“So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
The Golden Rule is a fundamental moral precept of the natural law and is also rooted in the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9). However, application of this principle can clearly go awry when carried out in a naïve manner. For we can imagine a masochist who enjoys people inflicting physical harm on him. Consequently, he desires people to inflict physical harm on him. Naively applying the Golden Rule, the masochist comes to conclude that he ought to inflict physical harm on others since this is what he would want them to do to him. (And assuming he takes pleasure in doing his perceived moral duty, our masochist would thereby become a sadomasochist!). This conclusion is clearly wrong. Not only does the masochist not have an obligation to inflict physical harm on others, but he is also positively prohibited from doing so. So, how should the Golden Rule be properly understood so as to not yield such obviously false moral conclusions?
