Possible Worlds

In searching for answers for the problem of evil and the conditions of happiness on earth in his contemporary society, Louis-Sébastien Mercier's utopia offers a generally valid analysis concerning the means and aims of a happy life. On the other hand, the present study indicates that Mercier's vision of the "best of possible worlds" also reveals a great deal about the reasons why the prevailing eighteenth-century conception of happiness already contained the seeds of its own destruction. This investigation sheds light on Mercier's utopian vision both as critical mirror image analyzing its own society, and as an exploration of possible futures.