The Golden Rule (A Moral Society: Part I)

Critical thinking is effective because it is fundamentally rooted in self-interest. However, when applied consistently and honestly, the boundaries of the self expand to include others. In recognizing what is beneficial for oneself, critical thinkers often discover what is beneficial for many, most, or even all. To put it succinctly: the inherent self-interest of critical thinking leads towards universal ethics, and thus morality and the assimilation of a moral society.

Critical thinkers routinely ask themselves self-interested questions: What if I were raped? What if I were murdered? What if I were enslaved? What if I were tortured? What if I were brutalized by the police? What if I were paid less than someone of the opposite gender for the same work? What if I were not allowed to eat at a specific restaurant because of my skin color? Not surprisingly, those self-interested questions tend to lead toward self-interested conclusions: it would be bad, wrong, immoral, or criminal to rape, murder, enslave, torture, underpay, or segregate me. In other words, those actions are not beneficial for my self-interest or self-preservation.

But critical thinking doesn’t stop once a self-interested critical conclusion has been made. Rather, when confronted with similar moral quandaries and when acting consistently and honestly, critical thinkers extend their prior self-interested conclusions outward and to others. If murdering me is wrong, then murdering others is probably wrong, too. If underpaying me is immoral, then underpaying others is probably immoral, too. In the end, critical thinking’s intrinsic self-interest overflows to protect persons outside and beyond the self. In other words, it guides us towards a universal morality — one that protects the rights of others because we fundamentally want our own rights protected.