Group Feeling, Morality, and Justice

The previous section explained that fellow-feeling, instead of the need for self-preservation, is the real cause of society.

All animals have a self-preservation instinct, yet not all come together into a society.

Personal feelings lead to personal actions just as group feelings lead to group actions which manifest in:

• political events such as elections, declaration of war
• economic events such as a stock market crash or the heating up of the property market
• social events such as marriage or funerals

Group feelings is therefore an important aspect of society.

Moral Phlosophy applies both to personal and group morals.

Pleasure Versus Peace

Western moral philosophy focuses on the feelings of pain and pleasure as the basis for morality.

The problem is that such feelings can either be physical or metaphysical (mental).

• Physical pain can manifest as a wound or a toothache
• Metaphysical pain can manifest as:
  • the pain of seeing your ex-partner happy with someone else, or
  • the pain of not seeing our loved ones for a long time

Moreover, pleasure is usually associated with physicality such as eating delicious food, listening to our favorite music, having a relaxing massage, doing sexual acts, etc.

We do not usually associate the word pleasure with giving relief goods to victims of disasters, or in solving the problem of our friends or customers.

• In these cases, we get a warm, lightweight feeling in our hearts instead of strong pleasureable semsations in our brains.

This is why our basis for morality is not pain versus pleasure, but peace versus anxiety.