What would you rather have:Dignity or Happiness?

[LucyDuke]

Happiness is overrated.

I don't believe that anyone that can say that really understands what happiness is.

 

[CartesianFart]

I take both.

You can't do that.

If you say happiness and dignity as two things to be taken as one then it means happiness is something of a self-respect of oneself by being joyful in whatever rank or position in life then in consequence even a starving misanthrope bum can be happy.

 

[Brighteye]

I don't believe that anyone that can say that really understands what happiness is.

I just distinguish happiness from contentment. I can be at peace and content with myself, but yet be unhappy. I can also know myself to be a worthless waste of space, and yet experience joy.

Put it this way:
I could masturbate all day long. That would provide some degree of happiness, in that the sensation is pleasurable.
Or I could do something useful. That would not necessarily be fun, because it would almost certainly involve some work, but it would be a great deal more dignified, and make me feel more contented with myself.

If you say that happiness includes contentment, and that I can't draw this distinction (which is a reasonable position), then I would say that the initial question is unanswerable, because that sort of happiness is impossible without dignity.

 

[CartesianFart]

I just distinguish happiness from contentment. I can be at peace and content with myself, but yet be unhappy.

I think this is plausible due to the fact that anyone can be somewhat having a overall world-view of an unhappy one but have some temporary moments of some degree of happiness.

I can also know myself to be a worthless waste of space, and yet experience joy.

This is something of a ascetic would have omit time to time.

Put it this way:
I could masturbate all day long. That would provide some degree of happiness, in that the sensation is pleasurable.

That is not happiness but the expectation of happiness after the act of pleasure.

If you say that happiness includes contentment, and that I can't draw this distinction (which is a reasonable position), then I would say that the initial question is unanswerable, because that sort of happiness is impossible without dignity.

No,it is just the case that happiness is redefined in a way that include the word 'dignity.'