Achieve the good by practicing the pleasant (e.g. the cardinal qualities: bravery, temperance, piety, wisdom, justice). Ethical choice is personal and absolute, based on knowledge rather than acceptance of the views of others. Act such that you are please and others are served. Refrain from wrong doing regardless of consequences.

Acquire the knowledge required to make a good decision. Find the absolute good regardless of the views of society.

Good is a fundamental object of human striving. Good actions are a matter of choice. Excess and deficiency destoy perfection. Avoid extremes by determining the the "just-right" mean between excess and defect.

Consider all factors in finding a solution that avoids extremes and promotes the mean or "just-right"

Judeo-Christian Fundamentals

There are fundamental actions that are ethically correct. See the 10 commandments and the other lessons of the Torah (old testiment), new testiment, and Talmud. The Koran is an extension of this tradition. Indeed, all religions promote certain socially desireable "moral" and ethical behaviors, and there is great consistency among them.

Find the solution that does not violate our fundamental beliefs in right and wrong, good and evil, as expressed in relevant religious texts.

Intention determines morality, and god alone can judge intent. A person is responsible for their own character.

Is the intent of a solution/actoin good or evil?

Human conditions do not always permit virtue (mercy, faith, integrity, humanity). Hence true virtu entails the ability to understand, acccept, and adapt, even where it entails acting with cunning, duplicity, and bad faith. Maintain appearances such that others see you as you want to be seen rather than as you are. The ends justify the means. Do unto others as they would do unto you.

Understand, accept, and adapt to change. Examine problems situationally and flext ethical absolutes only to the minimal degree required to achieve the desired end.

There is no clear, objective truth. Good is what people see as self-interest, but they can achieve more in concert. The route to ethical behavior is politics. Seek peace in vulnerability and conflict. Promote justice and mutual accommodation. Fulfill your obligations.

Rise above self-interest; promote justice and strive for mutual accommodation. Fulfill your obligations.

Our feelings and impulses are good, but we make errors via passion. Use reason to balance reason and feeling. The good of the greatest number is the greatest virtue.

Use reason to balance passion in acting for the greater good.

Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains. Man is good, but becomes evil in embracing society. Morality is found in the exercise of conscience through proper conduct: service to country, obligations to friends, and the relief of unhappiness. In doing this we fulfill our social contract

Use conscience, compassion, and reason to make ethical decisions that promote harmony.

Reason is the basis for moral action. The proper course of behavior is found in finding the ideal "good" against which action can be measured. We should develop a personal code of morality composed of such ideals and use it as a guide to making reasoned decisions.

Using a self-determined ideal standard, rationally find a solution that is just, reasonable, and honorable.

Even if the universe is a deterministic machine, people have the ability to reason and act as moral agents. We have obligations to others to promote virtue, good health, and dignity. "Ought implies can" such that we must find rules of behavior that are responsible to ourselves and others. Act as if your action were, through your will, a universal law of nature (the categorical imperitive).

Using reasoned rules of behavior that seem to have universal truth, find the solution that promotes virtue, good health, and dignity.

Find the solution that will bring the greatest good to the greatest number.

We are not free. Character cannot be changed. Pleasure and happiness are atypical. Pain is normal. Moralilty arises from experience (our ability to rise above self-interest), balance (our ability to eschew malice), and respect for others (our ability to show compassion). The ethical ideal is to find the least painful middle ground, as exemplified in the fable of the porquipine.

Use experience to achieve a compassionate and balanced solution that minimizes pain for ourselves and others.

Society and morality are intertwined. Scientific method can be applied to social problems. If morality is a product of society, judgements of ethical right and wrong are justifyable only in the context of that society. Society can and does motivate ethical behavior, but as a society changes, so to do its ethics (cultural ethical relativism). Moral facts and ideals are not abstract concepts, but concrete realities.

How does the proposed action contribute to and reflect the existing moral fabric of your society.

No person has a predetermined place or function (existentialism). What a person is is a function of their choices. In order for an action to have moral relevance, their must be a choice (radical individualism). Truly moral people are true to their moral codes, which are indivudally developed according to their natures. We are condemned to freedom (the existential dilemma). Everything is permitted, but we are responsible for our choices. It is wrong to play with the lives of others without their consent by either making another a slave or wasting wealth while others starve.

Man is by nature selfish. Universal concepts and ideas have objective reality. We can perceive that reality via our senses and use reason to integrate and act upon that reality. Ethics is a code of values to guide choices and action. Ethics is expressed in rational self-interest. One adopts a standard, in a given context, for a given purpose. We ought to live for selves, not others.

Use reasoning to find the solution that best meets your needs as an individual.

Morality developes through levels. We all pass through these levels in turn, with advancement through stages necessarily acheived through discussion. The levels are preconventional (1) avoiding punishment and (2) finding self-benefit, conventional (3) being accepted by others and (4) maintaining the social order, and postconventional (5) contract fulfillment, and (6) acting on ethical principle. We ascend through these stages by exercising increasinglly mature moral judgements and actions.

Determine the level at which you are functioning. Use reason to attain the most mature judgement possible.

Identify (self-formation) is a necessary prelude to ethical action. Ethics should be more than precepts. They should be a lifestyle. "Power" is about "control", even when it is cast as being about "welfare". Power cannot go away, but it can be neutralized.

Know yourself. Neutralize power.

When presented with the "hyperreal" (the substitution of false for the real). Pick the least manipulative and intrustive path as the one that most closely represents reality.

Pick the least maniuplative and intrusive path.

There are fundamental values that most of us agree are important, but there are no perfect decisions. We are frequently required, in our ethical decision making, to make forced choices between values that we might believe to be equally important. Hence people with essentially the same values can make very different choices under the same circumstances.

Ethical decisions have fractal boundaries based on our need to make forced choices between competing goods. Find the solution that minimizes damage to any of our shared values.

Quality is expressed in evolutionary moral order. Static quality patterns order themselves in time, build on prior levels, and take precedence over prior levels. Priority flows from from inorganic (least important), through biological and then social to intellectual. Static quality patterns emerge from the success of dynamic quality patterns, which compete freely for preeminence and are often perceived intuitively.

Solutions should promote intellectual quality over social quality; social quality over biological principles; biological quality over inorganic quality. Recognize that ethical principles compete for preeminance and that the best path is often found intuitively.