The essential principles of objective reasoning, as I see it, are the following-

1. Free will and selflessness cannot coexist.
2. All human decisions are made with the purpose of creating positive stimuli and preventing negative stimuli.

I come to this conclusion in a few ways. All human actions, regardless of morality or common sense behind them, can be broken down into a chain of risk/reward tradeoffs. For example, students don't just do their homework "because they feel like it". They (generally) do it because consistently doing homework can eventually lead to better shelter, more access to food, and an increase in positive emotions which in turn helps their chance of survival. Similarly, people who drive the speed limit don't do it just because "people should do it"- it's usually done to prevent negative stimuli such as going to jail, which would harm their ability to reproduce, gather food and defend themselves.

Even acts of seeming selflessness, such as donating to charity or returning that $20 bill you found on the street to it's owner, can easily be explained through this chain of instinctual logic. If you keep the $20 bill, you could have fear that if you get caught, you would get arrested, which would cause the negative stimuli as described in the last paragraph. Combined with the positive emotions and the possible increase in social status and protection that would result from giving back the money, one could logically assume that the possible reward of giving back the money is worth the risk and is therefore the best decision to make. Of course, not everyone would give back the $20 bill. This is because some people would assume that the risk of being caught don't outweigh the rewards of having an extra $20 to spend, and vice-versa. Knowing this, we can make a third basic rule of objective reasoning- that people have unique personalities because they have different opinions about the amount of positive or negative stimuli created by certain actions.

Obvious arguments to this theory are examples in nature of animals acting suicidally or contrary to logical reasoning. Certain breeds of prairie dogs have been shown to call out to the rest of their pack when they detect a predator such as an eagle or hawk. This diverts the predator's attention, which not only warns their fellow prairie dogs, but decreases the likely hood that a large number of them would get eaten instead of just the one that called out. Obviously, the high risk of death resulting from this is greater than any positive stimuli that could possibly occur from gaining the attention of a predator. Therefore, this would be a "selfless" act which would defy the logic explained in the beginning of this post.

My counter-argument is that 1. The negative stimuli that would result from a prairie dog failing to alert the pack (being responsible for the death of dozens of your species) would be so enormous that it could justify a relatively quick and painless death, and 2. This is not an example of free will since this action (drawing the attention of the predator) is a predictable result of negative stimuli that will occur regardless of how much help drawing the attention of the predator will actually be to the rest of the pack. Arguing that this example defies objective reasoning is similar to saying that the body defies objective reasoning when cells become cancerous and divide uncontrollably. There isn't a thought process there- it's just something that happens in nature that we have to deal with in our lives.

When taken from a purely objective point of view, many famous generals and politicians of all different sides seem to have a very similar thought process when it comes to making decisions. Who is to say that both General Eisenhower and Hitler both commanded troops because they believed that the reward of winning a war (a high position of power which would lead to much easier access to things needed for survival) would greatly outweigh the risks (being assassinated or captured by enemy troops)? And what, then, caused them to wage war other than the allied leaders trying to prevent the negative stimuli (loss of political influence) that they believed would result from Hitler dominating all of Europe? "Moral courage" and "universal brotherhood" were not key factors in either general's decision-making process. In fact, morality as a whole is simply a risk/reward decision based on what I described above: would it really be worth it to give something up for the possibility of increased social status or monetary reward?

I am convinced that a purely objective thought process should be used for conflicts where people believe that their opposing solutions are both best for the group. For example, if one person wants to color the background of a forum red and another person wants to color it blue, both people should not only write their opinions but also write their thought process starting with the action, following with what they believe will be the results of that action, and ending in how it will personally benefit themselves. A simplified example is shown below:

-If we color the forum red...
-More people will join, since more people like the color red...
-The increase in people would increase the average person's popularity on the forum...
-This would cause people to associate my decisions with increases in popularity...
-...which would increase my social status in the forum

This would not only show what's good about your opinion, but WHY YOU ARE STATING YOUR OPINION IN THE FIRST PLACE. This is critical. Differing solutions would then be judged primarily on the thought process their sponsors had behind them, not by a convoluted thought process thought up on the spot to try to figure out how a particular solution would best benefit the voter. Decisions could be made much more quickly and with less personal conflict, and it would be possible to compromise since each side would know exactly what the other person wants to result from a decision instead of just what he wants to do.

I propose using this method in large conflicts where both sides seem to be at an unbreakable impasse. It would really help speed things up and make debates quicker and more civilized.