Nearly all humans have the goal to live a virtuous and happy life. Two of the world most acknowledged philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, had their own views on this central issue. Plato supported the understanding view; he believed understanding is the key to living a virtuous life. Aristotle supported the habit and action view; he believed that individuals become virtuous by continuous moral actions. By and large both philosophers have a good standpoint; but in my judgment one has a stronger line of reasoning.Plato supports the view of understanding over custom and tradition. He believes that individuals should acquire the knowledge to understand something and then start performing the action. Plato says that once someone understands the good then he or she will do it; he says “...what we desire is always something that is good” (pg.5). We can understand from this that Plato is saying individuals want to do good for themselves; we perform immoral deeds, because we don’t have the understanding of the good. The lack of knowledge and understanding will cause an individual to perform meagerly in life. He believes that custom and tradition are not favorable for us; from this I believe he is trying to point-out that we all should acquire our own understanding of things instead of taking the other views. His position demonstrates to us that understanding helps us do good and doing good means living a virtuous life.I believe that Plato’s view is acceptable. A human must understand the actions he or she is going to perform; it is beneficial for us to know what we are doing before we do it. For example in any kind of organization you need understanding and knowledge of the action over tradition and custom, because knowledge is more widely accepted than tradition and custom. Tradition and custom vary from place to place, but knowledge and understanding are universal. Aristotle, Plato’s student, invented...
