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Hello, does happiness mean living a life of pleasure or one of virtue?

It's an old question and the Roman poet Horace attempted to answer it when he wrote,

Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy.

He more rightly deserves the name of happy, who knows how to use the God's gifts wisely,

and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor more than death. It seems a noble sentiment in

that rather antiquated translation, but for the Greek's office Frisie Marcus

this sort of attitude was the epitome of moral weakness. For him, poverty was miserable, and happiness flowed from wealth

and power over men, an idea so persuasive that Plato wrote the Republic in response to its

challenge. What have our philosophers made of the compulsion to be happy?

And how much does this ancient debate still define what it means to be happy today?

Are we entitled to health, wealth and the pursuit of pleasure or is true happiness something

else entirely?

With me to discuss the philosophy of happiness is Angie Hobbs, lecturer in philosophy at

the University

and to take but one book again of being good and Anthony Graling

author of the meaning of things and reader in philosophy at Birkbeck University of London.

And she hopes the Greek word for happiness is I believe

I'm a near.

Ida monia?

What did they mean by it in general terms? You tell me how to pronounce it first,

...