>>>The trouble with stating happiness as goal is that every now and then a new version of an old dogma would pop up and say that everyone is happy when they know their place, because that gives them stability and orientation. Which is just another excuse to reduce the mobility and enforce some sort of social stratification, anywhere between classes and castes.
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>>Hmmm, I did not think of that before. You might have a point. However I still feel that striving for induvidual happyness should be a goal, even if it means we have to build some defences to try to avoid the threath you describe above.
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>This idea of people being happiest when they know their place occurs in literature so many times (and in unexpected places) that I think its rate of circulation is not negligible.
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>I think the "pursuit of happiness" being stated as a goal is a good way to put it into words - i.e. that anyone has the right to seek it in their own manner. IMO, it implicitly bars the government from deciding how would that be delivered, which is good.

I don't think happiness is so much a goal as an outcome.