I would want to distinguish that tradition from the "Christian tradition" per se. — Leontiskos

I would distinguish it as being the meaning of the Fall as told in the Old Testament, and therefore strictly speaking, pre-Christian. But I am no scholar of Judeo-Christian history.

I am admittedly on the fringe on this issue. I happen to believe that every time one become angry and feels the need to admonish another , or to forgive them, one is failing to understand things from the other’s vantage. Our culture and justice system revolve around anger and blame. — Joshs

You raise an issue that's important to me, but which I haven't discussed in this thread. Beyond everything that's been written here, I don't think a system that "revolves around anger and blame" is the most effective way of addressing social conflicts.

Not every moral tenet is written into law - or it was, but later struck down - and not every law is concerned with the avoidance of sin (which is any act against the wishes of a deity or one's own core being. — Vera Mont

I've been saying that both law and any other form of persuasion or coercion are the same in that they are instruments of social control and have little to do with good and bad or right and wrong. That is just packaging, gift wrapping.

To understand all is not to need to forgive in the first place. — Joshs

If I understand why he felt impelled to shoot me, I won't be upset about three weeks in intensive care and six months' physiotherapy? Maybe offer him the other leg? Big challenge! Could be why I'm not a Christian.

As far as your assertion that humans have never lacked the ability to understand one another's motives or tolerate one another's peculiarities, the question is where and to what extent you see that understanding and tolerance as breaking down. — Joshs

It begins t about 3000 population in a single settlement. How fast and to what degree depends on the rate of population growth, environmental circumstances and quality of leadership.

Our culture and justice system revolve
around anger and blame. — Joshs

That's because our culture - to the extent you and I share one - is predicated on an imperfect fusion of liberty and equality, Protestantism and capitalism. Liberty and equality appear in the slogan, not in the practice. Christianity is represented only by the prohibitive sin laws and taxation. Christianity is punitive; individual liberty imposes individual responsibility; capitalism regulates the orderly conduct of business in all areas of human interaction.
The farther practice diverges from stated ideal the more opinions about what the stated ideal means also diverge. If you then add leadership or subtle influence by agents inimical to the ideal, the small failures to understand one another is exacerbated by lack of opportunity to speak to one another; misunderstanding is exploited, enlarged, poisones and eventually grows into a chasm of enmity.

I was trying to say something stronger than that. "Formal systems of morality," what I called social control, are not really morality at all. — T Clark

The modern mind seems to always be saying, "Well, yeah, but that's not morality, that's [insert inclination-based term here]." This is a Kantian move, and the problem is that the person who makes this argument seldom has any idea of what they mean by morality.

Classically individual morality and social morality are two sides of the same coin, not entirely separate and opposable. This is presumably as true for the Chinese philosophers you are citing as it is for Aristotle. I would submit that those Chinese philosophers did not make the strong distinction that you are making between individual morality and social custom or law. For someone like Confucius this opposition would be a non-starter.

For me, personal morality includes the principle that guides me in my personal behavior and it’s very simple - to the extent possible, my actions will be in accordance with the guidance of my intrinsic nature, my heart if you will. — T Clark

And if your intrinsic nature is a serial killer? The problem with this definition is morals gets changed from, "What should be" to "What I want to do."

Morality is social; moreover, it's a - perhaps the - basic requirement of social life.
An intelligent solitary individual can theoretically make up his or her own code of behaviour... but why bother? They can just prefer one food or place or temperature to another, find some prey easier to kill, like the appearance of some plants and animals and do as they please within their capabilities. That's a hypothetical intelligent being, because intelligent beings are social. And social beings have to make allowance for the presence, the needs and the activities of others of their kind - just because some degree of conformity is demanded for acceptance by the group, which provides safety, companionship and shared effort to secure the necessities of life.

But I also dislike guilt, generally speaking. I think it's not so much a feeling of moral knowledge but a conditioned response which is used to control people. — Moliere

"Be good for Mummy!" Here it starts; the helpless dependent child is told to be what they are not.

I resist social control from the identity of the individual; I exert it from the identity of social being, and I feel guilt from an awareness of the contradiction. One cannot demand of the community that it transcend the human condition. One cannot go back to innocence, so the only resolution to the human condition is personal: —transcendent miracle, or sartori. Until then, I remain, frog/horse,

unenlightened.

Classically individual morality and social morality are two sides of the same coin, not entirely separate and opposable. — Leontiskos

I would argue that all morality is social morality. Morality is sought and found among two or more persons.

Following one’s heart or not only becomes a moral question where the actions taken, the following steps, interact with or against other people.

O my -- this is the first time I've seen the frog in your avi. I always saw it on the horse side before.

I suppose my hope is that we could do it without all those stories and such. They have been passed down, but what is their worth?

Or, at least, to open up that kind of discussion. Moral certainty is the death of ethical thinking.

. Moral certainty is the death of ethical thinking. — Moliere

Tell me more...

"Be good for Mummy!" Here it starts; the helpless dependent child is told to be what they are not. — unenlightened

Because, if they are allowed to be what they are - egocentric predators - until puberty, they will be ostracized by their peers, imprisoned or killed by law enforcement agents. You can't have a society of toddlers in adult bodies - that's a purposeless mob.
So the mother appeals to the social aspect of the child - that part of his personality which craves affection, validation and approval. Later in life, he will be good for his playmates and gain acceptance; be good for the teachers and avoid punishment, learn, grow up successfully in his world and be good for an employer so that he earns a living, be good for a female counterpart and win a mate, be good for his community and be accorded respect.
It's not such a bad bargain.

If I'm certain of this or that, then I'll interpret your acts (speech and otherwise) into my frame.

"Guilt" becomes a category I can assign to others, and by that classification justify my cruelty towards others -- in the name of the good.

There is no thinking here, no conversation, no reflection, no philosophy. Ethical thinking, I suppose I mean, is more open than all that.

I, at least, prefer to hear more and listen -- and by doing so I am continually exposed to other ways of thinking about ethics.

If I were certain then I'd have been defending the Book of Morman for a long time now.

It's not such a bad bargain. — Vera Mont

It's not. Mothers, and grandmothers, are wonderful to us all.

I'm resistant to Freudian notions because I think they're false, in a plain and simple way.

There is no thinking here, no conversation, no reflection, no philosophy. Ethical thinking, I suppose I mean, is more open than all that. — Moliere

But to finally act requires judgment, an end to discussion. Isn't that what it's all about?

Beyond everything that's been written here, I don't think a system that "revolves around anger and blame" is the most effective way of addressing social conflicts. — T Clark

Maybe you and I should start a movement.

"Guilt" becomes a category I can assign to others, and by that classification justify my cruelty towards others -- in the name of the good. — Moliere

When you or @Joshs talk about guilt in this way it is much the same as claiming that a tool such as a knife is inherently evil, and imputing bad motives to everyone who uses knives. The problem is that predications of guilt and use of knives are not inherently evil acts. For example, if you get rid of knives then you also get rid of a great deal of nutritious cooking, and if you get rid of guilt and blame then you also get rid of innocence, praise, and merit. Like a knife, the idea of guilt can be used for good or evil. There is no reason to believe that it is inherently evil. Someone may have had bad experiences with knives and those bad experiences may lead them to conclude that knives are inherently evil, but this is a problem of bias rather than a rationally sound conclusion.

(The accuser's level of certitude will not affect what I have said here)

I'm glad you brought up the golden rule. I've spent some time thinking about how it fits into my formulation. I'm not sure of the answer. — T Clark

You follow your nature. Your nature changes when you learn how much pain others are in and how much they're just like you. It's the nature of a child vs the nature of the seasoned, right?

When you or Joshs talk about guilt this way it is much the same as claiming that a tool such as a knife is inherently evil, and imputing bad motives to everyone who uses knives. The problem is that predications of guilt and use of knives are not inherently evil acts. For example, if you get rid of knives then you get rid of a great deal of nutritious cooking, and if you get rid of guilt then you also get rid of praise and merit. Like a knife, the idea of guilt can be used for good or evil. There is no reason to believe that it is inherently evil — Leontiskos

I would rather compare the knife to our ability to place constructions on events as a tool for cutting reality at its joints. If we are too pre-emptive in how we set up our discriminations, then the intentions of others can appear as a peculiar, disordered chaos, which, measured against the relative coherence of our original assessment of their relation to us makes them appear to us now as irrational, preposterous, stubborn, lazy, malevolent, at the mercy of mysterious impulses, failing to live up to our expectations of them. Our blamefulness judfent, then, is an attempt to salvage predictive value from the only ordered construction available to us to make sense of an aspect of the other person's thinking. Despite this construction having proved unreliable, attempting to get the wayward other to conform to the original expectations (knock some sense back into them, get them to admit their guilt) is the elaborative choice we must make when the alternative is dealing with a person whose behavior in a sphere of social life that is of vital concern to us we can no longer make sense of at all.

There are many personal motivations which from the heart that are "good" but may conflict with morality, such as loyalty and love, which may lead to actions that "betray the group" — Judaka

Yes, but, you rightly pointed out that morality is the second quote--coercive rules. How I read the OP is they're wittingly moving away from that to follow their heart; implicitly, to make room for "good" which may not be considered conventionally moral.

I'm resistant to Freudian notions because I think they're false, in a plain and simple way. — Moliere

I also think many are wrong or partly wrong - not false, exactly. But that's another topic for another day.

- You can multiply examples of misused blame and judgment all day, just as I can multiple examples of misused knives all day. Neither one of us would be showing that blame or knives are inherently evil.

Do you think praise can exist without blame?

(Note that the example of being "too pre-emptive" is an example of misused blame, or on your account, its antecedent.)

the problem is that the person who makes this argument seldom has any idea of what they mean by morality. — Leontiskos

I don't think I've been unclear about what I mean by "morality."

This is presumably as true for the Chinese philosophers you are citing as it is for Aristotle. I would submit that those Chinese philosophers did not make the strong distinction that you are making between individual morality and social custom or law. For someone like Confucius this opposition would be a non-starter. — Leontiskos

This is not correct. Taoism developed in response to and contradiction of Confucius's rigid formal moral principles. The quotes I have provided from Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, the two founding sources of Taoism, are representative of the body of their work.

I don't think I've been unclear about what I mean by "morality." — T Clark

You've said that "my actions will be in accordance with the guidance of my intrinsic nature, my heart if you will," and the ambiguity comes with the terms "intrinsic nature" or "heart." Insofar as those central terms remain opaque, so too does your morality.

This is not correct. Taoism developed in response to and contradiction of Confucius's rigid formal moral principles. The quotes I have provided from Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, the two founding sources of Taoism, are representative of the body of their work. — T Clark

Okay, but does Chinese philosophy in general say that the "intrinsic nature" of one person will tend to align with the "intrinsic nature" of another person, and with the order of the societal whole? Your angle here still seems much more individualistic than the Chinese philosophy that I am familiar with.

And if your intrinsic nature is a serial killer? — Philosophim

Several others on this thread have made similar comments. I've responded with this quote from "Self-Reliance."

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. — Emerson - Self-Reliance

No. It seems that in the US at least,"the police" – established by laws – only enforce the 'controls of society' which are instituted by laws passed by legistlators and reviewed/applied by courts.

As for antisocial psychopathy, I'll point you to the Emerson quote I just used in my previous response to fdrake. — T Clark

I don't see the point you're making with this reference except that Emerson seems to "morally" excuse e.g. antisocial psychopathy ... almost as Heideggerian / Sartrean (romantic) "authenticity".

So the mother appeals to the social aspect of the child - that part of his personality which craves affection, validation and approval. Later in life, he will be good for his playmates and gain acceptance; be good for the teachers and avoid punishment, learn, grow up successfully in his world and be good for an employer so that he earns a living, be good for a female counterpart and win a mate, be good for his community and be accorded respect. — Vera Mont

In general I think your description of the socialization process is a good one. For me that raises the question of when the principles of self-governance I've described are applied. The person who has gone through this process is more or less out of touch with what I have called their intrinsic virtuosities. As I understand it, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu were writing for that person to show an alternative way of living, a way out of the bind caused by social expectations.

But to finally act requires judgment, an end to discussion. — frank

But what does acting require judgment of? Not necessarily right and wrong, good and bad, or moral and immoral. We just need to figure out how to address the conflict in question. Assigning blame does not make that kind of action more effective.

You follow your nature. Your nature changes when you learn how much pain others are in and how much they're just like you. It's the nature of a child vs the nature of the seasoned, right? — frank

I'd like to think that behaving in accordance with the golden rule will arise automatically when we all live in accordance with our inner natures. I'm not sure that's true. I'm not even sure that behaving in accordance with the golden rule will arise automatically when I live in accordance with my inner nature.

For me that raises the question of when the principles of self-governance I've described are applied. — T Clark

I think it starts around age 10. Children who have previously expressed self-centered demands for autonomy now begin to question the validity of their parents' stand on moral issues. ("But you told me to say you're not home. That was lie!") These moments are good opportunities to discuss the difference between their society's stated values and its values in practice, ethics and etiquette, conformity and rebellion, infractions and compromises - all the difficult issues that makes parents so uncomfortable and children glaze over with boredom. By 18 or 19, bright young people will have worked out an ethical system for themselves, its rationale and and why it differs in some respects from the current norm.

The person who has gone through this process is more or less out of touch with what I have called their intrinsic virtuosities. — T Clark

Not necessarily. Yes, if they were indoctrinated in a strict religious dogma. It's a very hard struggle for them. But children who have been gradually given more autonomy, and opportunities to exercise good judgment, sportsmanship, altruism, deferred gratification, disciplined pursuit of goals, etc. can make the transition to reliable self-governance without too many ructions. (I don't include fighting off the controlling, protective impulse of parents - that's always a bit rocky.)

As I understand it, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu were writing for that person to show an alternative way of living, a way out of the bind caused by social expectations. — T Clark

So have other philosophers, sages, shamans and prophets. It's good to pay attention. But ultimately, only you know your own core values; only you can form your own convictions.

You've said that "my actions will be in accordance with the guidance of my intrinsic nature, my heart if you will," and the ambiguity comes with the terms "intrinsic nature" or "heart." Insofar as those central terms remain opaque, so too does your morality. — Leontiskos

Opaque to you, perhaps, but not to me.

Okay, but does Chinese philosophy in general say that the "intrinsic nature" of one person will tend to align with the "intrinsic nature" of another person, and with the order of the societal whole? Your angle here still seems much more individualistic than the Chinese philosophy that I am familiar with. — Leontiskos

Speaking for myself and not for Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, or anyone else, I think my intrinsic nature has a lot in common with other people's. Again, we're social animals; we like each other; we want to be around each other. But there is no requirement that this be so. And I've tried to make it clear that Taoism rejects consideration of "the order of the societal whole" as a proper guide to behavior.