Ethics of virtues vs. ethics of principles
The four classical cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Those are ancient concepts we barely understand today.
Ever since Immanuel Kant, the Aristotelian ethics of virtues has been replaced by an ethics of principles. Ever since, ethical behavior has been – in the view of many who tread in Kant’s path – not about a man’s whole integrated character any more, but only about a man‘s mind – about the rules he agrees with, and not about the essential qualities he strives to embody. Famous is the Kantian “categorical imperative“:
„Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde.“
Immanuel Kant
“Only act upon this one maxime for which you could wish that it may become a universal law.“ (my own translation)
In school I was taught that the ideas of the Protestant deist Kant and the following words of Jesus of Nazareth are basically the same thing, the same concept. But they are not – and we are taught a lot of things in school that are not quite hitting the truth. Just compare the two sayings carefully and if you have any slight talent for hermeneutics, you will see that the ancient ethics of virtues is in line with the commandment of Christ, while the modern ethics of principles is not.
“All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them.“
Matthew 7: 12
From an ethics of principles to the French revolutionary Robespierre‘s “terror of goodness“ it is just a few steps. Once the goodness of your actions is not determined any more by the naturally and supernaturally real and good stored in your conscience, the concrete situation you find yourself in and your willingness to put what is essentially good into practice in the micro-context of your personal life, as this is the case in an ethics of virtues, but is instead determined by whether or not the action is in compliance with something that can be stated as an abstract universal principle, you are actually not too far from the reversal: “good“ universal principles – eventually state-imposed because of being “beneficial for the whole of society“ – dictating all your actions right into your personal life, and all minutiae, while abolishing human freedom. An ethics of virtues is about man modelling himself after the substantially good – it is philosophical realism – , while an ethics of principles is about man modelling himself after principles modelled by himself (or maybe rather modelled by an “enlightened“ elite, by the “intelligentsia“?) – it is philosophical nominalism, and may well constitute the justification for the elimination of subsidiarity and for deciding about “good and evil“ on a state level, making the state into the agent of a moral lifestlye, who instructs all his citizens with which “good“ universal principles they should comply for the “benefit of all“, forcing them to get in line.
How are we to understand the four cardinal virtues?
Sometimes, due to the philosophical enlightenment movement and the secularization of our societies, a whole chasm seems to separate us from the worldview of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the “universal teacher“ of the Church, who is known for fleshing out the Aristotelian ethics of virtues in the context of the Catholic faith.
The 20th century Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper in his book The Four Cardinal Virtues, first published in the 1950s, tried to build a bridge for us.
“(…) the contemporaries of Socrates (…) took for granted these traditional categories sprung from the earlist speculative thinking. They took for granted not only the idea of virtue, which signifies human rightness, but also the attempt to define it in that fourfould spectrum. (…) The doctrine of virtue (…) has things to say about (the) human person; it speaks both of the kind of being which is his when he enters the world, as a consequence of his createdness, and the kind of being he ought to strive toward and attain to – by being prudent, just, brave, and temperate.“
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. XI-XII
What is prudence? Prudence is “pre-eminent“
Prudence is considered to be the “first“ among the cardinal virtues. Why is that?
“No dictum in traditional Christian doctrine strikes such a note of strangeness to the ears of contemporaries, even contemporary Christians, as this one: that the virtue of prudence is the mold and ‘mother‘ of all the other cardinal virtues, of justice, fortitude, and temperance. In other words, none but the prudent man can be just, brave, and temperate, and the good man is good in so far as he is prudent. (…)
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 3-9
Prudence is the cause of the other virtues‘ being virtues at all. (…)
Virtue is a ‘perfected ability‘ of man as a spiritual person; and justice, fortitude, and temperance, as ‘abilities‘ of the whole man, achieve their ‘perfection‘ only when they are founded upon prudence, that is to say upon the perfected ability to make right decisions. (…)
Prudence ‘informs‘ the other virtues; it confers upon them the form of their inner essence. (…) And so prudence imprints the inward seal of goodness upon all free activity of man. (…) And every sin is opposed to prudence. (…) Everyone who sins is imprudent. (…)
The intrinsic goodness of man – and that is the same as saying his true humanness – consists in this, that ‘reason perfected in the cognition of truth‘ shall inwardly shape and imprint his volition and action. (…) ‘Reason‘ means to (Thomas Aquinas) nothing other than ‘regard for and openness to reality,‘ and ‘acceptance of reality.‘ And ‘truth‘ is to him nothing other than the unveiling and revelation of reality, of both natural and supernatural reality. (…)
The good is prudent beforehand; but that is prudent which is in keeping with reality.“
What is prudence? Prudence presupposes knowledge of reality
“He alone can do good who knows what things are like and their situation is. (…) Realization of the good presupposes that our actions are appropriate to the real situation (…).
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 10-14
Prudence (…) is not concerned directly with the ultimate – natural and supernatural – ends of human life, but with the means to these ends. (…) The special nature of prudence is its concern with the realm of ‘ways and means‘ and down-to-earth realities.
Prudence (…) is not only cognition, not only knowing what is what. The prime thing is that this knowledge of reality must be transformed into the prudent decision which takes effect directly in its execution. Prudence is immediately directed toward concrete realization (…).
‘Prudence as coginition‘, as cognition of the concrete situation of concrete action, includes above all the ability to be still in order to attain objective perception of reality. There is in addition the patient effort of experience (experimentum), which cannot be evaded or replaced by any arbitrary, short-circuiting resort to ‘faith‘ (…).“
Prudence therefore is both cognitive and volitional. As perfected cognition of reality it involves the elements of memoria, docilitas, and solertia.
“The true-to-being character of memory means simply that it ‘contains‘ in itself real things and events as they really are and were.
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 14-17
(Docilitas is) the kind of open-mindedness which recognizes the true variety of things and situations to be experienced and does not cage itself in any presumption of deceptive knowledge. What is meant is the ability to take advice (…).
(…) with the aid of solertia he can swiftly, but with open eyes and clear-sighted vision, decide for the good, avoiding the pitfalls of injustice, cowardice, and intemperance. Without this virtue of ‘objectivity in unexpected situations‘, perfect prudence is not possible.
Trueness-to-being of memory, open-mindedness, clear-sighted objectivity in unexpected circumstances: these are qualities of mind of the prudent man.“
Prudence as imperative, as good action requires foresight – providentia.
“By this is meant the capacity to estimate, with a sure instinct for the future, whether a particular action will lead to the realization of the goal. At this point the element of uncertainty and risk in every moral decision comes to light. In the decisions of prudence, which by the very nature of prudence are concerned with things concrete, contingent, and future (…), there cannot be that certainty which is possible in a theoretical conclusion. This is what the casuists fail to understand. (…) the certitude of prudence cannot be so great as completely to remove all anxiety. (…) The prudent man does not expect certainty where it cannot exist, nor on the other hand does he deceive himself by false certainties.
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 17-22
Prudence means the studied seriousness and, as it were, the filter of deliberation, and at the same time the brave boldness to make final decisions. It means purity, straightforwardness, candor, and simplicity of character; it means standing superior to the utilitarian complexities of mere ‘tactics‘.“
What is prudence? Prudence needs charity as its foundation
“It is not the purpose or the business of the virtue of prudence to discover the goals, or rather the goal, of life, and to determine the fundamental inclinations of the human being. Rather, the purpose of prudence is to determine the proper roads to that goal and the suitable outlet in the here and now for those fundamental inclinations.
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 32-37
Without desire for the good in general, all efforts to discover what is prudent and good here and now remain empty bustle and self-deception. The virtue of prudence presumes real seeking of the goal of man, the intentio finis.
Now there is a right standard proper to the human species and peculiar to man’s nature, namely right reason; and there is another, supreme and surpassing standard, which is God. Man attains right reason in prudence, which is right reason in the realm of action. But man attains God in charity.
Prudence is the mold of the moral virtues; but charity molds even prudence itself.“
Summing it up
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is prudence.“
Proverbs 9: 10
In the Catholic understanding of prudence, one can only become prudent in a perfected way through the “fear of the Lord“ and the love of God as an adopted child of the heavenly Father, who is the source and destination of life.
The love of God enables one to accept both the natural and the supernatural reality just as it is, acknowledging that man‘s reason and will should work in accordance with this reality. A prudent man finds what is naturally and supernaturally essentially good just as it is and seeks wise counsel to attain to what is good. His conscience is well formed and in a given situation he is able and willing to perceive the specific challenge of the circumstances surrounding his actions with clear sight and an objective mind, not deformed by wild and habitually nursed vices and passions, and after some deliberation, he decides on how to respond to the challenge in a wise, in a prudent manner – finding the concrete means to flesh out the demands of goodness and truth.
His prudence, his wisdom, also enables him to grow in the concrete realization of the good essence of every other virtue, like justice, fortitude, or temperance, as it helps him to detect what it would mean to act justly, and bravely, and temperately right here and now.
A prudent man is calm in front of his adversary. When the storms are raging, his house stands up to them, being built on a strong foundation. His faculties – his mind, heart, and will – are still free to do what is good and are not crumbling under pressure.
“Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And every one that heareth these my words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof.“
Matthew 7: 24-27
In the garden of Eden, Satan tempts Eve with the following promise:
“No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.“
Genesis 3: 4-5
“You shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil“ means: You shall not live with God and under His authority, but in autonomy, in indepedence – being a godlike authority yourself, able to discriminate between good and evil “in principle“ – discovering and setting up the principles of “good and evil“ by yourself. It is some sort of “fake prudence“, a deception – the opposite of true prudence which springs from the fear and love of the Lord.
An ethics of virtues presupposes in some way, shape or form a model, a mentor, because becoming virtuous means being modelled after a model of virtue – ultimately it presupposes God, who is perfect goodness. An ethics of principles however presupposes power – the power to detect and define the principles that should govern all men. It presupposes that man can and should have “knowledge of good and evil“, that he has the power and the right to govern himself by his own principles in absolute ways – just as if he was a god onto himself.
And that is the whole abyss between Catholicism and the “enlightenment“.
But who is wise, who is prudent among us? The apostle Saint James is asking us the very same question…
“Who among you is wise and understanding? By his good conduct let him show his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. (…) the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, not hypocritical.“
James 3: 13-17
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all without hesitation and without reproach; and it will be given to him.“
James 1: 5