It’s the most famous ethic in all of human history and the one that guides good decision making when interacting with others in most situations: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Also known as the Golden Rule, it is a moral foundation for interacting with other people.
Why did it become so famous, and why is it so useful? Well, there are a lot of ethics and rules for behaving in a civil society, but there are three near-universal ones: fairness, reciprocity, and minimal harm. Why these three? Because living organisms are more likely to survive when cooperating, but you can’t cooperate with someone if you don’t trust them. To trust them, you have to believe that they will treat you fairly, reciprocate your positive treatment with positive treatment in return, and not hurt you. If someone hurts you, you can’t trust them anymore. If someone is unfair to you, you can’t trust them anymore. If someone does not reciprocate, you cannot trust that doing good things for them will be worth it to you in the long term. It is these three ethics that are the basis for a social species to be successful, and, therefore, they are built into its DNA.
As such, if you were to summarize how to follow these three ethics in one sentence, it would be to treat others how you want to be treated. Since you want to be treated fairly, to have your generosity reciprocated, and to not be harmed, then you should treat the person you want to fairly, be generous to them, and not harm them. By following the Golden Rule, you automatically follow the biologically engrained ethics that are the foundation of civilization.
The reason it’s famous is that it can help you to determine the right thing to do in most situations. The reason it’s so useful is that when you don’t know how to act, it gives you an easier question to ask yourself that can guide your behavior correctly. If you’re encountering a person you’ve never met before, for example, you don’t know whether they will treat you fairly or hurt you. But what you do know is that humans reciprocate, so your best shot at cooperation with a stranger is to treat him or her how you want to be treated and hope that they reciprocate accordingly. If they do, you can become acquaintances; if they do not, you will know to stay away.
So the big question, then, is does it work in all situations? Surprisingly, no. There is actually no ethic that works in all situations. Why? Because even the three near-universal ethics are not, in fact, universal because they conflict with each other. For example, if someone attacks you, you can defend yourself, but only to the point at which the threat is neutralized. If the person is disarmed and restrained, you cannot keep harming the person because the “minimal harm” ethic now trumps the reciprocity and fairness ethics. Yes, that person could’ve been trying to kill you, and you now have to stop, anyway, once you’ve subdued him or her. So the reciprocity ethic isn’t universal, that’s not fair (so fairness isn’t universal), but if the person isn’t subdued and is trying to kill you then you can disregard the minimal harm ethic to save yourself, making that one not universal. So no ethic is universal because they conflict with each other, and some take priority over others.
As a result, the Golden Rule does not work in all situations. The most famous one is in heterosexual relationships. Society is famously grappling with the issue of having equal value under the law vs. being equal in all ways. Language can cause problems sometimes, and this is a good example. Just because everyone has the same right to vote, own a home, or take a job that they are qualified for doesn’t mean that you, therefore, treat them exactly the same. While it’s agreed upon that no one should hit anyone else, it’s also well known that much of the population believes that men should not hit women even if women hit them first despite the fairness and reciprocity ethics stating that you can hit someone back who hits you first to defend yourself. There are many differences in how the sexes are treated: the acceptability of showing emotion, the expectation of doing heavy manual labor, the clothing that is appropriate to wear, the body parts that are appropriate to show, and the sexual advances that are appropriate to exhibit toward a potential mate.
There are also cross-culture interactions where the Golden Rule fails miserably. Star Trek showed this well when humans and Klingons could offend each other by behaving in ways that are propriate for their own cultures but not for the other, and it happens in the real world, too. Many cultures touch each other a lot, whereas if you touch someone in the United States, you can get fired, sued, or arrested. So following the Golden Rule could get you into trouble.
Now, some say that the Golden Rule was mistranslated and say that it was “Don’t do unto others what you would not have others do unto you,” which is also known as the Silver Rule, so that it had fewer instances where it would fail. Under this version, you would focus on not hurting people, which is more universal than positive things you might do that would be taken the wrong way by someone else. It still fails, however, in situations where someone wants you to demonstrate that you’re not a pushover but you are overly kind because you wouldn’t want the other person to test you like that. It doesn’t work there because they will mistake your kindness for weakness, and your relationship will get worse instead of better.
Finally, there is the Platinum Rule, which states, “Treat others as they want to be treated.” (It can also be reversed so that you don’t treat others in ways that they don’t want to be treated) This works in places where the Golden Rule fails such as in intersexual and cross-cultural interactions. However, it is still not flawless. After all, someone might want to be treated like a king or queen, and that’s certainly unreasonable to try to accommodate that when it wouldn’t be fair if they’re not treating you that way. It’s the same with someone not wanting to be punished after they commit a crime—sorry, but people need to be punished after committing crimes, or society falls. Therefore, you try to keep the near-universal ethics intact by looking at the spirit of the treatment: you can treat someone like a queen if they treat you like a king, for example, or you can speak another’s “love language” of “acts of service” if they speak yours of “physical touch” in response. So while you’re treating each other differently, you are reciprocating by providing each other with what you need and so it’s fair and reciprocal in nature even if it’s not identical treatment.
So should you always follow the Golden Rule, the Silver Rule, or the Platinum Rule? No. Should you most of the time? Yes—that what general principles or rules are for: to guide you toward the best decision possible in most situation. There will always be exceptions that prove the rule to be true most of the time, such as people wanting to be treated in an unreasonable way without reciprocity or you treating a child like an adult because you’re an adult. Clearly, it can’t work in every circumstance—no general rule can. It’s why law books are thousands and thousands of pages. Every situation has its own circumstances where different behaviors would be appropriate or optimal. So, is it a good rule? Absolutely. Is it universal? No ethic is, but it doesn’t have to be. The best you can do is follow the guideline most of the time except when you see situations where a rule does not apply.