In my previous post, I mentioned I was going to have a series on the virtues of the Catholic Church. I gave some basic info on virtues so feel free to check it out here. The first cardinal virtue I’m going over is prudence. This also happens to be the most important cardinal virtue, because this virtue is necessary to guide the other virtues. Without prudence, it is impossible to have an ordered sense of justice, temperance, or fortitude.
What is Prudence?
Prudence is right reason applied to action.
St Thomas Aquinas
St Thomas Aquinas was such a profound and deep thinker within the Catholic Church, and he had given a lot of thought on the virtues. He described prudence as both an intellectual virtue and moral virtue. Prudence is intellectual because it involves using knowledge to determine the best course of action to take in a situation. There is an actual act of using your mind and engaging in thought. It’s also a moral virtue because it must be oriented toward the good. The term “the ends justify the means” has no place in the heart of someone who is prudent. To be prudent means you know that morality must be a part of every part of your decision.
The Catechism states that “prudence disposes the practical reason to discern, in every circumstance, our true good and to choose the right means for achieving it.” CCC 1835
According to St Thomas, all virtues have three parts to them. These three parts are integral parts, subjective parts, and potential parts. And in order to learn how to better ourselves in virtue, we need to learn about these parts.
Integral Parts of Prudence
The integral parts of prudence are required characteristics that you must have in order to be practicing the virtue of prudence. These parts are memory, understanding, docility, shrewdness, reasoning, foresight, circumspection, and caution. In these parts, you will see a common theme of self-reflection, learning, and thinking. It’s important to note that we need to think of the best course of action AND the most moral.
We need memory to guide our choices from past experience. Understanding helps us learn principles we can use in concrete situations. Docility, also known as teachability, allows us to learn from others. With shrewdness, we have an ability to think and decide quickly, for those situations in which we do not have time to mull over our options. In order to mull over options when we do have time, we need to weigh our pros and cons of all possible actions with reasoning. Foresight allows us to imagine the possible outcomes, which will help us anticipate the disasters that may happen if we choose incorrectly. Circumspection is when we consider all the circumstances involved, which will help us avoid an immoral option. And caution helps us look before we leap, keeping us from ending up in a situation we cannot get out of.
Subject Parts of Prudence
Subject parts are defined as the subjects within the virtue. These could be thought of as categories or kinds of that virtue. St Thomas differentiates between two subjects of prudence, governing ourselves and governing others. Governing ourselves is of the utmost importance when it comes to virtue because, in order to cause good in other people, we need to exude goodness from ourselves. And if we do not treat ourselves with virtue, we cannot treat others with virtue.
Although governing ourselves may be more important, we still find ourselves governing others, and we need to be able to do this well. For the average person, this would likely mean governing your own household. Fathers need to be able to lead their families toward goodness and virtue. Mothers also do have this responsibility to their children. To govern others we need to try to instill all of the integral parts of prudence into their hearts. This is why it is so important to govern yourself, you need to know how to do this and you need to lead by example.
Potential Parts of Prudence
The potential parts, also called secondary parts, are virtues that are distinct from the virtue of prudence itself but are related to it. Essentially these virtues are caused by prudence but do not have the full benefit of prudence. St Thomas gives us three potential parts: eubolia, synesis, and gnome. Eubolia can be described as the virtue of good counsel, which occurs when we seek wisdom from others. Synesis is good judgment in things that serve the virtue of prudence. And gnome is the ability to make a wise and practical judgment in extreme cases.
Why Do We Need to Know This?
As I said earlier, prudence is so profoundly needed to have the other virtues ordered correctly. Prudence is even referred to as the auriga virtutum, which means the “charioteer of the virtues.”
Look around our world today, and you will see that our society is severely lacking in prudence. Without prudence, when we seek justice we find injustice. This is why we see riots in cities rather than more civilized and more moral actions seeking justice. As a result, more crime and disorder is caused rather than more order. Without knowledgeable foresight and moral principles, we cause destruction.
Speaking of moral principles, these are absolutely needed in the virtues of temperance and fortitude. Without prudence, we cannot practice good temperance. This is why we end up falling into the passions we are trying to avoid or into another passion. People are so self-indulgent today because of a lack of temperance. Without prudence, we do not have the fortitude to stand up against evil. Fear and cowardice become a part of our life, and we cannot hope to sacrifice ourselves for any greater good.
Without prudence, we are without guidance and are like ships in a storm with no anchor or steering. All of our best efforts to strive for goodness and virtue will only result in being bashed against the rocks and drowning. Knowledge and morality are what we need to guide us in all of our virtues. This is why we need prudence.
How Do We Become More Prudent?
Prudence is something that we can practice and improve on with life experience and self-reflection. Reading and learning about morality will help you understand how to make sure you are working toward the good. It would also be a good idea to take your time and weigh your options when you are presented with a decision. If you do not have time to do this, then make a decision as best as you can and then reflect on how it went. Reflection and knowledge really are key to improving your prudence. And the more you practice the more you will make good and right decisions. Learning practical skills about a certain thing you are trying to accomplish is also important, as you need to come up with the best way of doing something. Again experience is helpful in this, but also learning from others, and through books and online resources.
Another thing to remember is that as Catholics, we get a special grace to help us in our prudence. As long as we are in a stateg of grace, we recieve a special supernatural gift from God. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is good counsel. With this gift, we find that we are not only guiding by our natural reason, but also this supernatural guidance infused within our hearts. As long as we keep saying yes to these promptings from the Holy Spirit, we will grow closer to God and find incredible guidance in everything we need to make a decision on.
So make an effort to improve your prudence. With every decision weigh your options, apply your knowledge that you already know, and learn from your decisions through self reflection. Also pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance, and learn to recognize those promptings from God and to say yes. This virtue of prudence is so crucial to the other virtues, so you need to start here, and your other virtues will only improve as this virtue improves.