Volume 10, 2008
Ethics
Ruben Apressyan
Pages 9-15
Whether there is the Golden Rule in Aristotle’s Ethics?
In the context of his advanced theory of ethics Aristotle like later Kant seems considering the Golden Rule as trivial and not bound to be articulated. It is possible that Aristotle did not feel necessity to mention the Golden Rule, because the very Golden Rule was spread out in his ethics. Though he did not use the formula of
the Golden Rule in his texts, he often expressed his understanding of virtuous character and virtuous relations using intellective constructions evidently relevant to the Golden Rule. The analysis of Aristotle’s reasoning on shame, social intercourse and, mainly, friendship shows that his ethics is saturated with the content and
spirit of the Golden Rule, including such features agent’s initiative, activity, commitment and thus her/his responsibility for establishing relations, their potential reversibility, mutuality, and universalizability.