Sarah asked:

What can be said about the claim that happiness is simply pleasure?

Sarah also asked:

What is a virtue? What virtues do we need in order to live a good life?

============

Over the centuries many philosophers have written about happiness being nothing deeper than a
sense of pleasure, the absence of pain, uninvolvement in serious affairs etc. Among the Greeks,
Epicurus is foremost; among the Chinese Yang Chu has written some beautiful stories and prose
sketches on the subject (I for one far prefer these to the dour Epicurus, who seems to me almost
hysterically concerned with his menu, health, fears and other worries: Yang Chu is more interested in
fine clothes, food, entertaining in style and philosophising on death — in a gentle and happy sort of
way). Among more modern philosophers, Schopenhauer has written a gravely beautiful book on the
subject, called Aphorisms on The Good Life;and Santayana might be regarded as to some degree
belonging into the same bracket, although he is much more aristocratic and cultivates a prose style
that is almost too beautiful for philosophy. An example is his book Scepticism and Animal Faith,full of
good humour, gentle sarcasm and much wisdom. As an example of what he is on about: he believes
that even an atheist should continue to abide by the Roman Catholic Liturgy, because it is ... well,
stately, grand, festive, full of innocent pleasure and promise and, yes, beautiful. But you know: these
are mostly the work of elderly thinkers, who've seen much and probably suffered a lot. How much
their recommendations may mean to a young person I cannot assess. But if this is how you feel, you
could do worse than at least dip into their books.

Your question about virtue, on the other hand, no-one could possible pretend to answer in one
paragraph. One might recommend you start with Plato, but which book? I'm inclined to say: all of
them. Reading Plato is one of the best ways of killing time known to mankind, so my recommendation
is not frivolously intended. The trouble with virtue is, unfortunately, that in our Christian society, it is
inevitably bound up with specifically Christian virtues; and accordingly a great deal of what has been
written on the subject is tinged with religious/ moral issues. In Rome, where the word originated, 'vir'
had quite a different slant on it, cf. "virility", one of its derivatives. And speaking of Plato and his
cohort, their word was "arete", which is better translated as "excellence" and carries a semantic of
'social excellence'. So you need to pick your favoured notion of virtue; for there simply isn't just one
single meaning to this word.

Jürgen Lawrenz

Sydney