The Virtue of Doing What Is Right

Doing what is right vs. doing what brings immediate happiness; it is amazing that this moral debate has not been decided once and for all. In the gaming era of techno-social indebtedness pseudo-realism may be mirrored in financial, money trading and investment networks in which international boundaries and real people are no obstacles to quick, vast profit taking for an intellectual objective of happiness that is wrong. The philosophy of consequentialism may be a utilitarian effort to select the best form of happiness with the least possible ill consequences, yet a eudaemonistic disregard for reality, social and even evolutionary effects on the watery planet in the solar system and galactic habitation zones may present future disaster and immediate personal harm.

The loss of a moral sense of right and wrong degrades an individual and a society. A global pursuit of abstract profits may lose sight of the rationale for production of goods that meet individual needs and undermine the political and economic credibility not only of a nation, but of many nations.

The Roman philosopher Cicero wrote a treatise on natural law. The book of Jeremiah cites God as saying that everyone knows him yet they intentionally forget who he is. Jean Paul Sartre might have called that ‘false consciousness’. I believe that the reference may have been to an innate sense of moral right and wrong derived from the goodness of God pervasive throughout experience. Human being may choose to do wrong or wickedness because they disregard the subtle conscience suggesting parameters of right and wrong in human social interactions.

Happiness may be found in personal egoism for a time perhaps, even with sociopaths that enjoy torture and murder that know their actions are wrong yet simply don’t care being happy in wickedness. Socially approved pursuits of happiness may too develop social trends in support of amorality in a belief that happiness may be procured through vice or change for-itself rather than with a definite better course in mind. Comparatively few social circumstance are improved through anarchy or random change-for themselves. Structured analytically directed actions even at the price of less than pleasure or immediate happiness may be the right response to innumerable existential challenges.

An individual might easily find happiness through the pursuit of doing what is right. Developing wisdom enough to determine what is right may also bring a sense of happiness. In fact happiness may be an adjustable goal appearing through the accomplishment of personal goals inclusive of right actions and thought.