(LONG) "I Don't Know" as a Good Answer in Ethics

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, the doctor example wasn't really the best. I was trying to make the case that no ethical theory is impervious to criticism while not delving too deeply into any particular ethical theory. In order to remain concise, I rounded some corners there. I didn't want to go on and on about the problems with hedonism while trying to make my original point.

Absolutely.  It's through criticism that we refine our ethical theories in the first place.  Finding some edge case or even addressing the mundanities of the theory on questionable ground.  To some extent this has been done with religious ethics..but the nature of a religious system is such that at some point some fundamental limit of reconceptualization has been reached and proponents of the system are forced to schism.  I suppose that ewach schismatic group thinks they got it "more right" than the last...but from the point of view of a person who doesn't derive ethics from fairies they're just not even wrong.  No amount of work on that turd will ever approach a rational ethical system.

Obviously, they beg to differ, because "natural law"........

But I'm more than happy to do that here. Epicurean hedonism emphasises modest pleasures over indulgence and may represent a sort of "stoic hedonism" (a theory which with I am wholly unfamiliar but it sounds cool). I have serious doubts about hedonism but the whole pleasure=good/pain=bad things seems like a very good place to start with ethical inquiries.

You;re familiar, it's just that in their unmodifed forms the two ethical theories are antithesis.  Having been (and still being) contemporaneous ethical theories the proponents of both have been offering criticism of the other and the end product is that folks in both camps seem to have realized that, unmodifed, neither of their ethical theories adequately expressed the truth they sought to systematically justify, leading to a sort of ethical syncretism by which any modern concept of either is peppered with the borrowed and normalized concepts of the other.  Modesty over indulgence in pleasure seeking is a good example of that.  The reason that epicureanism was such a compelling opposing theory to stoicism is that it incorporated what some might call the better parts of stoicism, but in a way that coherently advocated for the ends of goals of hedonism. In addition, it wasn't hamstrung by irrational ethical concepts like "natural law" or "natures plan"...present in zenos stoicism and in christian mythology. In epicurean hedonism..."natures plan" can be a bad thing, from an ethical point of view.