153. Prudence, Moral Virtue, and the Role of Passion

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

• Prudence’s dependence on moral virtue: Whether practical wisdom (φρόνησις/prudentia) requires moral virtue for its exercise, particularly in judging particular circumstances
• Passion and virtue compatibility: Whether emotions and passions can coexist with virtue, and whether passions impede or aid virtuous action
• Stoic vs. Aristotelian-Thomistic disagreement: Fundamental difference in understanding whether the wise/virtuous person experiences emotion
• The role of appetite in moral judgment: How the disposition of the appetitive power affects reason’s ability to judge correctly about particular goods
• Intention and the validity of acts: How the absence of proper intention (e.g., in marriage) can invalidate or transform the nature of an act

Key Arguments #

On Prudence Without Moral Virtue #

• Prudence requires right judgment about particulars: Prudence is not merely scientific knowledge of universal principles about what is good, but right reason about things to be done in individual circumstances
• Passion corrupts particular judgment: A person may know universally that one should not desire what is forbidden (e.g., adultery), but when concupiscence (disordered desire) is present, the forbidden act appears good in the particular moment
• Natural understanding is insufficient: Understanding of natural law (that nothing bad should be done) and even scientific knowledge of ethics does not suffice for right reasoning about particulars when passions overcome judgment
• Three acts of prudence: Prudence involves taking counsel (bene consiliativa), judging (bene edictiva), and commanding (bene preceptiva). The latter two cannot occur rightly without moral virtue removing the impediment of passions
• The role of the virtuous person’s character: “Such as a man is, so does he seem to him”—the disposition of one’s appetitive power (shaped by virtue) determines how one judges the apparent good

On Passion and Virtue #

• Passions are not themselves virtues or vices: Passions (πάθη) are motions of the sensitive appetite and have no intrinsic moral quality; they become ordered or disordered according to whether they accord with reason
• The Stoic error: Stoics denied that passions can exist in the wise person, but this confuses passions with disordered affections. A passion may follow deliberation and command of reason without being disordered
• Difference between motion and habit: Virtue is a habit (ἕξις), a stable disposition of the soul, not a motion (κίνησις/passio); passions are motions. Thus virtue is not a passion, though it may be accompanied by passions
• Passions may aid virtue: A passion arising suddenly (not yet subject to reason’s deliberation) is not disordered if it is later approved by reason’s judgment. Mercy, compassion, and righteous anger can aid the execution of virtue when ordered by reason
• The virtuous person’s delight: The virtuous person experiences pleasure in virtuous acts and sadness when contrary to virtue—these emotions follow from and reinforce virtue

On Intention and Moral Acts #

• Marriage and intention: If a person enters marriage with no intention of accepting one of the essential properties (e.g., willingness to have children), the marriage may be invalid because the intention determines the nature of the act
• Intention vs. knowledge: One may know what an act is (its universal definition) but intend something entirely different. For instance, someone may engage in the physical act called “marriage” while intending something other than marriage itself
• The problem of divergent intentions: When spouses have contradictory intentions about essential goods (one intending open to children, the other intentionally preventing them), there is a fundamental conflict about what act is being performed

Important Definitions #

• Prudentia (Prudence/Foresight): Right reason about things to be done (recta ratio agibilium), not merely about universal principles but about particular circumstances and the judgment required for right action in individual cases

• Passio (Passion/Emotion): A motion (κίνησις) of the sensitive desiring power; distinguished from affections of the will (motions of the intellectual appetitive power). Passions include fear, anger, desire, sadness, mercy, etc.

• Disordered passion: A passion that either opposes reason or that someone, through deliberation, wrongly consents to. The Stoics called all passions disordered; the Aristotelians distinguish between ordered and disordered passions

• Ordered passion: A passion arising from the sensitive appetite that either precedes reason (suddenly) and is later approved by reason’s judgment, or that follows deliberation and is commanded by reason

• Bene consiliativa, bene edictiva, bene preceptiva: The three operations of prudence: taking counsel well, judging well, and commanding well. The last two essentially require moral virtue

• Concupiscentia (Concupiscence): Disordered desire, particularly sensual desire; when concupiscence conquers judgment, it makes the forbidden object appear good in the particular moment

• Habitudo: A stable disposition or relation of the soul; virtue is described as a habitudo like health is to the body

Examples & Illustrations #

• The person with concupiscence: One who knows universally that adultery should not be done, but when concupiscence conquers, the forbidden act appears good in that particular moment—showing how passion corrupts particular judgment

• The cook who knowingly ruins the meat: A comparison to show that someone who knowingly acts contrary to what they know to be good is worse than one who acts unknowingly; knowledge alone is insufficient without right appetite

• Marriage with concealed intention: A woman who concealed her intention to use contraception and prevent children, not wanting marriage but rather social status. The case raises the question of whether a marriage is valid when one party has no intention of accepting an essential good

• The woman with the hat: A story of a woman at a White House event who, seeing the president’s wife wore the same hat, immediately turned her hat upside down—illustrating how envy and concern for appearance makes people miserable

• Stoic indifference: The (reductio ad absurdum) image of a Stoic whose wife and children are being killed, refusing to act or feel anything because passions are incompatible with wisdom

• Righteous anger: A man stepping on another’s toe, with the victim’s anger helping him assert his right against the aggressor—showing how passion can aid virtue when it follows from reason’s judgment

• The actor and the politician: Brief mention of someone (possibly Talleyrand) who was good at deliberation and counsel in diplomatic matters but was a scoundrel in personal life—showing the separation of prudence in one domain from moral virtue

Questions Addressed #

Can Prudence Exist Without Moral Virtue? #

Objections raised:

• Reason is before the appetitive power, so intellectual virtue should not depend on moral virtue
• Art (ars) can exist without its matter (e.g., a metalworker can have the skill of metalworking without iron present)
• Some people take counsel well (prudent deliberation) yet lack moral virtues

Resolution: Prudence differs from other intellectual virtues because it is not merely about universal principles but about right judgment and command concerning particular circumstances of action. This requires not just knowledge but a well-disposed appetitive power, which is what moral virtue provides. Unlike art, prudence cannot exist separated from its matter (moral matters) because prudence’s very definition concerns right reason about things to be done. Therefore, prudence essentially requires moral virtue.

Can Passions Exist With Virtue? #

Objections raised:

• Aristotle says the mild man is not moved to anger
• Virtue is like health of the body; health cannot coexist with sickness; passions are sicknesses of the soul
• Passions impede perfect use of reason in particular circumstances, as Aristotle notes that pleasure corrupts prudence’s estimate

Against this: Augustine says that if the will is right, passions can be not only inculpable (not guilty) but even praiseworthy

Resolution: The disagreement between Stoics and Peripatetics is more verbal than substantive. The Stoics did not distinguish between the will (rational appetite) and sense appetite; they called all passions “disordered affections” incompatible with wisdom. But properly understood, passions (motions of the sensitive appetite) can be ordered by reason. If a passion arises suddenly before reason’s deliberation, it is not disordered if reason later approves it. If a passion follows from deliberation (commanded by reason), it aids virtue. Thus passions are compatible with virtue when they are ordered to reason, and incompatible only when they are disordered (repugnant to reason or consented to wrongly after deliberation). Aristotle did not say virtuous people are without passions, but without disordered passions.

Notable Quotes #

“Such as a man is, so does he seem to him” (On how the disposition of the appetitive power shapes how one judges the apparent good in particular circumstances)

“Passions are not virtues or vices according to their essence, but they become ordered or disordered according as they accord with reason or not” (On the moral status of emotions)

“The difference between the cook who unknowingly ruins the meat and the man who knowingly does something immoral: he is worse” (On why knowledge without right appetite is insufficient)

“If the will is right, the passions can be not only inculpable but even praiseworthy” (Augustine, via Berquist, on passion and virtue)