Scientology also teaches that progress along The Bridge both requires and enables the attainment of high moral and ethical standards. Thus, in his Introduction to Scientology Ethics, Hubbard claimed (p. 9) that an important breakthrough in Scientology was the development of "the basic technology of ethics."

Hubbard used the term "morals" to refer to a collectively agreed code of good conduct (p. 24), whereas he defined ethics as "the actions an individual takes on himself in order to accomplish optimum survival for himself and others on all [eight] dynamics" (p. 17). Hubbard stressed the rationality of ethical behaviour: "Ethics actually consists of rationality toward the highest level of survival." (p. 15); "If a moral code were thoroughly reasonable, it could, at the same time, be considered thoroughly ethical. But only at this highest level could the two be called the same"
(p. 25).