Yes, thanks for noticing the seeming contradiction. The argument you mentioned based on happiness is the only one that occured to me so far. And It was part of my reasoning for the past choice towards consequentialism anyway. I was looking for a "third alternative" for someone who could do what Quine did when he created a way of discussion ontology by setting at least language as ground in "On What There Is". I wanted someone to give me an argument which didn't depend on any moral view, which would open a whole new field of inquiry, orthogonal to current morality.
My wishes, or standards, it seems, are highly demanding.