In this video, we shall examine St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the moral virtues.
Like his ancient and patristic forebears, St. Thomas showcased the cardinal virtues
as the building blocks of human flourishing and happiness.
The ancients recognized that certain habits, once acquired, help to make men and women
good by making their actions good.
These habits—or virtues—included strengths like magnanimity,
liberality, sobriety, and friendliness.
Over time, ancient thinkers explained how all good habits represent parts of four principal
moral virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
All good action, these philosophers argued, express at least one of these general virtues.
Later on, Christian writers incorporated the
ancient appreciation of virtue into their descriptions
of Christian holiness.
St. Ambrose, for example, was the first to call prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance
the “cardinal” virtues, in recognition of their centrality for good living.
He and other patristic writers recognized
that the graced life of faith, hope, and charity—described
in the New Testament—does not eclipse the cardinal virtues but instead envelopes and elevates them.
Accordingly, the Church Fathers described the believer’s
path to glory as paved not only with acts
of faith, hope, and charity but also with
prudent acts of justice, fortitude, and temperance.
Because of their appreciation for graced virtue, the early Fathers celebrated the brave and
chaste martyrs as the most virtuous of Christian believers.
For his part, St.Thomas grouped the virtues under two general
categories: the intellectual virtues and the
moral virtues.
The intellectual virtues—wisdom, understanding, and knowledge—strengthen man in his speculative
life, or his rational life, his life of thinking.
The moral virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—strengthen man in his practical
life, or his moral life, his life of doing.
In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas spends much more time explaining the work of the moral virtues
than that of the intellectual virtues.
Let’s examine then what Aquinas teaches about each of the moral virtues.
For St. Thomas, prudence stands as the queen of the moral virtues, for prudence works to
perfect every action that we undertake.
And by “every action,” Aquinas means every action—there are no exceptions.
All action follows the same three steps, which prudence supports.
When we set out to achieve any goal, we first deliberate about the means necessary to attain
the goal, and we distinguish the preferable means from the non-preferable.
Then, from among the preferable means, we judge one of them to be the most fitting for
attaining our goal given the circumstances at hand.
Finally, after judging and choosing the most fitting means, we command ourselves to take
up the means and perform it, and thereby achieve our goal.
As a perfection of the practical intellect,
prudence ensures that reason conforms our actions to reality.
By not adhering to reality in our deliberating, judging, and commanding, we risk becoming
imprudent persons, who fail to achieve their goals.
By contrast, the prudent person regularly conforms his action to reality and thus he
regularly achieves, and achieves well, what he sets out to do.
Like prudence, justice is an expansive virtue.
As every action that we undertake remains a fruit of prudence, every action that we
undertake also bears on justice.
Aquinas explains the reason for this: stated plainly, none of us is a mere individual.
We are naturally and ineluctably linked to others through the bonds of family and city.
Consequently, we perform of our actions as a part of some society, whose better and greater good
is always the common good of all the parts, which is the good of the whole.
As a result of our social nature, we can never commit truly isolated,
private acts of good or evil.
Every act that we undertake, as the act of a part, has some bearing
upon other persons, other parts.
For Aquinas, this is why justice perfects every action.
Justice is a firm disposition of the will to render the other—another part in the
same greater whole—his due.
Justice seeks to preserve the other duly in his life, in his bodily integrity, in his
good name, and in his possessions, all toward
the free and mutual sharing, with the other, of the common good.
The just person ensures that the other—especially the stranger—receives even his particular
good, so that together they might enjoy the common good more perfectly.
As in the life of action prudence perfects the intellect and justice perfects the will,
the remaining two moral virtues perfect the passions or emotions of the human person.
Fortitude perfects the irascible passions, and temperance perfects the concupiscible passions.
Both virtues bring our emotions under the rule of reason, not as a tyrant would—through
domination—but as a wise ruler would—through the guidance and persuasion of repetition.
For its part, fortitude moderates the passion of fear, so that we may remain reasonably
fixed on the good that we is pursuing if this good proves difficult or even dangerous to attain.
Fortitude keeps us from abandoning the pursuit of the difficult good too easily
or too quickly.
Fortitude can also prompt us to confront the source of the difficulty or threat, to
remove it so that we might again seek the good in ease and peace.
The brave person isn't rid of all fear, but, as brave, he endures his fear, and sticks to his
reasonable pursuits, and thereby he regularly attains the difficult and even dangerous good.
Lastly, temperance moderates the desire for pleasure, so that we may remain reasonably
fixed on the good that we are pursuing without being unreasonably distracted by the pleasure
that it offers.
Temperance keeps us from pursuing the pleasurable good too easily or too quickly.
Temperance moderates our desire for pleasure so that we might enjoy the pleasurable good
according to the rule of reason.
This applies especially to the great pleasures attached to the goods that keep us and our
species alive—the goods of food, drink, and sex.
As specifications of temperance, abstinence helps us to desire food according to right
reason, sobriety helps us to desire drink according to right reason, and chastity helps
us to desire sex according to right reason.
In the absence of these virtues, the concupiscible appetite desires these pleasures inordinately.
Continence keeps us from succumbing to these desires, but only temperance quells
them and directs them to move within our appetite according to the rule of reason.
For Aquinas, fortitude and temperance play a supporting role in the work of prudence
and justice.
As they moderate the movements of the passions and bring them under the rule of reason, fortitude
and temperance create a stable environment in the soul that allows us to pursue
the higher acts of prudence and justice more surely and more easily.
As habits of intellect, will, and passion, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance
perfect our external actions and internal
movements, which perfection, according to Aquinas, renders
not only our pursuits but also our persons good.