Happiness is unmeasurable and too easily invoked to justify imposed stagnation

Evidence

In our opinion, there is no public good other than one that assures the citizens’ private good; we judge institutions from the point of view of the concrete opportunities they give to individuals. But neither do we confuse the idea of private interest with happiness: that is another frequently encountered point of view; are women in a harem not happier than a woman voter? Is a housewife not happier than a woman worker? We cannot really know what the word “happiness” means, and still less what authentic values it covers; there is no way to measure the happiness of others, and it is always easy to call a situation that one would like to impose on others happy: in particular, we declare happy those condemned to stagnation, under the pretext that happiness is immobility. This is a notion, then, we will not refer to. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the ‘happy slave’ problem — connects to Mill’s critique of contented slaves, and to later critiques of adaptive preferences in Sen. — connects to: Stoicism functions philosophically as an insincere rationalization of unavoidable unhappiness — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1083; Freedom, not happiness, is the measure of human possibility — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64; Satisfied individuals see no rational reason to demand change — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 231 (+2 more)
• SEED: The observation that ‘we declare happy those condemned to stagnation, under the pretext that happiness is immobility’ is a potent essay lens on how oppressors define victim contentment.

Broader Connections

• Freedom, not happiness, is the measure of human possibility #responds-to (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64
• Satisfied individuals see no rational reason to demand change #corroborates (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 231
• Stoicism functions philosophically as an insincere rationalization of unavoidable unhappiness #complicates (0.78) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1083