Every acting being has a morality, that is, has preferences and acts on those preferences. The ultimate end which lies behind every action is that end which is never a means to any other end - this ultimate end can be called satisfaction, happiness or pleasure. It must not be misunderstood that the ultimate end is a particular kind of pleasure (such as of eating delicious food). The correlation is formal - what we mean by satisfaction is that end which every acting being is always seeking. It is a tautology.
The problem of morality is reduced to a technical problem: what is the correct means to the attainment of one’s ultimate end (satisfaction)? Mises avoided discussing the ultimate end (there is one section where he mentions Epicurean ataraxia in passing but that’s as close as he gets) because he didn’t need it but praxeological theory is perfectly consistent with this form of analysis.
People confuse social order (norms) with morality. This is forgivable because, by far, the majority of the problems associated with attaining one’s satisfaction are social in nature. It’s an easy thing to build a shelter in order to get relief from the elements (satisfaction) - the branches of a tree will never retaliate against you. But it’s a lot more difficult to attain satisfaction by means of social relations - just think of parents, friends, spouses, employers, employees, bill-collectors, police, judges, Presidents, etc. These are all people and they are all imposing their will upon you and resisting the imposition of your will upon them. Unlike tree branches, they have a memory, they can connive and they retaliate or even aggress.
Just like there are right and wrong ways to build a shelter, there are right and wrong ways to interact with other human beings. The end in either case is always the same: my satisfaction. The majority of what people mean when they talk about “right and wrong” or “morality” is precisely this question of right and wrong ways to interact with other human beings. The key difference is that most discussion of morality leaves out the question to what end? The end is my satisfaction and rightness/wrongness of course of action is to be judged with respect to its suitability for bringing about my satisfaction. How should I treat others? In whatever way brings about my satisfaction.
And almost every thing in life which is a means to your ultimate end (satisfaction) is entangled with the social order. If you want to cook yourself a meal, you will need groceries, to get the groceries, you will need money, to get money you will need to sell something you have (perhaps your labor) and to sell something, you will need to find a buyer (human being, a social entity). Suddenly, just cooking yourself a simple meal involves people and is now a complicated matter of social interactions.
Some people might object that this moral principle is simple-minded and would justify murder if you’re someone who gets a kick out of killing, for example. But this objection (falsely) imagines that the only thing stopping people from going on murderous rampages is the will to do so. The fact is that people push back on us depending on how we behave (reciprocation, retaliation, etc.). They obstruct our choices (deadbolts, security guards) and impose costs on us (lawsuits, bill collectors) depeding on how we act. Of course, these are only the gross means by which people push and pull against one another, the most sublte and pervasive forms of push and pull are invisible: guilt, fear, love, shame, etc. The internal wiring in our brain permits us to impose intangible penalties on one another and it is these intangible penalties that are the warp and weave of the social order.
Clayton -