This reminds me of similar pixie dust theories of freedom: see my essay at http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/fmftcl.html
In the end, happiness, freedom, etc., are functional sub-phenomena of life, i.e. self-sustaining behavior. Trying to isolate these phenomena from the rest of living behavior, what more to “maximize” them, is absurd on its face—even more so than trying to isolate magnetic monopoles and maximize their intensity.
Either way, this sounds like the pixie dust theory of happiness: happiness as some magic chemical (one with very short shelf life, though), that you have to synthesize as much as possible of before it decays. I bet you one gazillion dollar the stereo-structure of that chemical is paper-clip shaped.