Moral behavior
Moral behavior is acting according to society or personal moral standards and values. Morality focuses primarily on the conformity of principles of good conduct, and moral behavior is not subjective. In most cases, morality goes beyond the personal understanding of right or wrong conduct and considers the acceptance of values, standards, and norms of society. Morality can also refer to values that a community regulates daily to promote good conduct. Good morality is characterized by general acceptance and its orientation towards a common good. Therefore, good moral behavior is the ability of individuals belonging to a society to practice moral virtues. Happiness, on the other hand, is the blessedness or good quality of life. Moral behavior players a key role in a person’s level of happiness. This paper shall discuss how moral behavior is necessary for the attainment of happiness.
Moral behavior is a critical determinant of a person’s state of long life fulfillment. The goal of most, if not all, of human actions is to attain happiness. For instance, we work hard in academics to score a good grade, qualify us for advanced learning in our fields of desire, and eventually get a good job or start a profitable business. A job or business makes us happy by enabling us to afford necessities and luxury needs. Happiness is the highest good in humanity. For a person to attain happiness, he must be a good person and virtuous. A virtuous person is associated with habitual acts that are good oriented. Humans also need virtues to live a happy life because some common virtues such as fairness, prudence, faithfulness, and honesty are components of happiness.
Right reasoning is another critical feature of moral behavior. The right reason coordinates courage, honesty, and justice. All these three virtues can help a person attain happiness if they are applied with the right reasoning. For instance, if the vendor gives a person extra change, he/she can choose to return the extra or walk away with it with guilt. A morally upright person will be guided by virtue of justice to return the extra change and leave a free and happy man/woman. An immoral person will choose to keep the change but will be forced to deal with guilt and fear of shame if it gets discovered, among other stressful factors. In the end, the morally upright person will live happily and promote integrity while the immoral will live in fear, guilt, and unhappiness.
Since good moral behavior helps a person attain the right reason, it implies that morality helps people make well-informed choices. A morally upright person is most likely to make a decision that is good for both parties involved. In other words, moral behavior prevents one from making choices or regulations that cost other people happiness. Decision making and morality apply in practical situations such as a tax collector accepting bribes for tax evasion. If an immoral person successfully aids tax evasion, the nation will lose taxes that would benefit more people and negatively affect many sectors and populations. On the other hand, a morally upright person will apply the virtue of courage to say no to bribery. In the long run, the morally upright person will be happy, the nation will realize higher revenue collections, the economy will nourish, and a larger population will be more satisfied.
Additionally, moral behavior trickles down to basic human components such as family, friends, and wealth accumulation. A family-based on virtue faithfulness, for instance, has higher chances of being stable, harmonious living, and better understanding. Justice in a family setting also allows family members to act fairly while courage virtue necessitates family members to take risks for one another. Again, honesty in a family setting implies that partners exercise the ability, to tell the truth, which sets us free. These components of justice, faithfulness, and honesty apply to friendship. Now, a society is made up of small units of families. If these societal units apply these crucial virtues characterized by moral behavior, they will be happy independently. On a broader view, many small happy units make a wide happy society, hence the universal attainment of happiness. These virtues also apply in wealth accumulation, in that legally acquired wealth enables the owner to enjoy their hard work. Those who acquired their wealth will constantly fear arrest, prosecution, shame, and eventually unhappy.
From a different perspective, moral behavior would be irrational if it would not help us achieve happiness. In a typical society, people from different backgrounds and cultures coexist and become united through moral and ethical standards. By its nature, morality is concerned with how one’s behavior affects the person living in the same society. Good moral behavior enhances another person’s well-being and happiness. We can only be happy if we behave morally towards other people around us. Acting morally also means treating other people fairly, being just, and helping a needy person in the best way we can. Living a happy life means that you have to make peace with yourself by practicing the three key virtues discussed above. The personal peace can then be improved to harmonious living and even a happy universe. It is impossible to live a happy, peaceful life if we constantly do wrong to ourselves and the people in our society.
In conclusion, this paper has vividly expressed how moral behavior leads to happiness. The paper has established how moral behavior influences essential human components such as family and friends, to broader life components such as a universal happy and harmonious living. In its nature, moral behavior contains virtues that are paramount in attaining happiness. Happiness is a supreme good that we all strive to achieve in all our undertakings, and it is worth the struggle. Unlike other aspects that enhance short-lived pleasure, good moral behavior enhances long-lasting happiness. We simply exist to live happily and be of help to other members of society. Good moral behavior makes good people who make happy families that make up a happy society and a happy universe. Therefore, this paper acknowledges that moral behavior leads to happiness.