> Surely you don't believe An ethic doesn't need to be practical (just to stay on the point I was trying to make). An ethic is a goal for some value of "prefer

> Surely you don't believe An ethic doesn't need to be practical (just to stay on the point I was trying to make). An ethic is a goal for some value of "preferred individual behavior", not a life choice. Subscription to an ethic is not required for the virtue of the ethic to exist, e.g. If I believe that secrecy is bad, I may still practice it for pragmatic reasons, but this does not change the ethic as an ideal model.