Horkheimer’s materialism rested on happiness as an unjustified demand resolvable through planning

Evidence

Various views here were characteristic of Horkheimer: (1) the assumption that there was a demand for happiness, which did not require any justification, among human beings who were reliant on solidarity with one another as mortal beings in a world which lacked any `hereafter’; (2) emphasis on social history as an index of human instinctual structure and of human knowledge; (3) the conviction, in view of the advanced state of human control over nature, that humanity’s demand for happiness has as its goal the reconciliation in practice of particular and general interests on the basis of a planned economy. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 545

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distills the core premises of Horkheimer’s materialism, useful for reference-level theory definitions.
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer periodized materialism by the historical shape of the happiness demand; Horkheimer’s materialism defined itself against happiness as illusory and toward social transformation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 544; Horkheimer grounded ethics in desire as a fact needing no justification — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1464 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer grounded ethics in desire as a fact needing no justification #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1464
• Happiness is unmeasurable and too easily invoked to justify imposed stagnation #contradicts (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64