Your notion of what exactly constitutes 'flourishing' is just your personal opinion. — Isaac

Actually there is quite a lot of work done on what constitutes human flourishing, and we should never rely on personal opinion on these matters, but rather consult the available science.

Social science is quite a well-developed field and capable of producing valid testable and reliable indicators of human flourishing, such as average life expectancy, average years of good health, years of education, poverty levels, income inequality, gender equality, crime and violence statistics, and so on. https://bit.ly/3gxmX91

We can see that societies that are faring well track and measure these indicators and try to improve their numbers. Northern Europe, with its strong social safety nets, typically dominates these lists. Societies that can't or won't track these indicators tend to do poorly.

There are about 20 global indices of human flourishing, based on good science, all measuring things in a different way, but trying to get at the same things I am getting at. One of the most respected is the U.N.'s Human Development Index: https://bit.ly/32sYBZe

If you look down the page you can find a list of similar indices. Another one talked about a lot is the Gross National Happiness Index: https://bit.ly/2YExr0e

The way to get people to buy into a moral system is to demonstrate how it personally benefits them. For example, science tells us how to respond to a pandemic. Non-scientists, such as Trump, the GOP, various evangelical organizations, etc. have told us the pandemic is a hoax. We can explain to the population, and we can explain to lawmakers, that we need to rely on science, and not opinion, because science can tell us not only what can help humanity to flourish, but what is in our personal best interests:

https://nbcnews.to/32Ae09U

Social science is quite a well-developed field and capable of producing valid testable and reliable indicators of human flourishing, such as average life expectancy, average years of good health, years of education, poverty levels, income inequality, gender equality, crime and violence statistics, and so on. — Thomas Quine

Nothing here tells us that they are indicators of human flourishing. That's your own personal opinion. What scientific, objective fact tells us that education or gender equality are measures of flourishing? The existence of identifiable measures does not constitute proof that those measures are measures of human flourishing, you've just labelled them as such.

Notwithstanding that failure, even if we agreed on the list, which is most important, and to what degree? If a policy promotes reduction in poverty levels but at the expense of income equality (as many wealth creation policies do) how do we decide how far it is worth pursuing it?

Besides which you've failed to even address the most significant question which forms the basis of most societal moral dilemmas...

How far into the future do we extend the predicted consequences?

How much certainty do we need of some negative consequence in the future in order to sacrifice some positive consequence now? — Isaac

What scientific, objective fact tells us that education or gender equality are measures of flourishing? The existence of identifiable measures does not constitute proof that those measures are measures of human flourishing, you've just labelled them as such. — Isaac

This could not be more cynical, well, perhaps it could, you could say God is the only one who can define what a quality life means for man.

However, the indefensible and hypocritical skepticism contain in this position is clearly unconscious of itself. Individuals without children should have no say in what constitutes human flourishing, their negative egocentrism doesn't count.

Having clean water and healthy food are axioms of human flourishing, do you deny it?

Can anyone provide an example of a moral precept held by any community past or present who did not come to that position on the belief that it served human flourishing?@Thomas Quine
Hi! In my opinion there cannot be moral precept held by a community but a moral precept held by one, some or all the individuals that are members of a community. An individual, consciously or subconsciously, espouses moral values that promote its own progress and improvement. Happily, there were humans that understood that a thriving community can be beneficial for them. But these moral precepts could at the same time be damaging for the individuals of another community. And there were also humans who pursued success by harming other members of their own community. In conclusion, there is no humanity;there are humans with various needs and purposes.

Hi Philosophience - your position is a very common one. I call it the "Thatcher/Reagan" position or the Libertarian thesis. Thatcher famously said, "There is no such thing as society." There are only individuals pursuing their individual selfish interests.

My argument is that out of these individual pursuits there emerges a common understanding, and phenomena that are not reducible to the intentions of individuals alone. The best example in human society is "the market". What is this magical thing that sets prices? It is what emerges when you have countless people each trying to sell high and buy low. None of these people is doing anything other than pursue their own self-interest, but something emerges, by an invisible hand, that regulates them as if it were a supernatural power.

Law and morality are emergent properties of countless people trying to work out better ways to interact with each other. Moral precepts are not the product of your personal imagination - the common moral precepts of your culture were worked out collectively in hard practice and presented to you ready-made as you grew up. Morality is an emergent property of a culture, not the private domain of an individual that somehow accidentally is shared by some other number of private individuals.

Hi Thomas! Thanks for your reply. I do not know how common is my position. If it is indeed, I can understand why. It seems to be the best avaliable explanation of the emergence of morality in the human world.To accept this thesis there is a prerequisite: the profound understanding of the evolution theory. One who really understands it, knows that if an individual strives for the good of his community to her/his own detriment, then her/his moral values, cultural traits and genome would be wiped out in the generations to come. But if the good of the community promotes her/his well-being too (and this is the case for the majority), then a "morality of the people" will emerge. This is not to say that we are selfish creatures, because there is no choice to be made. We are products of the inexorable process of evolution.

Any community of human beings who have collectively agreed that such-and-such an act or course of actions is moral, have done so in the final analysis because they believed these actions to be in the service of human flourishing. — Thomas Quine

I would say it's too strong assumption for people in general. Equally likely (or even more likely) it can be result of an evolutionary like process. We are trying to evaluate moral value afterwards, that's a major source of distortion. In case of long term process, reasons and outcomes could be vary in different points in time.

For example at the beginning you can find something like an Abilene paradox and it could be spread widely afterwards. The main reason could be a reverse in some cases, I mean moral principles could be preserved because of absence of disagreement. The only example that come to my mind right now is fashion.

I personally think that main benefit from the moral rules are rules themselves. Almost any moral rule can be helpful if it isn't destructive for community, helps to understand easier people around you or stabilize people behavior.