This is why the present discussions of virtue are only the first step. No doubt the revival of interest in the virtues reminds us that lives are not governed at every turn by a mental checklist of rules and commandments. Human beings will inevitably follow their dispositions - habits of thought, action, and emotion. Better lives and better communities will result from focusing on these wellsprings of action, rather than on clamoring for adherence to abstractions. No one, for example, who is incapable of temperance is capable of obeying a commandment consistently.
People are reluctant to tackle the question of happiness for at least two reasons.
Obviously, the idea of happiness itself has been discredited, and those who talk about it can appear like another huckster on the self-help market. But more important, to ask about happiness is to ask about the purpose of human life. And about this people clearly differ, sometimes quite bitterly. It is easier, frankly, to talk at a level where people of totally differing purposes can use an identical moral vocabulary and avoid public disagreement. Discussions of happiness expose these differences.