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[Andres]

"You should accustom yourself to believing that death means nothing to us, since every good and every evil lies in sensation; but death is the privation of sensation." - Epicurus
What is the ethical purpose of this argument for how we should live our lives?

I'm not asking what the ethical purpose of the argument is - I'm asking what an ethical purpose is in the first place. Anyone know?

[LordBucket]

I'm asking what an ethical purpose is in the first place. Anyone know?

According to a casual google search, it doesn't appear to be one of those annoying cases where academics use words to arbitrarily mean something totally else other than what the words mean. As such, I would interpret it to mean exactly what the words mean.

For example, a "red ball" is not some special out of context thing. It's a ball...that's red.

So, an ethical purpose would be a purpose...that's ethical. Since in this particular sentence they're using "the," they're implying a singular purpose. Which seems a bit silly to me, since there are several very reasonable interpretations here. For example...

I'm not asking what the ethical purpose of the argument is

...oh. Ok. Umm, then consider the following statement: "you shouldn't beat your wife."

What might be a purpose for this advice? Well, if you do the thing I'm advising you to not do, you might be arrested.Following the advice serves the purpose of causing you to not suffer the consequence of being arrested for beating your wife. Or, another example: If you do the thing I'm advising you to not do, your wife might not like you anymore. Again, a very practical purpose: avoiding the consequence of losing the fondness of your wife.

But there aren't especially "ethical" purposes. If you want an ethical purpose for not beating your wife, how about: "beating your wife might make her hurt and unhappy, so not beating her avoids that suffering." Voila, ethical purpose: servicing the well-being of another.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, this seems very much like a question that a professor would have either covered at some point in the class, or a prompt for an essay where you are supposed to spend a couple of pages writing about different ethical reasons why that particular statement is a way that we should live our lives.

[Andres]

...oh. Ok. Umm, then consider the following statement: "you shouldn't beat your wife."

What might be a purpose for this advice? Well, if you do the thing I'm advising you to not do, you might be arrested.Following the advice serves the purpose of causing you to not suffer the consequence of being arrested for beating your wife. Or, another example: If you do the thing I'm advising you to not do, your wife might not like you anymore. Again, a very practical purpose: avoiding the consequence of losing the fondness of your wife.

But there aren't especially "ethical" purposes. If you want an ethical purpose for not beating your wife, how about: "beating your wife might make her hurt and unhappy, so not beating her avoids that suffering." Voila, ethical purpose: servicing the well-being of another.

So an ethical purpose isn't something that's particularly practical, it has more to do with the reason for why it fits where it does in terms of right and wrong. Right?

[LordBucket]

So an ethical purpose isn't something that's particularly practical, it has more to do with the reason for why it fits where it does in terms of right and wrong. Right?

Yes. Though it's not necessarily that it can't be practical, just...that's not what he's asking about. Depending on your worldview, ethics and practicality aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Maybe "practical" wasn't the best choice of word on my part. To clarify, "don't bang your head against the wall" probably isn't something most people would consider to be morally motivated. They might agree that it's "good" advice. That it's "useful" advice. But what is the "good" of that advice? What "use" does that advice serve? Well, banging your head against the wall will probably hurt. Not banging your head against the wall is an effective means of avoiding the pain that might result from banging your head against a wall. But if I phrase that as "avoiding needless suffering" then suddenly that sounds like an issue of morality, even though if you were to ask the average person they'd probably tell you that the advice of "don't bang your head against the wall" doesn't have anything to do with morality.

But, yeah...the basic intent of the question appears to be very simply: "What's the moral argument that motivates this statement?"

[Andres]

Excellent. Thanks for your help, Lord Bucket.