Immorality of Pain

To make a moral theory based on the supposition that people seek pleasure and happiness and avoid pain doesn't seem very hard. I would argue that causing another person pain is immoral because it denys their human right to seek pleasure. So you should seek happiness for yourself, but never in a way that causes another person pain. I'm assuming that the theory only has to work in a perfect world, because in this one people can't seem to get anything they want without causing another person pain, at least emotional pain. I'm an acting major, so I can't get a role that I want that will give me happiness without disappointing everyone else who wanted the role.

So perhaps there needs to be a certain level of pain for the action to be considered immoral, since we cannot determine every little side effect our doings will have on other people... or we would never do anything. It would be difficult to determine a rule by witch you measure pain to determine immorality. Not sharing a bag of gummy bears with your friends might make them unhappy but it's not exactly immoral... however not sharing food with someone who is starving to death could be immoral. Perhaps it should be based on how your decision effects the other person's quality of life.

I think I like that last thought the best. Based on the Happiness vs. Pain moral structure, I'm going to say that it is immoral to cause someone pain that is significant enough to damage their quality of life. Something that doesn't change their quality of life but is still painfull falls under the heading of rudeness.

Those are my thoughts.