system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does Schopenhauer think that the highest ethical aim is to deny the will to live?

"According to Schopenhauer, moral freedom—the highest ethical aim—is to be obtained only by a denial of the will to live." - translator's footnote in Schopenhauer's "Studies in Pessimism" 

I'm very confused. Is it even referring to morality, or is it referring to "ethics" as in the ancient Greek sense? Why did Schopenhauer believe this? 

I'm becoming a big fan of his work so far.
gpt
He was heavily influenced by Indian philosophy (particularly the Upanishads) and his views on this subject are closely related to Hindu and Buddhist thought (I would guess he likely drew much of this line of thought directly from those sources, then used his own manner of explanation).

In Buddhism you have "tanha" the "thirst for life" and in Hinduism "kama" or desire plays into the same idea. The heart of Krishna's teachings (Bhagavad Gita) is what some have termed "actionless action" or "disinterested action", that is to say one ought to live without desiring anything from the results of your actions (only the act rightly belongs to the sage, not the results of the act, as Krishna explains). Indian texts bring forward the same essential moral conclusions from these as Schopenhauer.

So, the main connection between the "will to live" and moral freedom is that thirst for life influences our actions (in the most basic sense, we avoid pain and seek pleasure), and this interferes with our morality because the right thing to do might cause us pain or reduce our pleasure. Having a thirst for life (or will to live) and desiring pleasure / avoiding pain becomes a non moral factor in our decision making and provides a (at least potential) counter force to moral choice. To have absolute moral freedom would require that one not have this factor present in decision making so that one is capable of approaching any given situation with a *purely* moral consideration.