To start reading phylosophical books?

[YesNo]

I agree. I wonder what it means to say we are "rational"? It seems "intuitive" would fit us better.

Even when I am reading something scientific or mathematical and I finally, after reading it many times, say to myself, "Oh, yeah, that's reasonable." Or, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." I don't mean that I went through some rational process or that I had a sense experience of the theorem. I just finally understood it intuitively.

[lifeisart]

I actually try to be reasonable. And some people just sometimes find me, reasonable person. But I'm not quite rational, I don't calculate everything in life.

And I have many reasons to support what I do. Even if I don't, I directly say ''I'll do this because I want to''.

Individualism is very nice thing, but that just doesn't work in my country. For example, once I didnt ate butter because it was unhealhty, but I ate pizza during that time. That's irrational and that's what I wanna do.
And I do what you do during scientific articles and politics I usually remember my old knowledges and check. If they're consistent inside, then I say ''it's rational''. But my old knowledges could of course be wrong.

[YesNo]

I can come up with a lot of reasons for what I think is true or what I do if someone challenges me, but I don't think that is why I think something is true or plan to do something. I get a gut feeling that tells me this is right or wrong and then I go with it making up excuses if need be on the way.

I don't think I'm rational. And I think that's a good thing. A computer is rational. I wouldn't want to be a computer.

[lifeisart]

Yeah, I think you're right in that. We're more intuitive rather than rational and we have emotions. We cannot be totally rational people.
And I realized that I find exuces to justify what I do

[YesNo]

I'm reading Simon Blackburn's "Ethics: A very short introduction". Books in this series tend to be short and readable. I assume they contain the main arguments and they have bibliographies if you really want to read more of it.

The Ten Commandments have 10 moral standards. Chopra's Seven Laws have 7. I am aiming for something between these two numbers.

So far, there is only one: "Respect Gravity". Now you might think I came up with that off the top of my head, but I actually got it from Will Johnson's "The Posture of Meditation". It comes from a practice called Rolfing. It works for me, and if I practiced it more, it would probably work even better for me.

The second moral standard is "Have a Mantram".

A mantram is a short phrase that you say over and over again to yourself. You probably don't want to say this out loud unless there is no one around you. It can be about anything, but often it is a praise to some diety. Mine is directed toward the Goddess Saraswati. I am aware that you probably don't know who she is. I don't know much about her either.

I suppose an atheist could make up something about Reason or Science. New Age spiritualists might say something about World Peace. Christians have many mantrams associated with Jesus already. They just need to get in the habit of saying them. Muslims, I am sure, can find something. They have one of the greatest cultures in the world. If you can't think of anything, find a verse from one of your sacred texts or scientific papers or your favorite novel or poem and keep repeating that phrase over and over and over until you just say it to yourself without thinking.

What this does is it pushes out the drivel going through our minds and redirects our minds onto something specific and positive. This calms the mind and allows intuition to do its thing. It allows the daydreaming the mind engages in to be productive rather than a waste of time.

Now to come up with about seven more of these standards.

[YesNo]

I finished skimming through Blackburn's book. He is a proponent of quasi-realism in meta-ethics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-realism One of the problems with meta-ethics is to find a justification for the very existence of ethical statements. The reason this is a problem is because people change, cultures change and situations within cultures change. Is it possible to come up with a text or a set of commandments that are good for all people and all cultures and all situations? There is also an underlying assumption that we could order the possible choices before us so that a best choice exists and we could pick the best one. That assumption needs justification.

If all that were possible, we would be in a deterministic situation and the moral commandments would be our program that we would have to train ourselves and each other to follow. We would then rationally conform to some text (program). This is way too mechanistic. I don't believe we are machines. We choose based on our intuition rather than conforming rationally to some script. This can get us into trouble if our intuition is faulty.

In terms of my own list of moral standards, I think there is only one more to add which I would call "Pay Attention". Some might call this "mindfulness". I don't know if that would be the correct word to use. What this means is to pay attention to what one is doing at the moment whether that is sitting, walking, or doing whatever. Another way of saying this is: "You're alive, enjoy it."

Here is the complete list:

1) "Respect Gravity": This is a standard that applies to one's body, in particular, the posture that allows better breathing.

2) "Have a Mantra": This is a standard that applies to one's mind to control the drivel going through it.

3) "Pay Attention": This is a standard for the mind-body.

What these three standards are intended to do is to put one in a position so that one can intuit what one should do at any given time. One does not need a moral code or program. One will know.

We all practice these already. We all have postures. We all think. We all pay attention. The reason to specify these three is to suggest that if we did these things better, we would have a better understanding of what we should be doing. Our intuition would improve.

[bounty]

lifeisart---its often really difficult for me to get to the site so it might take me a while to get back but ive not forgotten what youre looking for.

I wouldn't recommend any Nietzsche to start (even after plato).

I think YesNo might have hinted at something like what I am about to suggest. I just recently picked up a book called "the story of psychology" and I suspect there must be a philosophy equivalent. some book that gives the lay of the land so to speak about everything that's out there. a sampler if you will. and when you read that, while you are getting the broad view, some particular things of interest will jump out at you.

when I mentioned "spiritual" things---I am suggesting looking into and reading works by theologians. Augustine comes to mind, or Aquinas, but there are certainly others.

[freaky]

The OP answered the question himself. You must understand the context in which the philosopher in question is writing. You can understand a movie you begin to watch halfway, but you'll need to put a lot of effort reconstructing it.

[YesNo]

Those interested in philosophy may find https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/ useful as a place to ask and answer questions.