The ethical position that the goal of life is to pursue a perfect ideal of character and conduct. The view is held amongst the Stoics, but also in Christian writing, since Jesus requires perfection of those who would follow him. A ‘counsel of perfection’ is the way for attaining the ideal; however, common morality and later Christian writers acknowledged that as well as such counsels we need rules whose application is rather more practical, and which impose more stringent duties than self-improvement.