An Alternative to the Golden Rule?

The Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, is sometimes considered to be the most basic foundational principle of ethics in our society. Variations on it can be found in almost every society and every major religion, and it is often considered the best candidate for the common basic principle taught by all religions.

I was recently reading about Ethical Culture, which is a notheistic religion based entirely on ethical principles. I would have guessed that some variation of the Golden Rule served as the basis of their ethical principles. However, their basic ethical core value is "Always act so as to elicit the best in others, and thereby yourself". This is an interesting alternative to the Golden Rule, one which has some merit. In some ways it goes beyond just defining right and wrong, and focuses additionally on describing the most effective action along with giving a guideline to help decide what that action might be.

I couldn't think of any cases where this Ethical Culture core value would conflict with the Golden Rule. But I also don’t think that one is just a subset or special case of the other – they are different. When considering how to respond to people affected by a natural disaster, or a neighbor who suffered a tragic loss of some sort, applying the Golden Rule seems like the best guide to establishing the right ethical action. However, in the much more common daily life occurrences of dealing with someone who is angry, argumentative, or despondent, then acting in a way to elicit the best in that person (as opposed to further feeding their anger for example), seems like the right guideline. In fact, for the very general cases of how to set examples for others or how to properly raise a child, acting in a way to draw out the best in that person seems to be exactly the right approach.

Interestingly, this also has implications to international policy. Consider how different things would be in Gaza right now if both sides had acted in ways to elicit the best in others. This would mean always acting to strengthen the moderate and cooperative tendencies on the other side as your overarching guiding principle. Imagine the results from such an approach, and compare that to the current horrific results produced by the policies of always showing greater strength or determination through the use of force or violence. I’ll go one step further - I'll assert that "Always acting so as to elicit the best in others, and thereby yourself" should be one of the basic principles of American foreign policy if our attempt to transform the world is to be at all effective.