What's Wrong With the Golden Rule?

This is an oldish post by Sam Killerman, over at It's Pronounced Metrosexual. One could quibble about whether the problem he's discussing really is one with the Golden Rule as such, but the underlying point is spot-on.

Here's the basic gist:

Ever worked with a "difficult person"? I would bet...that those "difficulties" you faced were exacerbated by your [probably] inadvertent exercising of the Golden Rule. Do unto a difficult (=different from you) person as you would have done unto you (=same as you), and you're going to be done unto with a headache and a screaming sound inside of your head.

This is all by way of trying to understand, and undo, the "Why are you so sensitive?" response we all get, but that seems especially directed at oppressed minorities.

The replacement Killerman proposes is the "Platinum Rule":

Do unto others as they would have done unto them, dudes.

The origins of the Platinum Rule seem unclear. Most people, including Kellmerman, credit Milton Bennett, in a paper from 1979, who was particularly concerned with cross-cultural interactions and who emphasized the importance of empathy. But there is at least one antecedent, according to Wikipedia, which quotes Karl Popper as saying:

The golden rule is a good standard which can perhaps even be improved by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they would be done by. (The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, 1966 [1945], p. 386.)

All of this is relevant to (and was linked from) a more recent piece by Kellerman, "Empathy Leads To Understanding", which is about why the former is more important than the latter.

Atheism vs Anti-Theism

Really terrific piece by Reza Aslan about why the "New Atheists" are neither new nor atheists.

In seeking to replace religion with secularism and faith with science, the New Atheists have, perhaps inadvertently, launched a movement with far too many similarities to the ones they so radically oppose. Indeed, while we typically associate fundamentalism with religiously zealotry, in so far as the term connotes an attempt to "impose a single truth on the plural world"—use the definition of noted philosopher Jonathan Sacks—then there is little doubt that a similar fundamentalist mind-set has overcome many adherents of this latest iteration of anti-theism.

Precisely. (Seen first on AlterNet.)

All reminiscent in some ways of a famous remark by Einstein, reflecting on the reaction to an article he wrote on religion in 1940:

I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.

Of course, Einstein's views about religion were very, very complicated and seem to have shifted over time, from what I can tell.

Collection of Articles on Bill Cosby and The Like

Deeply disturbing.

• "The Cosby Show" (Ta-Neishi Coates, The Atlantic)
• "Publicly Shaming Bill Cosby Is the Best We Can Do" (Hanna Rosin, Slate XX)
• "Therese Serignese, Florida Nurse, Says Bill Cosby Drugged And Raped Her In 1976" (Emma Gray, HuffPo)
• "Model Janice Dickinson Says Bill Cosby Sexually Assaulted Her" (Elliot Hannon, Slate)
• "Why Does Alleged Sexual Predator R. Kelly Still Have a Career?" (Josh Levin, Slate XX)

But what's most disturbing, or so my wife tells me, is that there were extensive reports on these accusations, by reputable news organizations, years ago. Or, as Barbara Bowman asked: "Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?" Is the answer the one she gives? "Only after a man, Hannibal Buress, called Bill Cosby a rapist in a comedy act last month did the public outcry begin in earnest." God help us if so.

"Frege Arithmetic and 'Everyday Mathematics'" Published

My paper "Frege Arithmetic and 'Everyday Mathematics'" has been published in Philosophia Mathematica 22 (2014), pp. 279-307. Abstract:

This paper shows that predicative Frege arithmetic naturally interprets some weak but non-trivial arithmetical theories. The weak theories in question are all relational versions of Tarski, Mostowski, and Robinson's R and Q, i.e., they are formulated using predicates Pxy, Axyz, and Mxyz in place of the usual function symbols Sx, x+y, and x×y. We lose the existence and uniqueness of successor, sum, and product, as generalizations, but retain these in each particular case (much as we lose the recursion clauses for addition in R, but retain them in each particular case). In saying that the interpretation is "natural", I mean that it relies only upon "definitions" of arithmetical notions that are themselves "natural", that is, that have some claim to be "definitions" in something other than a purely formal sense.

The published version can be found here; the pre-publication version, here. If you need a copy of the published version but don't have access without paying, then send me an email.

More Great PGR Posts From Mitchell Aboulafia

Mitchell's the human to watch on this.

• PGREvaluators: Struggling with Other Obligations
• The PGR: A Whiff of Desperation?

That last one should definitely make us really totally confident that the new co-editor has total, utter, complete independence from any influence that Herr Über Professor Leiter might, well, not attempt to exert, we wouldn't want to imply that...more like impose with an iron fist.

No offense, but sometimes one wonders what the fire truck people are thinking.

Do You Know About Jian?

Somehow, I totally failed to link to this amazing article by the extent to which people surrounding Jian Ghomeshi knew that he was "weird" about women. I meant to include it with these links (and now have).

I have since found another article in a similar vein, by Carl Wilson on Slate XX. And another, by Emma Healey, on The Hairpin.

Dissent in 6th Circuit Same-Sex Marriage Case

The decision in the same-sex marriage case before the 6th Circuit is no doubt depressing, though in all likelihood it will not stand for very long. But the dissent from Martha Craig Daughtrey is well worth reading. (It starts on page 43.)

The flavor is well enough illustrated by the first and last paragraphs.

The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy. But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state's constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the FourteenthAmendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise—that the question before us is "who should decide?"—and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it. Because I reject the majority's resolution of these questions based on its invocation of vox populi and its reverence for "proceeding with caution" (otherwise known as the "wait and see" approach), I dissent.

And then:

More than 20 years ago, when I took my oath of office to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, I solemnly swore to "administer justice without respect to persons," to "do equal right to the poor and to the rich," and to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me...under the Constitution and laws of the United States." See 28 U.S.C. §453. If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams.

Amen.