Golden Rule Reasoning, Moral Judgment, and Law

Notre Dame Law Review Volume 84 | Issue 4 Article 2 4-1-2009 Golden Rule Reasoning, Moral Judgment, and Law Neil Duxbury Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Recommended Citation Neil Duxbury, Golden Rule Reasoning, Moral Judgment, and Law, 84 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1529 (2009). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol84/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact . GOLDEN RULE REASONING, MORAL JUDGMENT, AND LAW Neil Duxbury* This article examines "Golden Rule reasoning"--reasoningaccording to the principle that we should treat others as we would have them treat us-as a basis for moral action and as a criterion for assessing the moral quality and implications of judicial decisions, legal rules, and proposalsfor legal reform. After distinguishing the Golden Rule from other ideas and principles with which it is sometimes associated,I embark upon a defense of the Golden Rule as a principle offairness. The main approach to defending this principle has been to detach Golden Rule-based behaviorfrom the desires of agents and recipients. The purpose of adopting this approach is to avoid reducing the Golden Rule to the proposition that we are entitled to impose on others preferences that we would happily have imposed on us. I examine various attempts to show that the Golden Rule requires that agents do not simply project their values and desires onto others and I argue that the most successful of these is R.M. Hare's explanation of Golden Rule reasoning in universal prescriptivist terms. Although the universal prescriptivist explanation is open to various criticisms-as becomes obvious when it is applied to particularmoralproblems such as euthanasia and abortion-it nevertheless provides a strong philosophical basisfor claiming not only that Golden Rule reasoningneed not be connected to particulartastes and preferences but also that, as a matter of moral principle, we should never tolerate double standards where cases are relevantly similar. While I accept and try to demonstrate the merits of interpretingthe Golden Rule in universal prescriptivist terms, however, I conclude that a more robust interpretation of the Rule is one which is advanced by some natural law philosophers and which offers a philosophicaljustification for the proposition that doing to others as one would have done to oneself is necessarily a case of doing good towards others. The article ends with some reflections on the implications © 2009 Neil Duxbury. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may reproduce and distribute copies of this Article in any format, at or below cost, for educational purposes, so long as each copy identifies the author, provides a citation to the Notre Dame Law Review, and includes this provision and copyright notice. * Professor of Law, Law Department, London School of Economics and Political Science. 1529 1530 NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW [VOL. 84:4 of this version of Golden Rule reasoningfor legal policymaking, and in particularfor the abortion debate. INTRODUCTION Sometimes, we try to transmit wisdom by formulating simple "rules" which we think others will do well to heed. These rules we occasionally refer to as "golden," to emphasize that if we start with these rules and abide by them in some particular activity, what we desire should be attained and what we do not desire avoided. Books abound offering "golden rules" of self-improvement-how to thrive at myriad tasks, pastimes, projects, and so on-and at one time or another most of us will either give or receive golden rule advice. My own favorite examples, qua recipient, are supposed golden rules of wallpaper-hanging (less paste, more speed) and freestyle swimming (choose the path of most resistance). Such examples typify golden rules: they are efforts to provide general guidance, efforts which are often lacking in subtlety and easily contradicted, rules only insofar as they are rules of thumb. Whether formulating or being told of golden rules, we usually recognize them, or are foolish if we do not recognize them, for what they are: pieces of advice which, though very likely memorable and possibly valuable, are not indispensable or capable of taking the place of endeavor and engagement. To apply this characterization to the golden rule most familiar to lawyers would be somewhat uncharitable. That ordinary words in statutes should be given their ordinary meanings (and technical words their technical meanings) unless absurdity would result is not described as a "golden rule" for nothing: if it were unreasonable to presume that courts will take words to have the meanings attributed to them in normal usage, it would be impossible for lawyers and others confidently to advise and act on the statutes that concern them. Yet, as every lawyer knows, this golden rule is not the only legitimate criterion for interpreting statutes and, in any event, where serious doubt as to the appropriate construction of a statute exists, courts are in effect making a judgment rather than determining which rule, or combination of rules, does the legislation the most justice.1 Law's golden rule, like other purported golden rules, has value; that a rule's value makes its designation as "golden" comprehensible, however, 1 Metro. Props. Co. v. Purdy, (1940) 1 All E.R. 188, 191 (A.C.) ("Under the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act 1939, the court, be it the master or the judge, is really put very much in the position of a Cadi under the palm tree. There are no principles on which he is directed to act. He has to do the best he can in the circumstances, having no rules of law to guide him . . "). 2009] GOLDEN RULE REASONING 1531 does not mean that the designation must be accurate. Golden rules are invariably fakes. But there is one Golden Rule, complete with capital letters, which is commonly considered the genuine article. This is the prescription-sometimes phrased as a proscription-to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Just when this stipulation was first described as a Golden Rule is unclear, 2 though references to the basic moral sentiment can be traced back long before Christianity.3 It is perhaps rash to claim that the Rule is "[t]he only standard of duty common to all people."'4 But it is certainly recognized in all cultures, and numerous studies show that it has been endorsed in all of the major and most minor religions. 5 Although there will be reason in this study to refer occasionally to particular religious formulations of the Golden Rule, there is no need (and anyway I lack the competence) to examine it as a feature of different traditions and faiths. Nor is there much to be gained from simply identifying instances where the Rule features in law. Dig deep enough, and such instances can certainly be fou (...truncated)