See the logical results of this relativistic doctrine here
Below is a good explanation of Jefferson's understanding of the term, "Happiness":
Dr. America Archives: Pursuit of HappinessToday is the Fourth of July, and Americans are pursuing happiness in such forms as eating, drinking, playing games, and exploding fireworks. A few Americans -— including Dr. America — are also commemorating the day by thinking. Join us on the Picnic Grounds of the magnificent (but wholly imaginary) American Studies Museum, where you can see the all-American doctor — a smile on his face, a hot dog in his baseball glove, a brownie on his paper plate, and the pursuit of happiness on his mind.
In creating the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson revised John Locke's list of inalienable rights from "life, liberty, and property" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." As Americans contemplate the Declaration this Independence Day, it's worth wondering about this elusive phrase. What did Jefferson mean by the pursuit of happiness? And what might it mean for us today?
Jefferson's source for the "happiness" in the Declaration was a draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights his friend and mentor George Mason had written earlier in 1776. Jefferson's replacement of "property" by "the pursuit of happiness" didn't mean that he was opposed to people's owning property; he just didn't believe it was a fundamental right. Jefferson knew that property might be a means to happiness, but he also knew that it shouldn't be an end in itself. And so Locke's property got tucked away inside Jefferson's happiness. And Americans got to ponder the relationship of happiness to self-government, and vice versa.
For Jefferson, happiness comes from self-government — the individual's governing of his or her own appetites, outlooks, and actions. It isn't about fulfilling desires; it's about fulfilling the self by fulfilling one's duties. Happiness comes not from play, but from virtue. "Without virtue," said Jefferson, "happiness cannot be." And in a letter to Peter Carr, Jefferson advised his young ward that "health, learning and virtue will insure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem, and public honor." As Helen Keller said more recently, "True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
Jefferson also believed that an individual's happiness was inextricably connected to a good social life — not the rollicking social life of modern beer commercials, but the social life of a country constituted to promote the general welfare, or what he called "commonwealth." These days, when we want to know about happiness, we ask individual people: "Are you happy? How happy? What makes you happy?" Jefferson certainly believed that individuals should be happy, but he understood that individuals would be happiest in a good social order.
So Jefferson believed that the pursuit of happiness was not just personal, but political too. In his own life, he deprived himself of the private pleasures of Monticello in order to participate in the public service that would promote the happiness of his fellow Americans. He left his serene estate in the mountains of Western Virginia for the dank swamp of Washington and its dismal politics. But he did so because he was confident that pursuing happiness for other people would bring him that true happiness of "quiet conscience, private esteem and public honor." On his tombstone, he didn't mention the fact that he had imported ice cream and French cuisine to America, because he knew these were private pleasures. He only mentioned the Declaration of Independence, Virginia's statute for religious freedom, and the establishment of the University of Virginia, because they fostered the happiness that he hoped Americans would pursue.
From the American Studies Museum, this is Dr. America, wishing Americans every happiness on this happiest of days.
Dr. America is professor of History, Happiness and Happenings at St. Olaf College.
My definition and both the authoritative passages you've cited (and have not) serve to illustrate overlapping circles. At worst it is "both/and" not "either/or") a false disjunct.