Many apologies myself for taking too long to get back to this. I haven't been moving house, thank God, but there's been plenty of other stuff going on - in particular,
this took a horribly long time, and you wouldn't believe how long
this always takes. And that's without the minor problem of work. Ah well.
The distinction between (1) and (2) are clear but what is not clear to me is your method of reasoning. The argument form above does not correctly reflect my proposition. You present claim (1) as a belief that ethic X applies to everybody which validates the logical error you have demonstrated. Again, the Golden Rule (ethical claim X) is the principle on which Global Ethic functions, Global Ethic applies to everybody which means the Golden Rule applies to everybody. The fact that Kung believes that Global Ethic applies to everybody and that everybody holds it is not in question Plotinus, niether is it an ethic he is trying to "develope." Global Ethic is based on the principles that already exist in all the religions, Kung is not trying to cherry pick certain principles from all the religions to create a new universal ethic. His goal is to make people aware that all the religions already share the *same* core principles, principles that apply to everyone. Making everyone aware that all religions contain these same core principles is the project Kung wants to "develope."
...I hope you now undertsand why Kung must be committed to claim (1) about the Golden Rule. It is precisely because Kung believes that X applies to everybody that he must be committed to claim (1), it's his claim not mine. Kung makes it very clear that THE Golden Rule is the absolute which is the basis of Global Ethic. Golden Rule = Global Ethic = Universal = Golden Rule.
I must admit that either you're still making the same slip, or I'm not understanding your argument. I appreciate the point that Küng insists that a version of the "Golden Rule" (together with other elements of the "Global Ethic") is found everywhere. What I don't see is why it would have to follow from this that every version of the "Golden Rule" should be universal in scope.
Look at it like this. What actually is the much-vaunted "Golden Rule"? The Biblical version is this:
Matthew 7:12 said:
In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.
We've also had the Muslim version:
the Hadith said:
None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.
Here's the version attributed to Confucius:
Analects 15:23 said:
Tzu-kung asked, "Is there single word which can serve as the guiding principle for conduct throughout one's life?" Confucius said, "It is the word 'consideration' [shu]. Do not impose on others what you do not desire others to impose upon you."
Here's Homer's version:
Odyssey V 184-91 said:
Now then: I swear by heaven above and by earth beneath and the pouring force of Styx - that is the most awful oath of the blessed gods: I will work no secret mischief against you. No, I mean what I say; I will be as careful for you as I should be for myself in the same need. I know what is fair and right, my heart is not made of iron, and I am really sorry for you.
But Isocrates is often credited with the first explicit version of the rule in the west:
Aegineticus 51 said:
...give a just verdict, and prove yourselves to be for me such judges as you would want to have for yourselves.
Here's a version in Plato:
Laws 913a said:
I would have no one touch my property, if I can help it, or disturb it in the slightest way without some kind of consent on my part; if I am a man of reason, I must treat the property of others in the same way.
And in Aristotle:
Nicomachean Ethics 1381a8-11 said:
People are also friends if the same things are good and bad for them, or if they are friends to the same people and enemies to the same people. Necessarily these people wish the same things, and so, since one wishes the same things for the other as one wishes for oneself, one appears to be a friend to him.
Now clearly there is structural similarity here, in that each version calls upon the hearer to put himself in the position of the other person. Note that there are variations in who the other person is, and in how the hearer is to deal with them. For example, Jesus talks of "others", and wants us to "do" to them as we would have done to ourselves. The Hadith talks of "brother", and wants us to "wish" for them what we would wish for ourselves. Confucius, like Jesus, talks of "others", but he wants us to "impose" on them only what we would have imposed on ourselves. Calypso (in the Odyssey) is speaking only of how she will behave towards Odysseus, but says she will "be as careful" for him as she would for herself. Isocrates wants his hearers to "judge" in the case as they would for themselves. Plato also talks of "others", and wants us to "treat their property" as we would want them to do for us. Aristotle is a little different, in that his version is descriptive rather than normative - that is, he is describing how people actually behave rather than presenting a standard for how they should behave. In his case, he is talking about "friends", and stating that people "wish" for their friends what they wish for themselves.
And so on and so on. The point is that in each case we have the idea of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and acting (in some way) towards them as you would want to be acted on yourself. This is clearly the basic principle of the "Golden Rule". But given that basic idea, there is variation - most particularly, in who the other person is, and in what sort of action we are talking about. The other person could be a specific person, or your friends, or your brother, or just non-specific "others". The kind of action contemplated could be judgement, imposition, wishing, or non-specific "action". Clearly, then, you can have lots of different principles which are variations on the "Golden Rule". Equally clearly, you can have such a principle where the other person needn't be "everyone". In fact, none of the versions given above is explicitly universal in application - even Jesus doesn't tell us to treat "everyone" as we would be done by, only the vague "others". The versions given in the Hadith and Aristotle explicitly limit the application to brothers or friends. The others either refer only to particular individuals or aren't specific.
Now Küng's point, it seems to me, is simply that there are these different versions in all the great traditions. He doesn't dispute that they are different, but he thinks (obviously rightly) that they are recognisably similar in an important way. He further thinks (again, obviously rightly) that we can make the basic principle universal in application, by specifying that the person to whom we should act in the way we would want to be acted upon should be everyone. And the tone of his lecture suggests that he thinks this is the simplest and most basic version of the principle, which has been limited by other factors in the various traditions in which it is found. Thus, aristocratic ancient Athenians were more bothered about their friends than about other people, so Aristotle frames his version of the principle in a way that refers only to friends. Küng would presumably see this as undesirable parochialism; remove the parochialism and you remove the restriction upon the principle.
I agree that, in the linked lecture, Küng is a bit self-contradictory. Really, he wants it both ways. On the one hand, and as your quotes show, he wants to argue that the "Global Ethic" is (in some way) identical with the various ethical systems of the various "great" religions. But at the same time, he wants to argue that it is
not identical with them, because he wants to remove the parochialism that all those systems also carry. I suppose the idea is that there is a distinction between the fundamental principles, which are supposedly the same everywhere, and the ways in which those principles have been modified by history and tradition, which are not the same everywhere; thus they are identical in kernel if not in shell, as it were. Küng wants to remove the shell from each tradition and expose the identical kernels.
Nevertheless, the important point is that even if removing the encrustations of history and prejudice results in a "Golden Rule" which is
both universally accepted
and applied universally everywhere that it is accepted, it doesn't follow from that that every instance of the "Golden Rule" currently found, before history and prejudice are removed, will have universal application. You haven't given any reason to suppose that, on Küng's principles, it must be. All he needs is that versions of the "Golden Rule" are found everywhere, not that they are identical versions, and certainly not that all those versions describe how we should act to everyone.
You say that the only requisition for Global Ethic is that they adopt "some recognisable form of the same principle." This does not make sense, what principle? if the Golden Rule is not an absolute as you suggest then to what principle are the various "golden rule forms" recognisable to?
Hopefully it should be clear now what the single principle is that can underlie different versions of the "Golden Rule". Jeffrey Wattles puts it like this:
What could be easier to grasp intuitively than the golden rule? It has such an immediate intelligibility that it serves as a ladder that anyone can step onto without a great stretch. I know how I like to be treated; and that is how I am to treat others. The rule asks me to be considerate of others rather than indulging in self-centeredness.
That's in his
The Golden Rule (Oxford: OUP 1996), which is a very interesting survey of the different versions of the rule which have cropped up throughout history; he argues that they are actually quite different and function in different ways. He also notes the obvious arguments against it as an ethical system. One point he makes near the start, which I didn't know, is that Tillich regarded it as a very inadequate ethical principle, far inferior to the other major Christian rule, which is simply "Love one another." For Tillich, the "Rule of Love" is the authentically Christian ethic which supercedes the flawed "Golden Rule".
I got all the above examples from this book and there are masses more in there.
If the Golden Rule is subject to interpretation then their exists no singular principle to draw an association. In essence you are maintaining that the Golden Rule is the subjective interpretation of Global Ethic and it is this interpretive principle that the various "golden rule forms" are recognisable to. If this is what you are maintaining then you must see the obvious logical inconsistancy.
It's not what I'm maintaining, and to be honest I don't see any logical inconsistency in it even it were what I'm maintaining. I'm not saying there is some single, universal "Golden Rule" which has been interpreted in different ways in different societies. Obviously different societies have all formulated their own ethical codes, some of which have certain similarities to each other. One of those similarities is the repeated occurrence of rules in the form of "Do action X to group Y in the way that you would like X done to you." You don't need to believe in some kind of archaic ur-principle as the common ancestor of all these codes - rather, it is clear that human beings just have a tendency to formulate codes of this sort of form.
Now I don't know whether Küng would agree with that analysis or not, but I don't see any particular reason why he wouldn't. Obviously he thinks that the Global Ethic is out there to be discovered, rather than constructed. But that belief wouldn't commit him to the stronger belief that, at some point in history, everyone really believed only the Global Ethic in non-degenerate form. Imagine if you had several orchestras, all playing variations on the same piece of music. You could listen to them all and then write out the tune that they all have in common, without any of the elaborations or variations that each group has added. What's more, if you did that, you wouldn't necessarily have to believe that any of those orchestras had originally started by playing the "simple" tune and then elaborated on it. Perhaps no-one had ever written out the "simple" tune at all before you did your comparative survey. But you could still claim that all the orchestras were basically playing that tune, though each in their own way. It seems to me that this is Küng's view of the ethical systems of the different "great" religions and their relation to the "Global Ethic". He need only believe that all actually existing ethical codes are variations on a theme, and then abstract from them all what that common theme is. He needn't suppose that there actually exists any group, either now or in the past, who has only that common theme without any variations. And he can plausibly claim that each of the ethical codes is an authentic expression of that "Global Ethic", even when he also identifies elements of those codes that are undesirable
by the terms of that very same ethic. After all, in the orchestra example, it could be the case that each orchestra's version of the simple tune contains wrong notes, or chords that don't really work. The musical researcher, having abstracted and written down the simple tune common to them all, could criticise these inadequate variations on the basis of the score he has written - even though that score is based only on what he has heard from all the orchestras. Thus, even though the Global Ethic exists, as a historical reality, only in variegated form in the various traditions, it can still be abstracted and used as a criticism of other aspects of all those traditions.
In the absence of any other texts by Küng on the subject I suppose we won't get any further with our analysis, at least for the time being. As I said before I'm not really very familiar with Küng's work, most of which is forbiddingly voluminous, just like with all German theologians (there's the old joke about the German theologian who published a systematic theology in six volumes, with all the verbs in volume six). Of course all authors are going to be less detailed and perhaps less consistent in speeches than in books, and as I say, I don't think Küng is enormously consistent in this speech. The interpretation I've given above is the one that seems to me to make the most sense of the most passages in the speech, but there's probably not much point arguing precisely what he means without some more authoritative texts.
I was in the middle of moving residence so I apologise for the late response. In any case even though we agree as much as we disagree, I always enjoy our discussions, in fact I enjoy reading your posts even when I don't participate. I find them extremely educational.
Thanks. It's always good to debate these sorts of things sensibly, since you'll always learn something - even if it's only what those who disagree with you think, and why. If you're lucky you'll have your mind changed in the course of the debate, which means you've learned something even more substantial than that. Yes, it can even happen in CFC OT...
Though it's rather obvious that Jewish Americans form a seperate ethnicity.
