Throughout the ages, many have asked how to make the world a better place and there have been a variety of answers.
Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth-century philosopher who thought about what many others do: how can the world become a better place. His most notable concept is called the Categorical Imperative, which by many has been dubbed the Golden Rule Ethic.
The Categorical Imperative has three maxims—or basic assertions—that try to get a person to look at the motives behind why they do things. The first maxim states, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.”[1] Basically this means before you act, ask yourself this simple question: “If everyone in the world did this, would the world be a better place?”
While it’s known as the Golden Rule Ethic, it seems to take it a step further; it could possibly be called the Golden Rule on Steroids. Instead of just treating others how you want to be treated, this looks at an even bigger picture. If, for instance, a person is concerned with global poverty, to take the classic stance of the Golden Rule a person would ask, “If I were living off of one dollar a day without a clean source of water what would I want someone to do for me?” While this is a valid question, it would be overwhelming to a person to undertake trying to find ways to install water filtration systems across the world or provide food to everyone in the third world. I personally would get discouraged thinking about the thousands of dollars that would be needed to fund what one person across the world needed. Then when considering that approximately half of the world’s population (3 billion people) live in impoverished conditions, the amount of money needed to help is so astronomical. I would be tempted to either give up and do nothing (because my drop in the bucket would do very little) or I would impoverish myself trying to throw as much money as possible at the problem.
If, instead I asked, “If everyone in the world tried to attack this problem, what would it take to fix it.” Then the steps of what to do is more attainable. Let’s say the idea is to give 5% more of our income to charitable giving. What if the 3 billion of us in the world who weren't starving decided to make the small sacrifices to scrape together 5% of our income to attack that one problem? That would be a lot of money and, for most of us, not involve a large change of lifestyle. Therefore, the universal principle would not only be to give 5% (or however much is determined) of our income but maybe even to convince as many others as possible to do the same. A community fighting poverty together would be much easier and effective.
This can also apply to more personal parts of life. Before a person thoughtlessly litters, they could stop to ask, “What if everyone who drove down this road threw trash out their window, what would this highway look like?” If you saw someone at the grocery store that may need help with something, such as an older lady who may need help loading her groceries into her car. Instead of walking by and pretending not to notice the difficulty that this person is having, what if you asked, “What if no one helps this poor woman?”
So next time you ask yourself what can be done to make the world a better place, remember the encouragement that Gandhi gives: “We must become the change we want to see in the world.”
[1] Kant, Immanuel, translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed.. Hackett. p. 30
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