On Golden rule and Kant’s principle of universalizability.

“Treat others as you would like to be treated,” says the Bible, also known as the Golden rule. However, Kant’s conclusion on the Golden Rule versus its original applicable contextual meaning are two different things. Kant thinks the Golden Rule makes morality depend on a person’s desires. Yet, I advance the claim that the Golden Rule does not allow for the possibility of whatever desire but is respective and is subjected to benevolence and good moral intention. Or, say, the Golden Rule does not rest upon one’s evil-intentioned desires but starts and births its acts from a place of benevolence.

The original context of the Golden Rule does not allow for the possibility that a person could disrespect another person. One is to treat the other person according not to their own lousy preferences but according to a commendable preference motivated by decency, love, and good intentions. If you look at the two verses preceding the Golden Rule, you will notice that the subject’s action must come from a place of benevolence. Unlike Kant argues, it does not make morality depend on a person’s desires. Instead, its applicability calls for the birthing of right acts. Thus, I think if one is too quick to assess the golden rule without its immediate biblical context, one can make it unfairly suffer drawbacks from the categorical imperative. 

The universalizability principle states, “An action is morally acceptable under one condition, that its maxim is universalizable.” In the imperative form, we get something like this: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”  Obviously, this does not resemble the Golden Rule at all. Kant does not ask us to treat others the way we want them to treat us. Kant’s universal law doesn’t suggest treating others how they want to be treated. His universal law asks us to contemplate the questions such as, “What if everyone did it?” Or think about what and why you are about to do this act.

Moreover, this is also almost the same problem that we encounter with Shafer-Landau. He does not take into account the context of the benevolence of the Golden Rule. He lists the morality of hitting others among the several problems with the Golden Rule. For Shafer-Landau, there is a danger that some people may want to be abused or harmed because they have learned toxic patterns in their past.  Again, this is, to me, a biased attempt to make the Golden say what it did not intend.