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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Aquinas's articulation of the eight ‘integral parts’ of prudence can serve as a manageable, practical focus for ongoing human development. Although Aquinas holds that there is an infused Prudence, this does not render acquired prudence redundant, because (1) God moves things in ways that befit their natures, and it is our nature to have dominion over our actions; (2) human beings have free will, characteristically exercised in electio, choice of means; (3) grace perfects nature; (4) some scholars have defended the complementarity of the acquired and infused virtues, and there is widespread agreement that the psychological structures needed by acquired virtue persist in the life of graced virtue.
The ‘integral parts’ of a Cardinal Virtue must concur for its perfect acts. Aquinas examines them in detail, and offers methods of building ‘memory’ through human effort; he leaves to our diligence the discernment of how to build other parts of prudence. He explains how the parts are deployed in the acts of deliberation, judgment and command.
Aquinas's consideration of the vices opposed to prudence and its parts enables him to warn us about what impedes prudence, and to help us distinguish false from legitimate concerns for bodily goods, superfluous from proportionate solicitude, etc.
1 I q. 103, aa. 1-3.
2 I q. 103, a. 6.
3 I q. 2, a. 3; I-II q. 6, a.1 ad 3.
4 I q. 103, a. 5 ad 2.
5 Ibid.
6 I q. 103, a. 5 ad 2.
7 I-II q. 9, a. 6 ad 3.
8 Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names iv, cited in I-II q. 10, a. 4.
9 I-II q. 10, a. 4 ad 1.
10 I-II q. 10, a. 4.
11 I q. 83, a. 1.
12 I-II q. 10, a. 2.
13 Ibid.
14 I q. 63, a. 3
15 I-II q. 1, a. 7; q. 5, a. 8.
16 I-II q. 1, a. 8; q. 2, a. 8; q. 3, aa. 1, 8; q. 5, a. 8.
17 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, Encyclical Letter, 1993, 31-50.
18 Pinckaers, Servais O.P., Sources of Christian Ethics, Trans. by Noble, Mary (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), pp. 327-399Google Scholar.
19 Fr.Conrad, Richard O.P., “Human Practice and God's Making-Good in Aquinas’ Virtue Ethics,” in Carr, David, Arthur, James, and Kristjansson, Kristjan, eds., Varieties of Virtue Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 168-172Google Scholar.
20 I q. 83, a. 3.
21 I q. 83, a. 3 ad 2; I-II q. 13, a. 1.
22 cf. I-II q. 6, a. 1, establishing the ‘voluntariness’ of human acts.
23 I-II q. 6, a. 1 ad 3.
24 I q. 1, a. 8 ad 2.
25 I-II q. 51, a. 4 ad 2.
26 I-II q. 68, a. 2.
27 I-II q. 68, a. 3 ad 2.
28 I-II q. 55, a. 4 ad 6, Ad sextum dicendum quod virtus infusa causatur in nobis a Deo sine nobis agentibus, non tamen sine nobis consentientibus. Et sic est intelligendum quod dicitur, quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur. Quae vero per nos aguntur, Deus in nobis causat non sine nobis agentibus, ipse enim operatur in omni voluntate et natura.
29 I-II q. 63, a. 2.
30 cf. II-II q. 47, a. 14.
31 I-II q. 63, a. 2; cf. I-II q. 19, a. 4.
32 I-II q. 63, aa. 2-4; a. 4 ad 1.
33 Mattison, Bill III, ‘Can Christians Possess the Acquired Cardinal Virtues?’ Theological Studies 72 (2011), pp. 558-585CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Knobel, Angela McKay, ‘Prudence and Acquired Moral Virtue’, The Thomist 69 (2005), pp. 535-555Google Scholar.
35 Osborne, Tom Jr., ‘Perfect and Imperfect Virtue in Aquinas’, The Thomist 71 (2007), pp. 39-64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 I-II q. 55, a. 4; q. 63, aa. 2-3; q. 110, a. 3.
37 I-II q. 65, a. 2 ad 2; cf. I-II q. 49, a. 3.
38 Richard Conrad, O.P., ‘Human Practice and God's Making-Good’, pp. 163-179.
39 Torrell, Jean-Pierre O.P., St. Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2, Spiritual Master, Trans. by Guevin, Benedict O.S.B. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), p. 274Google Scholar.
40 II-II q. 21, a. 1.
41 II-II q. 52, a. 1.
42 II-II q. 52, a. 1 ad 3.
43 Mattison, ‘Acquired Cardinal Virtues?’ p. 570. Cf. Inglis, John, ‘Aquinas's Replication of the Acquired Moral Virtues: Rethinking the Standard Philosophical Interpretation of Moral Virtue in Aquinas’, Journal of Religious Ethics 27 (1999), p. 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cited in Mattison, p. 577.
44 II-II q. 48.
45 II-II q. 49, a. 1.
46 II-II q. 49, a. 1 ad 2.
47 II-II q. 49, a. 2.
48 II-II q. 49, a. 2 ad 1.
49 II-II q. 49, a. 2 ad 3.
50 II-II q. 49, a. 3.
51 II-II q. 49, a. 3 ad 2.
52 II-II q. 49, a. 3 ad 3.
53 II-II q. 49, a. 4.
54 II-II q. 49, a. 4 ad 3.
55 II-II q. 49, a. 4 ad 2.
56 II-II q. 49, a. 5.
57 II-II q. 49, a. 5 ad 3.
58 II-II q. 49, a. 5 ad 2.
59 II-II q. 49, a. 6.
60 II-II q. 49, a. 6 ad 3.
61 II-II q. 49, a. 6 ad 1.
62 II-II q. 49, a. 7.
63 II-II q. 49, a. 7 ad 3.
64 II-II q. 49, a. 8.
65 II-II q. 49, a. 8 ad 3.
66 I-II q. 14, a. 4.
67 Ibid.
68 I-II q. 13, a.1.
69 Ibid.
70 cf. II-II q. 49, a. 6.
71 I-II q. 17, a. 1.
72 I-II q. 17, a. 3 ad 3, a 4.
73 cf. II-II q. 48, a. 1.
74 II-II q. 48, a. 1.
75 II-II q. 53, a. 1.
76 Ibid.
77 Cf. II-II q. 54; q. 54, a. 2 ad 3, respectively.
78 II-II q. 53, a. 4.
79 II-II q. 53, a. 4 ad 2
80 II-II q. 54, a. 5, cf. a. 2 ad 3. The Deferrari Aquinas dictionary defines inconstans as ‘fickle, changeable, irregular, or variable,’ (Deferrari, Barry, McGuinness, 2004, p. 533).
81 II-II q. 54, a. 6.
82 De Ferrari, Barry, McGuinness, 2004, p. 533.
83 Aristotle, Ethics vii, 6, cited in II-II q. 54, a. 6 ad 1.
84 II-II q. 54, a. 1, cf. II-II q. 47, a. 9.
85 II-II q. 54, a. 2, ad 1.
86 II-II q. 54, a. 2 ad 3.
87 II-II q. 54, a. 2 ad 1.
88 cf. II-II q. 35, a. 1, I-II q. 35, a. 8.
89 cf. I-II q. 2, a. 5.
90 II-II q. 54, a. 1 ad 2.
91 II-II q. 55, a. 2.
92 II-II q. 55, a. 3.
93 II-II q. 55, a. 4.
94 II-II q. 55, a. 4 ad 2.
95 II-II q. 55, a. 5.
96 cf. II-II q. 47, a. 9.
97 II-II q. 55, a. 6 ad 2.
98 cf. II-II q. 55, a. 6 ad 3.
99 II-II q. 55, a. 7 ad 2.
100 II-II q. 55, a. 7 ad 3.
101 II-II q. 55, a. 8. Cf. ad 1-3.
