Vices are usually pleasurable, at least for the time being, and often do not disclose themselves as vices by their effects until after they have been practiced for many years, perhaps for a lifetime. To many, perhaps most, of those who practice them, they do not disclose themselves as vices at all during life.
Virtues, on the other hand, often appear so harsh and rugged, they require the sacrifice of so much present happiness, at least, and the results, which alone prove them to be virtues, are often so distant and obscure, in fact, so absolutely invisible to the minds of many, especially of the young, that, from the very nature of things, there can be no universal, or even general, knowledge that they are virtues. In truth, the studies of profound philosophers have been expended — if not wholly in vain, certainly with very small results — in efforts to draw the lines between the virtues and the vices.
If, then, it became so difficult, so nearly impossible, in most cases, to determine what is, and what is not, vice — and especially if it be so difficult, in nearly all cases, to determine where virtue ends, and vice begins — and if these questions, which no one can really and truly determine for anybody but himself, are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit, his right to inquire, investigate, reason, try experiments, judge, and ascertain for himself what is,
to him, virtue, and what is,
to him, vice — in other words: what, on the whole, conduces to
his happiness, and what, on the whole, tends to
his unhappiness. If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man's whole right, as a reasoning human being, to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is denied him.
Originally Posted by Ron Paul
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