Notes on Ethics

Ethics are theories of the good. The principle good is happiness. Happiness means physical pleasure as well as higher pleasures of the mind, such as satisfaction, wisdom, peace, and a sense of well-being. All things that can have some conscious sensation of physical pain and/or mental anguish are subject to the ethic of happiness and thus deserve moral consideration. Justice is a sense of equality, balance, and fairness. It means each gets exactly what he deserves, no more and no less. When one does work he undergoes some pain in that he expends some of his energy and time. He expends this energy now in the expectation that he will receive some commensurate or even superior good later. When he expends energy doing good toward another, there is a sense of deservedness of an equal good in return. When one does evil toward another, he has decreased the level of happiness for that person and there is a sense of deservedness of an equal evil I return. Out of this sense of equivalent exchange comes a sense of justice. There is no justice for groups, but only for individuals. If we speak of justice for a group, we actually mean justice for a group of individuals. Complete justice would mean that everyone is the same. Because injustice is conceptually displeasing, it causes a measure of unhappiness. Thus while morality supercedes justice, justice does play a factor in morality and often the one contributes to the other. Out of justice emerges a sense of individual rights, which are simply all powers that individuals have that do not infringe on the powers of others unjustly or cause undeserved suffering.
If one individual were made happy while another was left unhappy, the situation would be unjust, yet still more moral than before, since the general level of happiness has increased. If both were made happy to an amount equivalent to the increase in happiness of the previous case (factoring in added unhappiness of the latter individual) with the happiness divided equally among them, then the situation would be equally moral as the previous case and also just.
When we discuss hypothetical ethical dilemmas, we imagine ourselves in the situation of the person in the dilemma. If we judge that it would cause unhappiness or pain to us, we view it as immoral. Instances of morality are the conceptual counterpart to aesthetic beauty, as both cause pleasure on one level or another.
Pride is a positive assessment of oneself (or sometimes of another). The word pride is used in both a negative and positive sense. There are actually three varieties. Just pride is a positive assessment based on earned merit (or desert) and is morally acceptable unless it is taken to the point where others are meant to feel inferior. Justified pride is a positive assessment based on what might be called accidental virtues, that is, positive qualities about a person that he happened to have due to pure good fortune, such as good looks or talents. This sort of pride is morally neutral because it simply describes reality. Of course it becomes immoral when it is used improperly to make others feel inferior. Finally, there is unjust pride, which is positive assessment that is undeserved, is based on false virtues, or has no real merit. This is almost always immoral, as it is a judgment that is not based on true desert, and is thus unjust and leads to unhappiness in others. The concept of such an incorrect judgment is abhorrent.