being the logical result of rational thought. Through reason, one will know morality. Plato, a student of Socrates, held a similar view. Plato taught that moral values are absolute truths and thus are abstract perfect entities. He called this the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is the supreme source of all values. Plato felt that this was the fulfillment of truth and reality. He also defines this good as unachievable. This good is something to be sought after, but never achieved. Aristotle held that there were two kinds of virtue: moral and intellectual. He felt that morals are the tempering of mans natural desires and appetites. Intellect, he says, is the development of acceptable habits through repetition. He believed that We become just by doing just acts. Aristotle argues that most virtues fall at a mean between more extreme character traits. According to Aristotle, it is not an easy task to find the perfect mean between extreme character traits. In fact, we need assistance from our reason to do this. Additionally, Aristotle disassociated morality from God. He taught that God is too pure to bother with such trifles. He states that God is Thought thinking thought. Descartes felt it necessary to prove the existence of God. He attempts rational deduction based upon unproven axioms of supposed self-evident truths. Descartes claims that there are innate ideas. He feels that all men are born with these ideas and that they are self-evident and are born of nature (God). After satisfying himself of the existence of God, he abandons God as the cause of our actions. He feels that we are nothing more than thought, and that our substance is as a result of thought. This bizarre thought process left him in a moral vacuum that allowed him to torment and mutilate animals. He was a sick man.David Hume seemed to delight in breaking down the argument concerning divine origins of morality. Although Hume dismisses the possibility of a God, he has...
