A lot is going to hinge on that term, "rationally." I don't think you're going to get very far with conceptions of rationality that entail that we ought to treat people any particular way. It might be rational given my goals to treat people one way, and rational given another person's goals to treat people in some other way that conflicts with how I'd treat them. I can make sense of rationality when its' tied to the relation between goals and means of achieving those goals, but I doubt there's any rich, substantive account of rationality that incorporates, e.g., some kind of normative realism, just as I doubt you could get anywhere with moral realism or normative realism more generally.
So I don't think the principle you propose appreciably less ambiguous; at the very least, it may swap out one type of ambiguity for another, and, if the notion of rationality you have in mind relies on some kind of stance-independent normative facts, it may even turn out to be unintelligible.
Take where you go with this: "Other regarding welfarism: Treat others in ways that most maximize their welfare — where welfare is defined as that which makes them well off."
Different people will have different positions on what constitutes being well off, and I don't think there's any fact of the matter about which of these people are correct.
"However, this is the statement of utilitarianism."
It's not, unless you show that welfare maximization = utility maximization. You'd need arguments for that, and I don't think you'd have convincing arguments for that claim.
"The golden rule as a model of ethics is hard to deny — it’s sufficiently intuitive to have been parroted by great thinkers from many different civilizations"
That a few people made similar claims does not demonstrate the claim "is intuitive." I'm not even sure what that means, but merely because different people say a thing doesn't entail that the thing in question is intuitive.
This blog was awsome, man!!
I want to be treated in accordance with my 3673 page long list of deontological rules, I also treat every other person like that.
The only objection to this is that my list is "foolishness" which assumes the entire question away.
A lot is going to hinge on that term, "rationally." I don't think you're going to get very far with conceptions of rationality that entail that we ought to treat people any particular way. It might be rational given my goals to treat people one way, and rational given another person's goals to treat people in some other way that conflicts with how I'd treat them. I can make sense of rationality when its' tied to the relation between goals and means of achieving those goals, but I doubt there's any rich, substantive account of rationality that incorporates, e.g., some kind of normative realism, just as I doubt you could get anywhere with moral realism or normative realism more generally.
So I don't think the principle you propose appreciably less ambiguous; at the very least, it may swap out one type of ambiguity for another, and, if the notion of rationality you have in mind relies on some kind of stance-independent normative facts, it may even turn out to be unintelligible.
Take where you go with this: "Other regarding welfarism: Treat others in ways that most maximize their welfare — where welfare is defined as that which makes them well off."
Different people will have different positions on what constitutes being well off, and I don't think there's any fact of the matter about which of these people are correct.
"However, this is the statement of utilitarianism."
It's not, unless you show that welfare maximization = utility maximization. You'd need arguments for that, and I don't think you'd have convincing arguments for that claim.
"The golden rule as a model of ethics is hard to deny — it’s sufficiently intuitive to have been parroted by great thinkers from many different civilizations"
That a few people made similar claims does not demonstrate the claim "is intuitive." I'm not even sure what that means, but merely because different people say a thing doesn't entail that the thing in question is intuitive.