Full Idea
We should be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble and hold men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painterd and musicians.
Gist of Idea
We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists
Source
Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 271), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 7 'Against'
Book Reference
Janaway,Christopher: 'Schopenhauer' [OUP 2002], p.88
A Reaction
Presumably the aim of ethical theory is to understand the truths about ethics. That can't do any harm, can it? In every other area of life we think that understanding leads to improvement. Unless, of course, there are no truths of ethics....