The Golden Rule and Moral Inquiry: Introducing the "Ask First" Principle
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If we cannot reliably turn to the Bible and other sacred texts to determine moral right and wrong, to whom shall we turn? If we cannot ask God, whom shall we ask? One answer can be found in the first moral principle, the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule is a derivative of the basic principle of exchange reciprocity and reciprocal altruism, and thus evolved in our Paleolithic ancestors as one of the primary moral sentiments. (If I’m right about this, then it means that religion did not invent the Golden Rule and other moral principles; it co-opted them, then codified them.) In this principle there are two moral agents: the moral doer and the moral receiver. A moral question arises when the moral doer is uncertain how the moral receiver will accept and respond to the action under question. In its essence this is what the Golden Rule is telling us to do. By asking yourself, How, would I feel if this were done unto me? you are asking, How, would others feel if I did it unto them? But the Golden Rule has a severe limitation to it: what if the moral recipient thinks differently from the moral doer? What if you would not mind having action X done unto you, but someone else would mind it? Most men, for example, are much more receptive toward unsolicited offers of sex than are women. Most men, then, in considering whether to approach a woman with an offer of unsolicited sex, should not ask themselves how they would feel if the roles were reversed. We need to take the Golden Rule one step further, through what I call the ask first principle.
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There is one surefire test to find out whether an action is right or wrong: ask first. The moral agent should ask the moral recipient whether the behavior in question is moral or immoral. If you aren’t sure that the potential recipient of your action will react in the same manner you would react to the moral behavior in question, then ask. Consider an easy test of the ask first principle—adultery. If you want to know if having an extramarital affair is moral or immoral, ask first the potentially affected moral recipient—your spouse: “Honey, is it okay if I sleep with someone else?” You will receive your moral answer swiftly and without equivocation. In this example, as with so many others, you do not actually have to ask the question to know the answer. The thought experiment alone should give you a strong sense of what is right and wrong.
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Such moral thought experiments are at the heart of moral reasoning. For this process you can monitor your own sense of guilt and other emotions as a guideline. Imagine, in the above example, how you would feel if your partner had slept with someone else. For most people imagining their partners being adulterous is extremely emotionally disruptive. It is not a big leap of the imagination for the moral doer to project that response onto the moral receiver to get an answer to the moral question.
