---
title: New York Lawyer Michael Simon Baker Finds the Same Four Principles in Seven World Religions
description: In 4 CORE, Baker draws on decades across corporate law, music, and film to argue that reciprocity, compassion, justice, and humility are not spiritual theory...
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-03-20T19:39:17.037Z
updated: 2026-03-27T12:01:54.911Z
canonical: https://www.richmanmagazine.com/article/michael-simon-baker-4-core-seven-religions
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/michael-simon-baker-headshot.webp
categories: Culture
content_type: Profile
region: New York
publication: Sovereign Magazine
about:
  - type: Person
    name: Michael Simon Baker
    description: Michael Simon Baker (b. 1972, Toronto) is an attorney, executive, musician, filmmaker, and AI advisor. A former partner at Shearman & Sterling and Paul Hastings, recognised by Chambers and Legal 500 as a top finance lawyer, he now leads an AI-focused legal practice at ArtificialIntelligence.Law, advising on AI governance, compliance, and intellectual property matters.
    url: https://nybusiness.law/msb/
    jobTitle: Author, International Corporate Lawyer
    sameAs:
      - https://artificialintelligence.law
      - https://nybusiness.law
      - https://thebakery.music
---

Michael Simon Baker is not a theologian. His career has run through international corporate law, executive leadership, music production, and filmmaking — fields where the distance between theory and consequence tends to be short. His new book, 4 CORE: The Universal Teachings of Humanity's Wisdom Traditions, is the result of decades spent at that intersection.

The book's central claim is this: across seven major traditions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Mormonism — the same four ethical principles keep appearing. Reciprocity, compassion, justice, and humility. Different languages, different symbols, different centuries. The same core.

### Book: 4 CORE: The Universal Teachings of Humanity's Wisdom Traditions
By Michael Simon Baker

Drawing from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Mormonism, author Michael Simon Baker identifies four ethical principles that appear consistently across all of them: reciprocity, compassion, justice, and humility. His argument is that these principles were not preserved because they were spiritually appealing. They were preserved because they work.

[Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GN8VQPMY)

## What a Deal-Maker Sees That a Theologian Doesn't

Contract law runs on reciprocity. The mutual exchange of consideration is the legal definition of a valid agreement. Due process is codified justice. Negotiations that break down tend to do so because one side has miscalculated the other's interests, which is a failure of what Baker calls compassion: the capacity to understand what matters to the person across the table. And the lawyers and executives who torch deals for ego are, in his framing, failing on humility — the inability to accurately assess what they know and don't know.

Baker spent his professional life moving between corporate boardrooms, recording studios, and film sets. Each environment runs on its own rules, but [the failures he observed across all of them tended to trace back to the same breakdowns](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/redefining-business-success-why-discernment-is-the-most-needed-competence-in-business): agreements that fell apart because one party treated reciprocity as optional, relationships that corroded because nobody wanted to admit the limits of their knowledge. The four principles, in other words, are not abstract. They are operational.

## Seven Traditions, One Framework

The traditions Baker examines are not cherry-picked for agreement. Islam and Hinduism developed in distinct geographical and cultural contexts. Mormonism and Buddhism emerged from entirely different theological assumptions. Yet all of them converge on the same four commitments.

His reading of this convergence is neither syncretic nor reductive. He is not arguing that all religions are the same. He is arguing that beneath the doctrine and the ritual, these four principles form a substrate that [every lasting system of human ethics has found necessary](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/ancient-wisdom-and-innovation-how-spiritual-principles-shape-today-s-business-leadership). The question Baker puts to the reader is not which tradition has the better theology. It is why these specific four ideas survived everywhere, independently, over thousands of years. The answer he offers is that they were not preserved because they were spiritually appealing. They were preserved because they work.

For a man building anything that requires other people — a business, a negotiation, a long-term reputation — that is the only endorsement that matters.

## The Competitive Advantage in Humility

Of the four principles, humility gets the least traction in the world of high achievement. Baker's treatment of it reframes the common objection. The version of humility most people resist is the theatrical kind: the self-deprecation of a man who has achieved things but feels obliged to minimize them. That is not what shows up across these traditions.

What shows up is epistemic humility: the commitment to accurate self-assessment. The man who knows what he does not know has a genuine advantage over the one who does not. In corporate law, in deal-making, [in any competitive environment, the person who can correctly map their own blind spots is harder to surprise and faster to adapt](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/clarity-in-chaos-battlefield-wisdom-for-business-leaders). Baker's argument is that humility, correctly understood, is not a constraint on ambition. It is a prerequisite for sustaining it.

## Further Context

**Q: What are the common teachings of all religions?**
Most major world religions share a set of core ethical principles despite developing independently across different cultures and centuries. These commonly include reciprocity (treating others as you wish to be treated), compassion (concern for the suffering of others), justice (fairness in how people are treated), and humility (honest self-assessment). While the theological frameworks differ significantly, these four commitments appear consistently across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and other traditions.

**Q: What is the universal Golden Rule?**
The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as you would want to be treated. Nearly every major religion and ethical tradition contains some version of it. In Christianity, it appears in Matthew 7:12. In Judaism, Rabbi Hillel summarized the Torah as: 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.' Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Confucianism all contain equivalent teachings. In secular ethics, it is often described as the principle of reciprocity and forms the basis of social contract theory.

**Q: Do different religions have different morals?**
Religions differ on many specific moral positions, including dietary laws, gender roles, attitudes to wealth, and rules around worship. However, comparative theology and interfaith scholarship consistently find that a small set of ethical principles recurs across traditions regardless of geography or era. Reciprocity, compassion, justice, and humility appear in some form in virtually all major religions. The differences tend to be in ritual practice and doctrinal interpretation rather than in these foundational ethical commitments.

**Q: What is the meaning of epistemic humility?**
Epistemic humility is the recognition that your knowledge is limited and may be incomplete or wrong. It differs from social humility or self-deprecation. In practical terms, it means being willing to revise your beliefs when presented with new evidence, acknowledging what you do not know, and avoiding overconfidence in your own judgment. In professional and leadership contexts, epistemic humility is increasingly recognized as a competitive advantage because it reduces blind spots and makes individuals more adaptive to changing circumstances.

**Q: How does the Golden Rule help religions work together?**
The Golden Rule provides common ethical ground that does not require agreement on theology, scripture, or ritual. Because nearly every major religion independently arrived at the principle of reciprocity, it serves as a shared starting point for interfaith dialogue and cooperation. Organizations like the Parliament of the World's Religions have used reciprocity-based frameworks to build collaborative initiatives across traditions that disagree on many other matters.

**About Michael Simon Baker**
Author, International Corporate Lawyer

Michael Simon Baker (b. 1972, Toronto) is an attorney, executive, musician, filmmaker, and AI advisor. A former partner at Shearman & Sterling and Paul Hastings, recognised by Chambers and Legal 500 as a top finance lawyer, he now leads an AI-focused legal practice at ArtificialIntelligence.Law, advising on AI governance, compliance, and intellectual property matters.

[Website](https://nybusiness.law/msb/)