Saturday, March 07, 2026

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #9

"Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire." (Confucianism, Analects 15:24)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

Well, here we are, back -- for the fourth time, I think -- to a variation on the Golden Rule. Sometimes it's phrased positively (do unto others rightly), sometimes negatively (do not do unto others wrongly), but the "behave on a criterion of the desirability of prospective reciprocity" thread seems to run strongly through nearly every major religious and philosophical school.

I can see why. Most people, myself included, see it as very sound practical advice, and morality and practicality, rightly understood, are corollaries (for a helpful take on the error of treating morality/practicality as a dichotomy, see this excerpt from Galt's Speech in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged).

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