Christianity and Morals by Edward Westermarck

WHILE Jesus' doctrine of punishment and reward is an outcome of the retributive character of the moral emotions, his teaching also emphasises that disinterestedness which distinguishes them from other, non-moral, retributive emotions. This he does in his enunciation of the "Golden Rule": "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"; or "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." The disinterestedness of the moral emotions also finds an echo in the rebuke: "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

The Golden Rule is much older than Christianity and, especially in its negative form, widespread. In the Sanskrit work 'Mahabharata' it is said: "Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself; this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclination. In refusing, in bestowing, in regard to pleasure and to pain, to what is agreeable and disagreeable, a man obtains the proper rule by regarding the case as like his own." Similar words are ascribed to Confucius. When Tsze-kung asked if there is any one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life, the Master answered: "Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." And in another utterance Confucius showed that the rule had for him not only a negative, but also a positive form. He said that, in the way of the superior man, there are four things to none of which he himself had as yet attained: to serve his father as he would require his son to serve him, to serve his prince as he would require his minister to serve him, to serve his elder brother as he would require his younger brother to serve him, and to set the example in behaving to a friend as he would require the friend to behave to him. In Greece Isocrates enunciated the maxim: "Do not do to others that which angers you when they do it to you." Aristotle, when questioned how we should behave to our friends, is quoted by Diogenes Laertius as saying: "Exactly as we would they should behave to us." Seneca wrote: "Let us put ourselves in the place of him with whom we are angry. We are quite willing to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves"; and Epictetus: "That which thou wouldst not suffer thyself, seek not to lay upon others." In its negative form the Golden Rule is also found in the earlier Judaism. Tobit said to his son: "Take heed to thyself, my child, in all thy works, and be discreet in thy behaviour; what thou thyself hatest, do to no man." When a heathen came to the famous rabbi Hillel and said to him that he would embrace Judaism on condition that he were taught the whole doctrine during the time that he stood on one leg, the rabbi replied: "What thou doest not like, do not do to thy neighbour; that is the whole doctrine, all the rest is only explanation."