Prudence to modern ears signals caution or
shrewdness in business dealings.
When a risky entrepreneur makes his pitch, the prudent committee member councils against
the ill fated course, but such has not always been the understanding of prudence in the
Christian tradition.
Rather, prudence is classically understood as a practical wisdom that empowers one to
be good and to act well in daily affairs, both ordinary and extraordinary.
Prudence is an intellectual virtue, perfecting the practical reason.
St. Thomas defines it as "Recta ratio agibilium," right reason in things to be done.
It is classed with justice, fortitude, and temperance as a cardinal virtue.
While technically not a moral virtue, since it doesn't perfect the appetite, yet it crowns
or completes the moral virtues by orchestrating their movements.
Each of the moral virtues, as we'll see, rectifies man's desires with regard to their particular ends.
Prudence is responsible then for sorting out these virtuous desires as it fashions for
man a reasonable life.
At the root of prudential action is the natural
law, man's sharing in the eternal law.
By the natural law, we denote the inclination sewn in man for the things befitting his rational nature.
The natural law inclines man to the preservation of his existence, to the procreation and education
of children, to live in society and to know the truth about God and other like goods.
The prudent man has had his appetites shaped by the moral virtues.
For one to be prudent, one must also be just, courageous, and temperate.
Otherwise, one is easily thrown for a loop by an inordinate attachment or a craven fear.
Only the virtuous man has real existential insight into moral realities.
Aristotle often repeats, "As the man is, so he sees."
With this formation, the prudent man is free to see things as they are and to act in a
way that builds up a truly human culture.
Sometimes people conceive of prudence as a
mere matter of thinking well, but beyond the knowing of what is right, prudence oversees
the doing of what is right.
Prudence applies one's knowledge of life, both general and particular to concrete action.
So for instance, one might know habitually that innocent life should be preserved and
one might know further that a particular person is being unjustly accused of capital crime.
The judgment of prudence would issue not only in your thinking that this situation is unjust,
but in your giving testimony or doing what lies within your power to have the person
acquitted.
Prudence isn't merely about knowing the good, it's about doing the good.
How then does a prudent act unfold?
The prudent person first conceives of the end, and then deliberates how best to attain it.
This may involve weighing different options and discerning among them, but not necessarily so.
This first step we call counsel.
Then, he chooses the most adequate, appropriate, or effective means for attaining the end.
This may take time to determine or may simply come together spontaneously in a burst of insight.
The second step we call judgment.
Finally, he applies his judgment to action in carrying out the deed.
Here, the interior act becomes visible in its exterior dimensions.
This final step we call command.
Breaking out these steps might suggest to the human mind that prudence just orders different
stages of a mental process that issues in choice, as if it were a mere matter of calculating
and evaluating.
Now, while we do want to affirm the importance of this aspect of prudence, we also want to
broaden our understanding.
Ultimately, the prudent person is one who inclines spontaneously to the truth of his
life.
He needed to always be discerning or deliberating.
Rather, we see his prudence in action and in his honest appraisal of his action.
In conversation with friends and before the Lord in prayer, he revisits his life, that
reason might more perfectly imbue his actions.
Prudence has different expressions depending upon the setting.
One must be prudent for himself,
St. Thomas calls this monastic prudence, but one must also be prudent with and for others.
In these settings, a specifically different prudence is requisite, and so St. Thomas will
describe the prudence proper to family life, military exploits, business ventures, political
arrangements.
Different relationships elicit different virtuous agency, and thus distinct manifestations of
the virtue of prudence.
When St. Thomas talks about the virtues, he'll often describe their different parts.
He lists them as subjective parts, integral parts, and potential parts.
We just saw the subjective parts of prudence.
These are just the different species of prudence that arise in different social settings, monastic,
domestic, military, political, et cetera.
We'll hold off on our discussion of potential parts until we get to justice.
Here though, a word about integral parts.
St. Thomas likens the integral parts of a virtue to the foundation, walls, and roof
of a house.
They are the type of parts that compose the thing.
They are not themselves virtues in the full sense of the word, but taken together constitute
the wholeness or integrity of the virtue under consideration.
In the case of prudence, there are eight integral parts.
We can divide them into the parts that concern counsel, those that concern judgment, and
those that concern command.
There are three that concern counsel.
First is memory or knowledge of the past.
This gives an adequate appraisal of past situations as they bear on the present.
Second, there is docility, which opens one to the wisdom of others.
Third, there is understanding, which is a kind of intuitive acumen for getting to the
principles of things.
There are two integral parts that concern judgment.
First is shrewdness, whereby one judges without excessive deliberation, but rather spontaneously
and adroitly.
Second is reason, which has one proceed through the ordinary steps proper to moral reasoning.
Finally, there are three integral parts which
concerned command.
First, there is foresight, since one must be able to project into the future in order
to envision how his decision will play itself out.
Second is circumspection, which makes one attentive to pertinent circumstances as they
shape the execution of an act, and third, one must be cautious so as to avoid obstacles
as they present themselves.
Father Romanus Cesario paints a helpful picture illustrating how all of these integral parts
are operative in a prudent action.
He writes, "I approach a familiar intersection and am alerted to what practical wisdom may
immediately provide about dealing with intersections, some of which I may have learned during the
driving lessons that cost dearly.
Sizing up the actual situation of the moment, I come to a decision about how to proceed
through the intersection.
However, at this moment, I am still at the stop sign.
Now, with the recognition that the stalled vehicle on the other side of the road will
not impede movement through the intersection and with due regard for other possible impediments
to free movements, I move to put my foot to the gas and proceed, though still with a certain
wariness that an onrushing car may yet appear in an instant."
A final word then on sins and gifts.
St. Thomas is conscious that prudent action can go off the rails at any point.
One may be imprudent at the stage of counsel by a hasty precipitation.
One may be imprudent at the stage of judgment by a thoughtless inconsideration, or one may
be imprudent at the stage of command by anemic inconstancy or outright negligence, but lest
one be overwhelmed by all the possible sources of failure.
St. Thomas adds that prudence is brought to perfection by the gift of counsel.
By counsel, one gains access to divine reasons as a healing and elevating supplement to the
merely human reasons that direct our course.
For while it is true that God has put our life in our hands and invested human agency
with real freedom, yet He acts in us and through us that we might attain to the goal of our
lives and experience true freedom.
Such is the course set before us by prudence and perfected by counsel, a course that leads
to real wisdom in action.
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