If the person believes the only way to rid themselves of misery is to end their own life, and they choose to commit suicide, then that is a completely rational choice. I do not see how false hope plays a role here — creativesoul

The hope is that all suffering will end with life. It's false if there is a judgmental afterlife, in which suicide is against the law.

That said, I suspect there are - sometimes - multiple other ways to rid oneself of misery, but that is definitely context dependent. — creativesoul

Sometimes there are other means - or would be, if they were made available to the person contemplating death. But there are situations in which that person is powerless to affect change in their circumstances. (I'm thinking prisoner in some benighted country or terminally ill or catastrophically injured patient. those are extreme situations, but they're the simple fact of life for many thousands.)

But so far all I've been given here the relationship to mothers as a kind of point of departure for thinking ethically, at least conceptually — Moliere

Primary caregiver - not necessarily the mother, but usually - in the first two years makes the deepest impression on a child's perception of the world and its own place in the world, yes. Just because she's walking on virgin sand, with no other footprints.

which seems to me to indicate that the mothers are not all the Others, but that there is a community that is much wider than the family unit. — Moliere

Didn't I mention siblings, playmates, pets and pre-school? There may be other people in the community who become significant, but in the first four years, the child's life is pretty much surrounded by family.
Later comes school, teams, scouts, church or whatever. And reading - although that's not usually significant until age 12 or so, but stories can also make an impression, as they often carry a moral message.

t seems to me that what we were as children isn't as important to what we are now — Moliere

On the contrary. It's crucial. Often decisive. That's why churches start indoctrinating very young children in Sunday school, why Olympic athletes and world-class musicians begin training discipline at age 6-9.

Aren't the two linked? Ethics and emotion? — Moliere

Linked, yes, but very often as antagonists wrestling.

we ought not expect others to follow any moral precept.
How is that not, thereby, itself a moral precept? — Banno

It has the word 'ought' in it; that's a dead giveaway.

I think there is no lack of melody in todays pop, — hypericin

I'm not sure what 'today's' pop is. I may be hearing yesterday's over the PAS of stores - granted, not the best audio quality.
If there are melodies, they last about three bars max and are anyway overwhelmed by loud percussion. Experts may find great virtuosity in the arrangements, but I can't hear it.
If there are lyrics, they tend to be an endless repetition of one or two phrases that make no sense to me, by the same one or two voices overlaid several times.
I'm just too old to appreciate the musicality.

The poor employees have to endure the literal torture of being force fed this drek 8 hours a day. — hypericin

They tell me they don't hear it after a while. Every now and then, when some young, healthy, prosperous performer wails overhead about their misery, I look up and say "For heaven's sake, get over yourself and do something useful!" The other aged customers smirk under their beards; the stock-boys stare at me uncomprehending. (It's okay; until quite recently, I was wearing a parrot's beak mask. My family's reputation is safe.)

A life lived to please one's mother sounds alright enough, — Moliere

No, it doesn't!!! I wasn't talking about a life lived to please one's mother. I was talking about a single decision to defer to her want over one's own. Maybe tomorrow, another such decision - to do what one is asked without coercion; maybe in the next several years, one or two every day; maybe even volunteering to help in the garden, wear the new shoes to an aunt's wedding, do one's homework, be polite to the fat lady who pinches one's cheeks. Probably, between ages 13 and 18, hardly any at all (that's most boys; most girls are more compliant or sneakier). Later on, it depends on how close the relationship is. Some children become estranged from their parents; some remain dependent; some stay in close touch; some come only when they want something... Relationships between parents and children are variable.

Isn't ethical maturity reached by coming to see your parents' as equally human, weak, and pathetic as yourself? And loving them anyways, in spite of the flaws you know all too well? — Moliere

Ethical maturity isn't necessarily predicated on the child-parent relationship. Many people never reach it at all: though they part from their parents, they follow gurus, heroes and idols and never make decisions of their own or ask why the rules are what they are.

Loving people is not an ethical decision; it's an emotional fact. What you do for parents at any given moment, in any given situation, those may be ethical decisions at any age. Calling every Tuesday to see if they're all right. Listening to your father's jokes the seventeenth time. Praising the fruitcake you never really liked. Spending Christmas with them instead of going to Bermuda. Driving the old lady to her bridge game when it's really not convenient. Taking a weekend to install a wheelchair ramp. If you love people, most of these decisions are not ethical - you just do things to make them safe and happy, because their safety and happiness matters to you.

Growing up is this process of taking on cares outside of the self, no? — Moliere

Of course. You start caring about your siblings, pets and playmates quite early. By the time they're ready for pre-school, children should be emotionally mature enough and socialized enough to compromise between their own wants and the wants of other people, as well to know right from wrong in terms of social mores.

Why do you think the younger child is not able to figure out what the older child does concerning the balancing of wants? Is it as simple as selfish needs being primary, or is the dichotomy between ‘self’ and ‘other’ too simplistic a way of treating the nature of motivation? — Joshs

The ages were picked arbitrarily: obviously, there is some variation in the rate at which children develop. There is also variation in the innate temperament of children: some are observant and patient; some are impetuous and headstrong; some are more selfish, some more generous.
'Self', 'outside self' and 'other' are recognized very early, in the first weeks of infancy, as the baby experiences privation. Whereas, before birth, all of its needs were automatically met without it ever feeling a want, now, food and warmth and comfort come from outside.... and sometimes the baby has to express its need for them. It has to learn to communicate. That's awareness of another sentient, responsive being.

For a long time - which is to say a baby's entire lifetime, its whole experience of the world - all of the wants are broadcast outward and the response comes from out there, from one or more caregivers, whose only function , as far as the baby knows, is to fulfill its own wants. Nothing is asked of the baby. Where would it get the idea that the others also have wants? Yet, even so, most babies - eight, nine months old - come up spontaneously with the idea of giving to another, sharing their food or offering their toys. I suppose it's a mirror response to being given things and offered things. And there is gratification in the positive response, the praise and petting when others are pleased with its behaviour.

It doesn't take a great leap of reason for a child to understand that other people are like themselves - separate individuals: the realization grows gradually, with varied experience and interaction. So, when they have acquired enough language to understand verbal requests, commands, warnings and admonitions, they are able to formulate an appropriate response.

I'm just trying to understand how to pragmatucally apply the Taoist morality presented in the OP. — Hanover

Sorry. I have no idea. I have no concept of a society in which we're not supposed to judge one another's behaviour.

I'm inclined to agree. I long for the stone age when songs had melody and lyrics.
(Although, I do recall that in 1966 another roomer in the house had her little heart broken and kept playing the Barbara Streisand recording of 'Autumn Leaves', over and over and over and over, for a week. It annoyed me very nearly to the brink of homicide.)

As I understand it, because Bob is an incel, and they're just poor, socially awkward, misunderstood boys who have been traumatized by rejection from women. You have to understand his needs.

Sometime down the line we may want to care for others, though. Or at least want more than one thing and have to make a choice. — Moliere

That would be about age two. The toddler wants to stay up and eat candy. His mother tells him it's time to go to bed. The toddler wants his mother to keep caring for him. What she wants is suddenly an issue. He'll hold out for what he wants, as long as there is a chance she will let him. But if she's adamant, he has to make a choice between short- and long-term desires.

By age three, it actually matters whether his mother takes care of him because she wants to or just because she has to. It begins to matter what she wants. He can "be good for Mommy" if he tries. By six, he often offers to do something he doesn't really want to, just to please her. (Remember, she's already done 5000 things she didn't really want to, just to please him. He's figuring that out. Now, we have a loving relationship between two individuals - a whole new dynamic of balancing wants.)

Assuming what you want is harmless and nobody would mind, if only they understood it, yes. It's an effective strategy as long as what you want is to live 'under the radar'.
As for other infractions, if it has no observable results, you can get away with some actions that are not approved. People do that every day, everywhere. They show up late for work and pretend to have been in the bathroom, take office supplies home, cheat on their taxes, steal flowers from cemeteries, park in the handicapped space, speed on the highway, kill rich elderly relatives - all kinds of sneaky things that might have unpleasant consequences if they're caught.

Well, not entirely. Sometimes it also depends on what others want. — Banno

Of course. Each one of the others is also a 'you'.
Some of the other people may be powerful and influential, in which case, their wants trump yours. I wasn't thinking of a dictatorial situation, because if you live in one of those, you are very much aware of what you are allowed to want.

In a community or larger society, there is prevailing belief system, principles on which the laws, rules, regulations and mores are based, to which all members are required to adhere. Even if they individually disagree with some aspects of the system, they have either overtly or tacitly agreed to abide by its rules. They all know that infractions will be met with disapprobation, ranging from a scowl to lethal injection.

So, if what you want is against a law, you probably shouldn't do it because you can anticipate formal retribution of some kind. If what you want is against a moral precept, whether you should do it or not depends on how much you need the community's support. If what you want conflicts with the desires of a neighbour, you should weigh the foreseeable consequences against the immediate satisfaction. if what you want offends someone's sensibilities, you should consider how much you care about that person's opinion of you. If what you want is a matter of indifference to your fellow citizens, go ahead; there are no obstacles to consider.

And why shouldn't you do what you want? — Banno

That depends entirely on what you want.

So I'm attached to an image of myself as a good person and furthermore that image is attached to guilt whenever what I do does not match that image within this particular ethical framework where guilt is attached to principle or character. — Moliere

Yes, that. Not merely the image of being a good person - because both image and good are fickle words, subject to change and interpretation and POV. If I have set a standard of behaviour for myself regarding other living things and the environment, my responsibilities or promises, whenever I fail to meet that standard, I'm disappointed in myself. If my sub-standard behaviour hurt another feeling entity, I feel guilt.
Specifically for that transgression - causing distress to some person or animal who didn't deserve it - and for no other, not for breaking a rule or failing in an assigned obligation.

So they have to internalise that identity and fight against themselves to placate those upon whom their life depends. — unenlightened

Yup. Just as those others have to adjust to them. That's how societies work - or, failing that, stop working.

To be blunt, why should I worry about your problems with and suspicions about my ideas. I'm not asking you to endorse them or change your own understanding of morality. — T Clark

You absolutely shouldn't give a proverbial. Thank you for being blunt.

I haven't heard of elderly putting drugs on their bucket list, have you? — Shawn

Well, just the one...

In my understanding, and I think Chuang Tzu's and Lao Tzu's, any socially influenced "reliable self-governance," no matter how benign, will result in us losing sight of our intrinsic virtuosities. Whenever we act to gain a benefit - love, approval, success - or avoid a negative consequence - guilt, shame, punishment - we lose our way. — T Clark

To me "intrinsic virtuosities." is problematic, if not suspect. How do you tell intrinsic from extrinsic? How does your heart sort out the sentiments you've learned and internalized from the ones you extrapolated from all the stuff you've experienced, learned and internalized? How do you trace the origin of all your ideas, ideals, convictions and beliefs? How do you decide which is a virtuosity, which is a conceit and which is a delusion?
I have some recollection of how I came by my present convictions, and they differ very little from the ones I held at age 15, 20, 30 and 45. Really, the only difference is my ability to articulate and advocate for them.

I can't punish, because the only difference between him and me is that fate was kinder in my case. — frank

Judgment is necessary. But is punishment? Is it even useful? Might it not be enough to stop the destructive person, and if you can't rehabilitate him, kill him - quickly, efficiently, painlessly if at all possible. For less egregious offenses than devastating countrysides and exterminating populations, there might be other, less drastic remedies: rehabilitation should at least be attempted.
Then, there are destructive behaviours that go unpunished, because no law, no judgment can touch the perpetrators.

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.

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.

Gotto love philosophers!

"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.

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.

A diffuse term indeed, but generally it refers to deciding things based on "practical considerations" or through a consideration of "usefulness." — Count Timothy von Icarus

In order for something to be practical or useful, it would have to be purposeful. It must have a desired result. Why is one result more desired than another? Isn't that determined by a value?
One result is better than another. Have more goodness.
And no purposeful activity can proceed without a set of facts to work with.
It cannot deny either what's good or what's true without breaking down altogether.

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.

As I see it, there is no fundamental difference between a legal system and a moral one. — T Clark

Legal systems are based on the prevailing moral principles. In theocracies and monarchies, the transition from commandment to law is swift and pretty much literal. In more diverse forms of social organization, or those predicated on philosophical principles (like communism) or stated values (like personal liberty) something is lost, but much more gained in the translation. 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. Indeed, the vast majority of laws, bi-laws, rules and regulations are enacted in the service of property, commerce, defence, public safety, transportation and the orderly conduct of daily life among a multitude.

What most think of as a moral structure is only needed to the extent that people fail to see eye to eye on the interpretation of each others motives. It doesnt matter how closely individuals try to keep in lockstep with the larger society’s expressed values. They can never take for granted that they will avoid the need to morally blame and punish others if those values don’t include a means of understanding why other deviate from the normative expectations. — Joshs

To understand all is to forgive all? I doubt it.
And I take exception to 'lockstep' applied to willing participation in a community, or adherence to a culture. All cultures have some leeway for individual variation - the more militaristic and authoritarian ones, less than the liberal, egalitarian ones, but always some.
Humans have never lacked the ability to understand one another's motives or tolerate one another's peculiarities. It's political leaders who attribute all opposition to enemies of the state, accuse dissenters of being unpatriotic. (Letting the terrists win) It's religious leaders who usually attribute 'wrong thinking' or sinful intent to those who do not conform to their strictures. (floods are caused by same sex marriage)

Individually and in communal groups, we're quite capable of listening to one another's point of view. We're quite aware of the differences in temperament, taste and modes of thought. We're quite capable of figuring out what's fair - and even how to reconcile after one person offends against another.

What goes wrong - horribly wrong, for the scapegoated individuals - in civilizations is that the requirements of the elite are counter to the requirements of the people. So an artificial version of the 'larger society's values' is imprinted on the citizens, through appeals to the need for approval (especially in childhood; this makes us receptive later on) faith, loyalty, fear, anger, conformity, material advantage, insecurity, prejudice and blame-casting.

Of course, propaganda is never uniformly successful; some always oppose the regime. They must be divided off from the herd, labelled as harmful to the rest, vilified, dehumanized. That's how people are divested of their ability to discern one another's motives.

'Spiritual' is a pretty vague term. Someone who was steeped in the dogma of a particular denomination in childhood carries a load of beliefs and attitudes and assumptions of which he is only partly aware. They may not seek medical help for depression, or even call what they feel depression, because they're trained to seek spiritual help instead. And not just mental health issues; physical ones, as well. People do try to 'pray away' an illness, meditate their way through chronic pain, approach faith healers with their injuries. But they are less likely to commit suicide if they believe that the suffering on earth must end sometime; in hell, it never does.

What is pragmatism?

Many may argue that it is moral structures that prevent civilizations from unraveling. — Joshs

Many may argue. I can only report what I see. Where a group has consensus in its needs, self-image and values, the moral structure doesn't have to be enforced; it's taught to the young by example and taken for granted.
As for civilizations (I don't want to quibble over the definition) they are generally authoritarian and require a legal edifice to uphold the tenets of their religious doctrine - the less equitable those rules, the more force is exerted to keep the civilization from unravelling. Whether they do or not doesn't depend on the stated principles, but on the degree to which the upper echelons corrupt those principles.

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

This is certainly true of modern civilizations. However, there are different kinds of society - or there were; very few of the older kind are left. In primitive tribal societies, there could very well be a handful of severe taboos alongside a great many conventions of social behaviour.

Rules against sinning, however that is defined, are no different than rules against parking derelict cars in your driveway or playing loud music at 2 am. — T Clark

That's a legal system, not a moral one. I doubt there are any societies left today in which the general population shares a belief system in which sins are perceived the same way by everyone, and the laws are made to prevent and/or rectify sins. Moral and legal are confused, sometimes deliberately.
It's easy to impose rules if the populace shares the rulers' belief. What rulers do to encourage the 'correct' belief is launch propaganda campaigns - public brainwashing programs are nothing new, were not invented by Orwell - so that the majority support the prevailing system. But there is always resistance, holdouts, rebels, and, over time, increasing numbers who simply are not able to obey all the rules imposed upon them. So the rulership has to expend more and more of its resources on enforcement, until a third of the adults run afoul of law enforcement at some time.
I consider that an unraveling.

Yes, formal systems of morality are social, not personal. The two can co-exist without very much conflict in a society that functions well - that is, in which the overwhelming majority of members feel that they are useful and respected. Even there, some conflicts will arise, when individual conviction or proclivity is counter to the generally accepted norm.
In a modern, diverse, dysfunctional society, those conflicts between personal and social standards arise several times a day. Mostly in minor matters, where the individual can either get away with an infraction or compromise his own principles.
Either choice, multiplied by millions of people in millions of instances, can bring down a civilization.

Judging whether life is or is
not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

In the abstract, yes. On the personal level, the question becomes, is my life, in its present state worth living? It comes down from Life to my life, from Philosophy to personal experience, from the general to the specific - and that's a world of difference.

If you've decided to end your life, for either a rational or emotional reason, that's hardly a handicap.

I use rationality merely as a tool. I actually only use it when it suits me and I certainly do not identify with it. — Tarskian

That sums you up nicely. Thanks.

Yah. I think that comes under the religious, rather the rational heading.

And this is just one example. I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to express my ideas to you anymore or if it's even worth it. — Dogbert

Only you can decide whether it's worth it to you. As for me, I've heard so many arguments that begin with some version of 'the miracle of being me', I'm a bit jaded on the subject.

Let's hypothetically say that the solar system is all that exists. — Dogbert

Why? Or why not go back to a flat Earth with a moon and sun circling around it and stars painted on the night sky?

Even then, even just on Earth, the fraction of matter which constitutes life is so infinitesimal as to be zero. — Dogbert

And none of it could exist without all the matter that isn't alive. So?

Including the entire universe, while there are likely aliens on many planets, exacerbates this to unconceivable proportions. — Dogbert

Does the amount of matter have any bearing on the intelligence of life-forms? You're still going on about rarity by through quantity, as if rarity by itself, conferred some special value. Life has no value to non-life, so only an infinitesimal fraction of all the matter in the universe gives a damn whether it exists or not. So small a fraction, in fact, that it approaches zero.

Your perception of the percentage of matter which constitutes life is unbelievably biased. — Dogbert

Yes. I believe it to be irrelevant.
But you can still be precious to yourself and set a higher purpose.

Either I "just happen" to be among the infinitesimal fraction of matter that became human beings, — Dogbert

On this planet, they're not exactly a rarity. And humans are only a fraction of the life forms on this planet. If you consider the size of the galaxy, in which there may be 300,000,000 habitable planets, then the number of other galaxies, all the suns and planets they contain, even if only one in a thousand of the potential life-generating planets actually does, life itself is not all that miraculous. The distances involved make it unlikely for us to meet any others like us, but that would also be true of a perfectly average fly buzzing around your window: it will never meet an equally common fly from Germany.

or this seeming miracle actually allows me to infer something about the nature of reality — Dogbert

You are allowed to infer anything you like from any fact you come across. You exist. You feel special. From there to:

(maybe all minds are somehow destined for a higher state of being within their respective timelines, idk). — Dogbert

is a longish leap of the imagination, but you're not alone in taking it. Lost of people find reasons for their feeling of specialness.

Eliza Doolittle.

Would it be obnoxious to refer back to the logic of a much earlier pet peeve?
"Try to [e.g. climb that ladder]" means an attempt is made wherein the subject either overcomes his fear of heights or admits defeat.
"Try and [e.g. climb that ladder]" means that an attempt is made and the speaker presumes that the subject will then arrive at the top.
I know most people hear the same thing either way it's phrased - but I can't.

There are many other logical reasons for grammar. Most of them are aimed at clarity of meaning, the avoidance of ambiguity. And perhaps the possibility of subtlety, nuance, shades and degrees of meaning.
Some are mere conventions, and those change over time. Language is supposed to be alive and change over time, according to the needs and caprice of its users. But rapid, purposeful change is what happened at Babel.
The less attention is given to what communication actually means, the more misunderstanding, bias, deception and psychological manipulation can be introduced.

After all, from a rational standpoint, suicide is a disproportionately (ir-ratio ... absurd) permanent solution to a temporary problem. — 180 Proof

A prison sentence is also temporary. A fifteen-year sentence may be very difficult endure. But at the end, the prisoner is set free (for better or worse.) A death sentence is also temporary, even if it goes on for fifteen years, since it ends in death.
Terminal illness is a death sentence. Temporary, but its ending will not result in death, not a pain-free life. In that instance, hastening the inevitable end shortens the temporary suffering.