 Locke’s views regarding reason and intellectual duty can be characterized as an ethics of belief, according to which our rational abilities place a responsibility on each of us to examine the beliefs we hold, and to be accountable for those things to which we assent. This is particularly the case with respect to moral rules, themselves, which are the ultimate guidelines for a good human life. As Locke sees it, our capacities as rational agents are insufficiently realized in many, if not most, cases. While the law of nature is knowable by reason for Locke, it is not innately known—Locke does not mean to suggest, as many theologians of his day believed, that it “lies open in our hearts” (Locke 1663–64, 89). This would, he grants, be: