Authority, I believe, is established in the following way:

For person A to become an authority to Person B,

1)Person B must believe that Person A is better than them at something, and
2)Person B must believe Person A will not use the fact that they are better than them at something to hurt them.

That’s basically it. There are some smaller points, like:

3)Once an authority is established, it can remain, even if the superiority of the authority doesn’t remain.
4)Two people can be authorities to one another, if they are both better than the other at something.
5)Authority is of degrees, depending on a)how much better Person A is than Person B, b)what they're better at, and c)how much Person B believes that Person A will not try to hurt them.
6)Person A can be an authority to Person B, if Person C is an authority to Person B, and Person C tells Person B that Person A should be an authority to them.

However, all of these points, I think, are tangential to the main thrust of my original question. The main thrust, I think, is:

“Is what our conscience tells us is right or wrong, simply the result of what certain people (authorities or something else) have complimented us for, or scolded us for?”

This, I think, is a question with potentially extremely important implications. Whether I'm right or wrong about what I makes an authority an authority, or whether it's even an “authority” at all that's at play here, doesn't so much bother me. In fact, I'm willing to adopt whatever term or definition anyone would like to use here, so long as it gets us to what I believe is the meat of my question, that being: “Is what we think is “right” and “wrong” only what someone else (whoever they are) has told us to do or to not do?”

You asked what I think the things I've said have in relation to certain passages you quote from the Tao Te Ching. Frankly, I don't see how they relate much. The “3's” and “4's” that you quote are ethical in nature, yes, but the reasoning behind them is that it is in your own self-interest to adhere to them, independently of whether your conscience tells you to or not. The “6's” seem to me to be about memory--namely, what kinds of things remind you of other kinds of things. What I've been talking about I think is emotion--namely, what is the source of the peculiar emotions related to conscience. These things, memory and emotion, I think, are two mostly unrelated things.

This theory runs into the problem of having to find the first authority.

I don't think anybody has to have an authority figure. So, in the event that there is no conscience without taboo, and no taboo without authority, then I think that anybody who lacks an authority figure would simply lack a conscience--i.e., they would not have any feeling that any action is morally wrong. Note, this is not to say that they would therefore also lack the capacity for a conscience, just that that capacity wouldn't be actualized until an authority came in to play, and until it started disapproving of things.

I think morality and, therefore, conscience, arose from empathy and that's, usually, a shared human trait. The majority have to agree that something is bad and they do this through emapthetic ability. Subesequently, conscience is born.

On the issue of whether it's bad to go to the bathroom in the house, to chew up certain things, or to come to me when I call, my dog and I are not in agreement from the get-go. Before any disapproval has been expressed, she thinks these things are OK and I do not. Our resolution of these disagreements, then, is not brought about through empathy--i.e., through our shared sentiments towards the same objects. The resolution is brought about through her restraint of her sentiments, and her submission to mine.

And consider children. Before any disapproval has been expressed regarding the following activities, are children often in agreement with their parents regarding whether they should, for example, use profanity, violence, or engage in sexual activity? And, unlike dogs, are they able to be reasoned with regarding these things, such that they can form a proper understanding of why these things are wrong to do? Admittedly, this is not as clear-cut a case as with dogs, but I don't think so. Yet, in children, these are things which I think are the primary sources of a bad conscience.

Also, going back to my dog, if empathy were the source of conscientiousness, why does my dog not display the symptoms of a bad conscience when she does things which other humans or animals disapprove of? For example, she often does things which other dogs and cats express disapproval of--e.g., by barking, growling, or hissing--yet she show no signs of a bad conscience when this happens, despite the fact that she is probably more empathetic with them--i.e., that more of her sentiments are in common with them than they are with humans.

The same may be asked of children. Does other children's disapproval have much effect on their conscience, or is it almost exclusively adults who influence it? Again, it is less clear here, but I still think it is much more likely that children's consciences are much more formed by adults, even though they're more empathetic with other children.