 Accordingly, provided one is not born a fool or a madman but a compos  mentis,[20]  every human being has the means to “strive toward objects and actions common to all”. These objects and actions common to all, meanwhile, along with “other things which each class knows and does on its own” (Perfect State V, 16, 2: 261) precisely correspond to the prerequisites for the attainment of happiness discussed above, in  section 2.2.  However, as likewise seen above, these prerequisites, and particularly those things which all human beings ought to know, set fairly high intellectual standards. Nonetheless, according to al-Farabi, the requirement of knowing these common objects does not exclude anyone from attaining happiness, because they