Should joy, all its delights notwithstanding, get such a pride of place in human life? Can what seems like an elusive feeling pull toward itself the noblest human strivings? Might not joy be to a good life what sugar is to nutritious and richly flavoured food? Isn't joy rather much like what we today call happiness - a feeling of pleasure - and therefore a dubious candidate for the good life?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary joy is just that, with some intensity added: "A feeling of great pleasure and happiness." But defining joy as a "feeling of great pleasure and happiness" is like describing champagne as a bubbly liquid, but forgetting all about its golden colour, whiffs of ripe pear and fresh baked bread in its aroma or traces of apple, vanilla, yeast and nuts in its flavour, and, of course, its capacity to intoxicate.
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