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Originally Posted by zen_tom
The closest I've come to finding something that I thought would fit the bill is a line from one of the so called 'Gnostic' gospels where Jesus is reported to have said.
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate"
But I honestly think there must be a universally acceptable standard, something that we can all agree to, on which we can build our legeslation which, as Art suggests, is probably how we express our larger set of accepted ethics in the wider social arena. My problem with legislation is that it's not built on fundamental principals, but on historical accident, which though rich, interesting and on the whole, relatively fair - it also suffers from illogic, haphazardry and occasional loopholery - and is unable to teach or learn without going back through countless case precidents etc.
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We live as a race in a system that consists of mutual agreements and definitions. We have some all-encompassing agreements that are catalytic and so indelibly useful that they must be incorporated in some manner in all of our life choices in order to have some success as a functioning member of society. These agreements include language, numbers, writing, science and religeon.
By nature we are competitive - to the death are we competitive, and this stems in large part from the fact that when we (homo sapiens) stepped into the arena as a distinct species 160 thousand years ago we were in serious competition with assorted very smart and successful folk who had been around for hundreds of thousands of years. We had to take their turf in order to survive, and to flourish we found it necessary to expunge them. It is our nature to act this way.
An agreement of right conduct is indeed possible. Unfortunately it would require committees to develop the prototypes and nationalistic bodies worry at the fruit of said committees until the results end up more in tune with agendas that had evolved from local conditions (said conditions bearing the freight of historical self preservation by extirpation). The homogeonizing nature of committees and the conservative momentum imparted by the validation on a national level will ensure that any broad spectrum of ethical agreement will have areas that are not validated by all, are not followed or accepted or enforced in a universal manner, and that will eventally be superceded by the evolutionary nature of our own intelligence.
That being said, it is always worth the exercise. It is always good to set a standard, an intelligent and well-founded agreement of right conduct. That is progress as we as a race understand progress, and that is our legacy and our beauty.