers always turn to these insults and degradation to justify the hypocrisy. I won't help them because I don't have to. The Golden Ruler wants to help them but can't because they are pieces of shit.
The irony of my own conversion to the Silver Rule is that I became much more compassionate. You figure I would be less, but I noticed that my anger and hostility to moochers, bums, and parasites abated. I realize that in the past they were manipulating my sense of guilt, and I hated them for it. Without that guilt, they have no means of manipulation because I don't care. I started being more courteous to them. Since they are moochers, I don't give them cash because I realize this is hurting them in the same way that giving drugs to users hurts them. I call this policy of mine "benign indifference." If I can help someone by not doing anything for them, I am always going to do that.
This is how the same scenario works with a Silver Ruler:
HOMELESS GUY: I am homeless, and I need a place to stay.
SILVER RULER: That is too bad.
HG: Can you help me?
SR: Sure. Here's an address for a shelter. I can give you a ride down there since its on my way.
HG: That shelter is full. Can I stay with you?
SR: Fuck no.
HG: But I will freeze to death.
SR: Do you have a lighter for your crack pipe?
HG: Yeah.
SR: Build a fire.
I know. I am heartless and cruel. But I'm not a hypocrite. I didn't make this man homeless. I don't owe him a place to stay. I am generally helpful without being self-sacrificing. And I'm not being judgmental. I don't care. He gets to live the way he likes, and I get to live the way I like. Nobody gets hurt.
I do take a special interest in the victims of injustice. These are people who are being harmed by others. I like and support the work of groups like The Innocence Project and the Institute for Justice. This is also why I support libertarian policies and non-interventionist foreign policy. But I'm not into "giving back." I don't recall taking anything in the first place. This is just a clever ploy to foist debts and obligations on people who don't owe anyone anything.
The Silver Rule also has a side benefit. Often, people will give you things or do favors for you. This is all sweet and nice of them, and I appreciate it. But I still don't owe them anything. I never turn down a freebie. If it isn't a freebie because of some hidden cost, you can keep it. This is a con not unlike what moochers do. This is what window washers do when they scrub your window with some dirty rag and expect a handout.
The next aspect has to do with people who hurt you. Should you take revenge? Probably not. I think injustices should be corrected, but vigilante types have a bad habit of hurting others in the process. You only have to look at all the innocents that have died by US military actions in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden deserves to die for killing innocent people. But if we are consistent with this, we realize we are just like him. When a family gets wiped out by a US bomb, that is evil and wrong. You don't get to chalk that up to bin Laden's account. That is on the books of the US government. It is better to let bin Laden go and let that family live than do what we have done which is to let bin Laden go and kill a bunch of people who were in our way.
There are a lot of ethical scenarios we can toss out here, but I believe I am on firm ground when I say we should follow the Silver Rule and do no harm. The end does not justify the means. There is no greater good than the individual good. Take care of the individual good and the greater good will take care of itself.
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