Horkheimer defined good egoism as the unconditional, unjustified demand for happiness.
Evidence
The demonstration that there was decisive common ground between the pessimistic and optimistic tendencies in bourgeois anthropology, which measured humanity against a caricature of what reality was actually making it into, led Horkheimer to postulate the opposite of what was common to both anthropological tendencies:
free pleasure, which is non-rationalized, i.e. can be aspired to without any need for justification', theunconditional demand for happiness’84that form of egoism which was to some extent good. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 201
Categorization
- XREF: His positive counter-concept to bourgeois asceticism; useful for tracing Horkheimer’s pre-Dialectic-of-Enlightenment ethics. — connects to: Horkheimer’s materialism rested on happiness as an unjustified demand resolvable through planning — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 545; Horkheimer grounded Critical Theory in a natural human need for happiness and solidarity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 531; Horkheimer defended egoism but insisted gratification flows through communal interaction — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 233 (+7 more)
- SHARE: A quotable Horkheimer coinage for anyone working on Critical Theory’s theory of happiness.
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Horkheimer’s materialism rested on happiness as an unjustified demand resolvable through planning — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 545; Horkheimer grounded Critical Theory in a natural human need for happiness and solidarity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 531; Horkheimer defended egoism but insisted gratification flows through communal interaction — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 233 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Horkheimer left the fate of egoism theoretically undetermined.
#complicates(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 202