The Golden Rule

An ethical principle that advises treating others as one would wish to be treated. It expresses reciprocity as a guide to conduct.

Ethics of reciprocity: Moral reasoning that guides conduct through reciprocal duties, treatment, or consequences. The Golden Rule is one concise expression of this broader ethical pattern.
Silver Rule: A moral maxim that says not to do to others what one would not want done to oneself. Its negative wording restrains harm but does not require the positive aid the Golden Rule can imply.
Empathy: The capacity to understand or share another person’s feelings and perspective. Perspective-taking helps prevent one’s own preferences from standing in for another’s.
Toleration paradox: The problem of whether unlimited tolerance can permit forces that would end tolerance. Treating others as one wishes to be treated does not settle how to respond to intolerance.
Confucius: A Chinese teacher and philosopher whose sayings shaped Confucian thought. The Analects attributes an early negative formulation of reciprocity to him.
Categorical imperative: Immanuel Kant’s principle that moral duties must hold universally, independent of personal desires. It tests actions by universal law rather than by imagined personal treatment.
Perspective-taking: The process of considering a situation from another person’s point of view. It turns the rule’s imagined reversal into a more informed judgment.
Moral particularism: The view that moral judgment depends on the details of each case rather than fixed principles. It challenges whether one reciprocal maxim can guide every morally distinct situation.
Analects: A collection of sayings and conversations associated with Confucius and his followers. Its passages include Confucius's advice not to impose on others what one dislikes.
Veil of ignorance: A device for judging social rules without knowing one’s own position within society. It avoids relying on personal preference, a possible weakness of Golden Rule reasoning.

Linked from 8 pages