Download Phronomoi Across Cultures: A Checklist

Abstract
Research, even of the scientific variety, involves the making of opinions and taking risks
based on hunches. Can such activity be done in a better or worse way? This paper argues for the
justification of opinion making in reference to what the discerning person would characteristically
do or believe. It then goes on to describe the characteristics of the phronimos as a way of
identifying a discerning person.
Who is the Discerning Person? A Virtue Epistemology Checklist
In the more than 700 years that have followed upon Aquinas, Western sensitivity to
doubt has grown given our experience of Aristotelian science being overhauled by Galileo
and Newton, who in their turn gave way to Einstein. Truth, thus, would seem to be a more
difficult commodity to possess in our own day and age than it did for the medievals. The
successive encounters between cultures that have come about through Western exploration
and colonization have only served to further that perception. The result has not been so
much a slide into relativism - the very existence of journals of intellectual inquiry gives
witness to our continued search for meaning - so much as a revaluing of opinion. Opinions
matter. It is precisely the Opinions Page of the newspaper to which we, as a society, turn to
as a guide in shaping our own values.1
Opinions pervade our quest for knowledge. The results of scientific investigation
depend upon many practical and non-scientific decisions regarding grant applications,
forming and managing a team and, as is often the case in investigation, dealing with
uncertain results and mere hunches. Both the researcher applying for a grant and the person
approving it will have to juggle evaluations made with differing degrees of temerity
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(ranging from common agreement among experts, to the probable, to the likely, to the
arguable, through to “within the ball park” and the merely “can’t be completely
dismissed”). More needs to be said within Analytical Philosophy about these beliefs that
impact upon our possession of truth and yet lack the empirical verifiability to count as solid
science. For the time being scientific truth and the Justified True Belief paradigm are what
still hold sway in contemporary forays into working definitions of knowledge
A perusal of the last twenty years of epistemic literature in the United States would
reveal numerous articles that grapple with Gettier problems, unwitting clairvoyants and
Cartesian demons but next to nothing on the issue of discernment. The naturalized
epistemology of Alvin I. Goldman and Ernest Sosa clings too much to a nuts and bolts
vision of the human agent as an input-output knowledge machine.2 What we need is a
discussion about discretion in forming and critiquing opinions that do not enjoy the status
of truth but nevertheless play a pivotal role in helping us attain knowledge. If reaching the
truth these days is more a matter of politics and team-work than brilliant thinking by an
individual, then the role of the phronimê takes on great epistemic importance. This paper
proposes the phronimos as a good guide to take with us along uncertain paths and lists a
number of qualities that will help us find such guides.
The Phronimos as a Guide to the Discerning Judgment
According to Aristotle, “scientific” knowledge is the demonstration of the necessary
causes to why something is the way it is, and not simply a correct discernment or definition
of what is or should be.3 When the object of study is as contingent as human actions are,
then as universal and reasonable as our study of their causes might be, we find ourselves in
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the realm of the prudential and not the strictly scientific.4 Rather than capitulate to
relativism in these circumstances, we may invoke the criteria of good judgment and taste as
not irrational ways of deciding upon matters that lie beyond the scope of scientific
rationality. Hannah Arendt called this the talent of an “understanding heart”.5
The understanding heart, or imagination, allows us (through much dialogue and
travel) to capture some glimpses of the truth about other hearts.6 In other words, an
understanding heart is sensitive to circumstance (both one’s own and other’s). The
argument that Arendt seems to be making is that what works for matters of the heart can
work for matters of opinion in general i.e. in those concrete issues that are to be decided
between men and not in truths that transcend them. Refinement of taste and good judgment
follow from a broadening of our imagination and placement of ourselves in other people’s
shoes.
“In the Critique of Judgement, [...], Kant insisted upon a different way of thinking, for
which it would not be enough to be in agreement with one’s own self, but which consisted of
being able to “think in the place of everybody else” and which he therefore called an “enlarged
mentality” (eine erweiterte Denkungsart). The power of judgment rests on a potential agreement
with others, and the thinking process which is active in judging something is not, like the
thought process of pure reasoning, a dialogue between me and myself, but finds itself always
and primarily, even if I am quite alone in making up my mind, in an anticipated communication
with others with whom I know I must finally come to some agreement.” 7
Agreement need not actually be reached in order for an epistemic agent to be
reasonable (or “tasteful”), suffice that the agent should do what she can to take others’
perspectives into account. Arendt is speaking here of the reasonableness of a judgment that
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has “wooed” consent in a shared world, as opposed to the episteme of scientific,
mathematical or logical certainties.
“Hence judgment is endowed with a certain specific validity but it is never universally
valid. Its claims to validity can never extend further than the others in whose place the judging
person has put himself for his considerations. [...]
“The Greeks called this ability φρονησις, or insight, and they considered it the principal
virtue or excellence of the statesman in distinction from the wisdom of the philosopher. The
difference between this judging insight and speculative thought lies in that the former has its
roots in what we usually call common sense, which the latter constantly transcends. ”8
Linda Zagzebski’s Virtues of the Mind (1996) and her subsequent Virtue
Epistemology writings give us an outline of how the Greek virtue of phronesis could be
included into the Justified True Belief framework of the Analytical tradition.9 The virtue of
prudence, or phronesis, governs all the moral virtues that help make an epistemic agent a
reliable one: it helps her to be focused when she should be, upright in decision making and
a better team player.
In her article “Truth and Politics” Arendt noted that history and poetry provide us
with examples, with exemplars, with which to verify the reality of our moral concepts:
courage is verified in Achilles, just as goodness can be found incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth
or St Francis of Assisi.10 Why not look, therefore, to verify our concepts of good judgment
in the same way by turning to historical or literary men and women of good taste and
insight i.e. of phronimoi? It is according to that line of reasoning that Zagzebski would like
to see the phronimê or phronimos employed as a kind of benchmark for belief justification.
By this she is not advocating that Wilbur should believe what Aquinas believed in the 13th
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Century. The point of phronesis is that Wilbur should take the steps that Aquinas would
take in going about his studies if Aquinas were in Wilbur’s shoes today;11 a prudent eye for
the believing guy, as it were.
Virtue Epistemology opens up a more person-oriented approach to the cut and thrust
of epistemic debate on warrant and justification. Where traditional approaches to belief
justification in Analytical philosophy have depended on deontological or consequentialist
argumentation, Virtue Epistemology says that the good qualities of a belief are due to some
special quality of the agent who formed that belief. Someone is justified in holding a true
belief because she has been responsible in her investigation prior to forming that belief and
is herself a reliable agent (so the outcome is not due to sloppy guesswork or unwitting
clairvoyance, etc). In Zagzebski’s believer-based (as opposed to belief-based) account, her
normative theory places the foundational source of a belief’s justification in what the
practically virtuous person would characteristically do or believe.
“A justified belief … is what an intellectually virtuous person might believe in like
circumstances. It is not the case that she characteristically would not believe it. An unjustified
belief is a belief an intellectually virtuous person characteristically would not believe in like
circumstances.”12
Viewing a given belief as someone wise and sympathetic would – as someone with
an understanding heart would - allows us to respect the circumstances surrounding each
individual self, without the limitations of giving carte blanche to each and every desire or
belief just because it happens to be standard practice for that individual or society. The
perspective of a broadened imagination is both a social and personal evaluation at one and
the same time. And it is also a perspective that we take quite naturally since in society “we
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learn to see ourselves through interaction with others, particularly with friends”.13 Who,
though, are the people of good taste and judgment whom we should look to in these
phronetic evaluations?
Identifying the Phronimos
The way that Zagzebski would identify a phronimos would be through the
employment of the theory of direct reference as used by Kripke and Putnam.14 If we can
talk about a natural property like water or gold without being able to give a scientific
description of it, it is sufficient that we can simply point to something like that i.e. to some
indexically identified instance, or rely upon experts who can point to it, in order for us to be
able to talk with sense about water or gold or uranium.15 Zagzebski claims that Aristotle
was employing something like a theory of direct reference when he pointed to certain
exemplars of practical wisdom.
“The phronimos can be defined, roughly, as a person like that, where we make a
demonstrative reference to a paradigmatically good person. So Aristotle assumes that we can
pick out paradigmatic instances of good persons in advance of our theorizing. [...]
The phronimos is a person like that, just as water is a substance like that.”16
This has proved to be the contentious part to Linda Zagzebski’s considerations on
the phronomoi. What pre-theoretical understanding do we actually have in seeking out
people we need to trust in for advice and counseling? A certain degree of prudence is
already required for us to recognize a prudent person – a common sense that comes from
experience and the development of our critical abilities. If pressed upon the issue of being
able to actually identify a that who would qualify as a phronimos, Zagzebski herself would
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point to any one of those people “who help to shape the direction of the community, to
critique it, and to lead the community in reaching consensus.”17 The phronimê is invariably
someone who is open-minded, sticks to her guns, diligent and fair.18
Her suggestion that the practically wise person be the paradigm for judging the
rationality of a given belief is a simple one, and for that very attractive. I think, though, that
like Arendt, we need to employ horses for courses according to the type of knowledge we
are dealing with. The practically wise person is but one sort of cognitively virtuous that.
The phronimê is a wonderful and suitable point of reference for our beliefs about practical
matters. A Socratic sophós, for example, is a respectful busybody who is forever critical of
the contingent affairs of life in the marketplace. This is the practically wise person to whom
we should turn for justified guidance in our beliefs about the contingent.19 For speculative
judgments, however, we would do better to turn to a Platonic sophós who embodies
different characteristics to the Socratic marketplace philosopher. The speculative
philosopher progresses in vision of (often mathematically) necessary and eternal truths, not
discernment in the contingent. This is our absent-minded professor or contemplative sage to
whom even the phronimos should turn for foundational backing.20
How should we actually go about spotting a phronimos? I suppose that we would
need to draw up a list of criteria and see if there is anyone around us who makes the grade.
Aquinas wrote much in many places about just the sorts of transcending qualities that
Zagzebski refers to in her indexical referencing. Indeed, the medieval theologians provide
us with a veritable treasure trove of rich phenomenological descriptions of the prudent
person. What I would like to do here is make use of those medieval investigations as a basis
for the evaluator’s list of criteria. I should make clear from the outset, however, that this is a
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theoretical and not a prudent investigation into who the practically wise is and what we can
do to imitate her. Says Sellés,
“Aristotle said that in order to acquire the virtue of prudence, as with any other virtue,
one should ask someone prudent since this virtue is not to be found in books but rather in
prudent men and women. The nature of this perfection is only adverted to by the person who
actually lives it. Be that as it may, and without naysaying the aforementioned thesis, our
knowledge about the virtue of lived prudence does not come from prudence itself but rather
from a higher cognitive perfection, superior to the type of knowledge proper to prudence. ”21
The higher cognitive perfection is a theoretical one. A prudent investigation of
prudence calls for a recognition of context and circumstances that a purely theoretical study
cannot.22
Keeping in mind the necessary limitations of what is essentially a theoretical and
abstract investigation, an evaluator who hopes to identify a phronimos would do well to
look for the following characteristics which we would expect to be present in the practically
wise agent.
a) Someone who Plans ahead
Foresight is the core component of prudence.23 The word prudence itself comes
from the Latin provideo, which means foresight.24 The anticipation of future events by a
phronimos is necessarily imperfect but that only serves to highlight the importance of
making preparations for an uncertain future (as the grasshopper realized all too late).25 The
need to “be prepared” is a recurring theme throughout human literature. It can be found in
our fables about ants and grasshoppers, in Gospel exhortations that maidens trim their
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lamps and carry oil, or even in songs from the Lion King.26 The outcome of a future
research program — a cure for cancer, a remedy to Gettier problems — cannot be assured
prior to undertaking the project. But there are certainly better or worse ways of going about
the investigation, ranging from idle daydreaming through to the professional assessment of
the likelihood of success and procurement of staffing and facilities. Our prudent person will
be something of a good economist therefore: doing what she can now insofar as she judges
the contingent future to depend upon that.27 Prudence goes beyond economic optimization,
however, in that it cannot be managed by rules and mathematics, and it also involves value
judgments. A point made loud and clear by Zagzebski in Virtues of the Mind.28 It’s not the
case that the grasshopper simply had a very high “discount rate” in favor of fiddling today
as opposed to scraping together enough sustenance to be able to fiddle tomorrow. The
grasshopper was foolish. At the other extreme of the grasshopper’s idleness we encounter
the sort of imprudent person who gets carried away by activism. The prudent person always
looks before she leaps into a project.
b) Someone of Good Judgment
Zagzebski appreciates that prudence is both an intellectual and a moral virtue.29
Intellectual, because it involves a practical grasp and coloring of the expected future,
something that calls for concentrated deliberation (eubulia) and sound judgment (synesis).30
Linda Zagzebski says that the phronimos is to be recognized, in part, as a person of good
judgment.31 Someone who is a poor judge of practical matters is not the sort of person that
we should turn to as an exemplar for good belief-formation. Although the negligence and
irresponsibility of the grasshopper had its roots in disordered passion, it found its
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fulfillment in a failure to reason.32 The grasshopper was too lazy to weigh up the
consequences of his actions and never really committed himself to any particular course of
action. In the end he simply let the circumstances decide for him. The taking of decisions
without due deliberation, as when someone listens to only one side of a story, is perhaps the
most common source of imprudence.
Prudence is also a moral virtue, because the prudent judgment contains a subsequent
moral imperative that should be vigorously put into action. Prudentia is the habit of what
classical theory called praeceptum or imperium according to which someone acts here and
now.33 As this is a practical habit, it is not an automatic derivation from universal
principles. Between sage principle and prudent particular-case lies the proper apprehension
of the concrete experience.34 The different types of imperfection that occur in the
transformation of our knowledge into a prudential resolution represent different ways of
being imprudent.35 A good scientist or researcher, for instance, cannot rest content with the
findings of the positive sciences alone, without also exercising his or her practical reason.36
Dr. Mengle was interested in the therapeutic benefits (as he interpreted them) that might
have resulted from his experiments. I’m not sure that anyone would have trusted him as a
babysitter however.
c) Someone who Stops to Think
The sort of person who plans ahead and is of good judgment is more than likely
somebody who knows how to chew things over and make concrete plans. This calls for a
development of our internal faculty of “cogitation”. The cogitative faculty is an organic
ability that we have which allows us to evaluate the worth of future concrete courses of
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action. It plays a mediating role between reason and the sense appetites.37 Says Ramírez,
“Experience or the experiment properly so-called is a function specific to the internal
sense known as the cogitative sense, although it necessarily presupposes the collaboration of the
external senses and of our sensible memory, which gather and store the materials of the
experiment. It’s not sufficient that we capture one sole object by one sense only and this only
once. We have to get a hold of many objects according to different senses many times and in
different ways. All of this is stored in the sensible memory and then the cogitative sense, under
the direction of our reason and at reason’s service, compares each of these sensations with each
other with a view to finding some hidden law or principle that is common to all of them.”38
This capacity needs to be virtuously employed if it is to be of use to us. Someone
who is afraid of silence and in desperate need of background noise — switching the
television on as soon as they get home — is not likely to have developed this more
contemplative side to optimal action. In the case of the practically wise person this
contemplation is not mere rumination or Peircean musing, it is a focused and attentive
mulling over of the case at hand. It is the sharpness of a Sherlock Holmes more than the
plodding of a Dr Watson. In practical matters such reasoning takes the form of a careful
deliberation about what the next step should be — pursue Moriarty or inform Scotland
Yard?39 This habit of deliberation allows the phronimos to carry out correct “cost-benefit”
analyses of the pros and cons to different means to an end.
d) Objective in Recall
We often find that the prudent person has a good memory from which he can learn
from past experiences when determining what to do next.40 The longer the case history, the
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more accurate will be the doctor’s diagnosis (which, of course, is small comfort to the
patient meanwhile). Someone with a good memory is someone who remembers the past the
way things actually were.41 Imprudent actions (and beliefs) result from the hot biases with
which we willingly, but almost imperceptibly, interpret the facts brought to us by our
memory according to economic, racial or gender prejudice.42 The task of acquiring
knowledge is not unrelated to ascetic practice and this quite naturally leads us to consider
the intellectually humble person as a model for belief.
e) Someone who is Intellectually Humble
A humble person recognizes that the search for truth and the good is a team effort
and is prepared, therefore, to learn from others. To form a belief about matters that are not
immediately evident involves a Zagzebskian passion for the truth and a large degree of trust
in others, and trust is given when we respect or love someone. The prudent person forms
good beliefs because she loves, or at least respects, those who can and want to impart the
truth i.e. she confides in trustworthy people.43 The phronimos asks around for advice and is
prepared to listen to other points of view prior to making an important decision. Trust has
its limits though. Some consultants make their livelihoods out of milking everyone else in a
client’s office for information and then simply making a summary of it all. A research
student needs to do something similar to what consultants do to begin with, but at some
stage original contributions are looked for.
f) A Risk-Taker
The prudent person asks around but neither does she get caught in a paralysis by
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analysis or beating about the bush. We shouldn’t dither looking for water-tight certainty
where it’s not to be had, nor should we cling to false hopes like Linus with his security
blanket.44 Among the contingent a better course of action is always possible but at some
point a decision must be taken — that is what prudence does: prudence doesn’t just
deliberate, it commands. The phronimê is a successful entrepreneur who knows how to take
risks and makes decisions because she knows what the concrete circumstances are and has
enough savvy (solertia) to take stock of the situation and act with appropriate speed.45
g) Someone who is Flexibly Firm
Maintaining ones identity, or sticking to one’s principles, can be distinguished from
solipsism or cultural imperialism according to an agent’s motivation for the truth. A good
social scientist is an hermeneute that can empathize with others without being blind to
cultural faults. That is the only way of really “doing justice” to someone. The contrary
attitude leads to tokenism. However, the self-same scientist will always be on the look out
to learn from others and ready to make changes in what he does or believes. The virtue of
solertia provides the phronimos with a flexibility before the novel that has nothing to do
with being a reed swaying in the wind of opinion. It is, rather, more like a change of course
taken by plane due to unforeseen weather conditions, but always to the same final
destination. Prudence, after all, is motivated by the sight of our objectively true end as being
something really worth the while.46 When the will lowers its sights from true love and
places its final end in something proper to the lower appetites, it ignores the dictates of
reason and becomes petty or twisted.47 Rectitude of intention is what separates the dogged
from the pig-headed scientist.
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h) Someone who Channels Impulses According to Reason
Following upon the will’s consent to some disordered pleasure, relishing in a flawed
opinion simply because it is my own (or my examiner’s), the practical reason esteems that
particular choice in a twisted way.48 St Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on prudence can be
summed up in the following observation: the desires and practical choices of the phronimos
are shaped and informed by “upright reason”. This rectitude can be seen in how someone
exercises his social responsibilities, takes pleasure or makes demands on others. To be
upright is to do all of these things in due measure. Let us consider the case of fortitude.
Shakespeare provides us with two personalities that represent the troughed extremes at
either end of the prudent mean. The ire of Hotspur leads him to great deeds of energy at
work, but he is not the sort of person whose presence is appreciated at meetings. At the
other extreme is Sir John Falstaff, a jovial rogue who always arrives late to battle — “The
better part of valor is discretion;”49 — but for all his outward guffaws is a rogue through
and through, calculating rather than prudent. The phronimê is not an avaricious old cynic
prepared to sacrifice any ideal for the sake of personal security. On the contrary, she is
magnanimous and loyal, big-hearted, in her ways of going about her business.50
From Whom Should We Seek Advice?
Linda Zagzebski argues that the qualities that make a person a phronimos are the
same qualities that make him stand out.51 The truly prudent person thinks ahead, is noble,
serene, gets things done and does so according to priorities. He is the kind of person we
respect and would like to have working with us as part of the team. In principle, these are
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the qualities that we would expect to see in a prudent person, qualities which lead us to
imitate her and consult her judgment.52 Her judgment about what? Nuclear physics?
Constitutional law? Not necessarily. We would seek her judgment about practical matters,
the right thing to say to the bereaved, whether it would be appropriate to correct a colleague
on a particular matter. That sort of practical judgment also extends, however, to the domain
of scientific investigation and research in general.
The relationship between knowledge, opinions and justification is of quite practical
relevance to our current university and broader institutional environment where theoretical
research must be justified in order to gain the resources necessary for that project to be
undertaken. Imagine the case of a team manager who must fill out a grant application for a
particular research project and a trustee who will award the research grant. The success of
the project is by no means assured so the team leader must spell out the calculated risk
being taken in a way that will justify the funding. Both the person making the application
and the trustee deciding on giving the grant are more likely to come to a common
understanding with each other to the extent that both are truly phronimoi who know how to
weigh up and correctly evaluate the circumstances and risks. Neither the trustee nor the
project manager are likely to understand the full theoretical ins and outs of the task at hand
so they must resort to making prudential judgments about the investigation. Is the proposed
research ethical? How much weight in the funding application should be given to the man
with bizarre ideas who just might be tomorrow’s Einstein? Will the expected results be
commercially or socially relevant? The entities involved delegate such decisions to the team
leader and trustee. It should come as no surprise then that, nepotism aside, many of the
qualities listed above for identifying the phronimos will be just those qualities people the
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hirers and firers of the team leader and trustee will have been looking for on their CV’s.
It is in the world of work, in multinationals, in trade, at a city office, that people of
different cultures and societies are forced to interact with each other. It is a world with few
absolutes and many shades of opinion. Surely those who are successful (in the broad sense
of the term)53 at managing a team are people to whom we can point and say a phronimos is
someone like that. Whatever one’s culture or gender, the benchmark for a considered
opinion can be found from among those people who are happy as they go about managing
many concrete affairs: responsible parents, peacemaking lawyers (they do exist) and honest
managers.
1
I would like to thank Hayden Ramsay for that observation and for all his work in helping shape this article.
2
Cf., Goldman, A. I., “What is Justified Belief” (1979), Kornblith, H., (ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology, The
MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1994 (2nd edition), pp. 116-117 & Sosa, E., “Knowledge and Intellectual
Virtue”, Sosa, E. (ed.), Knowledge in Perspective, Selected Essays in Epistemology, Cambridge University
Press, New York 1991, p. 227.
3
Cf., Zubiri, X., Cinco lecciones de filosofía, Alianza, Madrid 1980, p. 24.
4
Cf., ibid, p. 22.
5
Cf., Arendt, H., “Understanding and Politics (The Difficulties of Understanding)” Kohn, J., (ed.), Essays in
Understanding 1930-1954, Harcourt Brace and Company, New York 1994, p. 322. The faculty of
imagination, not as fantasy but rather as the capturing of an interminable series of concrete and singular
instances, provides us with a half-way house between direct experience and abstract principles.
6
Cf., ibid, pp. 322-323. Hearts that are oftentimes plunged in darkness.
7
Arendt, H., “The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Its Political Significance”, Between Past and Future, Eight
Exercises in Political Thought, Penguin Books, New York 1968, p. 220.
8
Ibid, p. 221.
16
9
Cf., Zagzebski, L., Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of
Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996. pp. 224-225.
10
Cf., Arendt, H., “Truth and Politics”, Between Past and Future, Eight Exercises in Political Thought,
Penguin Books, New York 1968, p. 248.
11
Cf., Zagzebski, L., “Responses,” Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 60 (2000), p. 216.
12
Zagzebski, L., “Précis of Virtues of the Mind,” Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 60 (2000),
p. 173.
13
Zagzebski, L., “Religious Diversity and Social Responsibility”, Logos, (2001), p. 151. Also in Spanish:
Aranguren, J., Borobia, J., and Lluch, M., (eds.), Comprender la religion, Eunsa, Pamplona 2001, pp. 69-85.
14
Cf., Zagzebski, L., “The Incarnation and Virtue Ethics”, Kendall, D. J., and O’Collins, G., (eds.), The
Incarnation, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 318.
15
Cf., ibid, pp. 318-320. Also, Zagzebski, L., “Phronesis and Christian Belief”, p. 186.
16
Cf., ibid, pp. 321-322. I have replaced the underlined words in the original with words in italics.
17
Ibid.
18
Cf., Zagzebski, L., “Phronesis and Christian Belief”, p. 187.
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If Zagzebski says that the practically wise person has a motivation for truth and educated passions, we must
logically ask: according to what standard have these passions been educated if not according to a theoretically
grasped objective truth? A speculative truth-judgment is formed through a theoretical and not practical use of
the intellect. Linda Zagzebski’s reply would be along the lines that more attention needs to be paid to
phronesis in the realm of the “contingently” speculative and not just the contingently practical. But if prudence
is principally about what we should do, then I think that what Zagzebski is looking for is some kind of virtue
that should govern opinion or probable truth. Medieval philosophers like Aquinas have very little to say about
the formation of good opinion. If opinion carries a mixture of truth and falsehood then it cannot rate alongside
the intellectual virtues because these always lead one to the truth — which is the proper good of the intellect
(Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 57, a. 2, ad 3). Habits of the intellect like that of the first principles
or of scientia give us certainty and vision, which is obviously not the case with doubt or opinion. Says St
Thomas: “Quidam enim sunt habitus intellectus, qui important omnimodam certitudinem ad completam
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visionem eius quod intelligitur, sicut patet de intellectu, qui est habitus primorum principiorum, quia, qui
intelligit quod omne totum est maius sua parte, videt hoc, et est certus. Hoc etiam facit habitus scientiae, et sic
talis habitus intellectus et scientia, faciunt certitudinem et visionem. Quaedam vero alia sunt, quae neutrum
faciunt, scilicet dubitatio et opinio.” (Super ad Hebraeos, Chapter 11, Lesson 1). St Thomas separates
prudence (and technique) out from the other intellectual virtues precisely because prudence deals with what it
is in our power to change and manipulate as opposed to what is merely to be contemplated.
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Someone who is ‘prudent in the means’ is beholden to that person who is ‘wise about the ends’, given that
“means” are such in the light of the “end”. Prudence falls within the bigger picture of the wise search for that
good which perfects human nature. My reference to nature is not meant to be a physicist one, rather, it is a
recognition of there being a divine design which extends even to rational creatures although rational creatures
are free to wisely follow it or foolishly pass it by. Zagzebski says that although an eudaimonia approach based
on the existence of such a thing as human “nature” is consistent with her own “exemplarist” virtue ethics it is
in no way demanded by her theory. A Thomistic virtue theory could be considered as a restriction, thus, of
what Zagzebski is proposing.
21
Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de Aquino, Cuadernos de Anuario Filosófico,
Pamplona 1999, p. 9 (my translation). Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 47, a. 6, co.
22
Zagzebski makes an implicit reference to this difficulty when she speaks about the actual practice of
identifying persons who set about doing good — something that can be done in myriad ways. “It is a necessary
truth that the motivational structure of a good person is the motivational structure of Christ, just as it is a
necessary truth that the chemical structure of water is H2O. Clearly, however, there are disanalogies between
water and a good person that make my theory more complicated than a theory of natural kinds since
motivational structure is much more complex than chemical structure, and we permit many variations in the
motivational structure of a good person, whereas we permit no variation at all in the chemical structure of
water.” Zagzebski, L., “The Incarnation and Virtue Ethics”, p. 330.
23
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 49, a. 6, ad 1.
24
Cf., Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de Aquino, p. 17.
25
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 23, a. 3, co. The prudent person makes good use of their time.
18
26
St Thomas says that it is “proper of foresight to organise things towards an end” Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.
22, a. 4, co, (my translation).
27
Cf., Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de Aquino, pp. 70-73. Things past and present
insofar as they are simply past or present need to be regarded as sunk costs. We would not expect to see a
practically wise person go around moping about things that are beyond his control.
28
Cf., Zagzebski, L., Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of
Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996, pp. 224-225.
29
Cf., ibid, p. 246.
30
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 53, a. 4, ad 2.
31
Cf., Zagzebski, L., “Phronesis and Christian Belief”, p. 188.
32
Ignorance can be taken from the perspective of the person (whether it be voluntary or not), the matter
ignored (of universal scope or some particular circumstance), or according to the bad practical choice made
(for which every evil is a type of ignorance), (Cf., Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de
Aquino, pp. 123-125). “Et dicendum, quod loquitur de obtusione intellectus practici, secundum quod omnis
malus est ignorans; et non de obtusione intellectus speculativi.” Aquinas, In IV Sententiarum, d. 18, q. 2, a. 5,
co, ex.
33
Cf., Rhonheimer, M., Ley natural y razón práctica, Eunsa, Pamplona 2000, p. 547. Rhonheimer argues that
conscience, the inner voice of truth, is not the same thing as a judgment of prudence. Conscience may be
ignored or acted against in its approval or condemnation; the imperium, on the other hand, is the soul of the
deed actually done. (Cf., ibid, p. 548). Conscience, a judgment that applies the universal to the particular, is a
reflexive judgment that runs along different lines to what we actually do. It is an evaluation of what we are
doing, or have done, rather than the immediate motor behind a decision.
34
Cf., ibid, p. 549.
35
Cf., Pieper, J., La Prudencia, Rialp, Madrid 1957, p. 82.
36
Cf., Rhonheimer, M., Ley natural y razón práctica, p. 550.
37
Cf., Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 10, a. 5, co & r. 4. The distinction to be drawn between prudence and this
cogitative faculty lies in the inorganic nature of prudence as a perfection of our reason. In irrational animals it
19
is an estimative instinct that allows for certain complex behaviour patterns about particular situations.
Zookeepers report experiences with primates employing deception for future gain. Monkeys will not only hide
food in the hope of receiving more but will also hide keys or objects that will help them pick the locks to their
cages.
38
Ramírez, M., La prudencia, Palabra, Madrid 1979, pp. 47-48, (my translation).
39
Cf., Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de Aquino, pp. 66-67.
40
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 48, a. 1, co.
41
Cf., Pieper, J., La Prudencia, p. 83.
42
Pieper says that our biases at the level of memory cannot be purged by self-reflection alone but must be
accompanied by a total transformation of the very person in her root desires and wants (Cf., Pieper, J., La
Prudencia, p. 85). Synderesis provides us with the possibility of this rectification and the phronimos takes
advantage of it. The unwavering call of synderesis always allows an agent to make a fresh start, rectify, and
change decisions, especially those that were made in anger (Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 55, a. 8,
ad 3), or disordered passion (Cf., Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 153, a. 5, ad 4).
43
In practical matters it’s always a good idea to get a second opinion — four eyes see better than two —
whether it be about a quote for some car repairs or a medical diagnosis. In theoretical issues, though, we need
to keep in mind that a few philosophical giants like Plato and Aristotle have seen much further than many in
vogue post-modernists put together (Cf., Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de Aquino, p.
142). Lesser mortals would be most imprudent to ignore the observations of the big philosophers (Cf.,
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 49, a. 3, co).
44
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, q. 47, a. 9, ad 2. A point already made by Aristotle, and brings with it the
corollary that we should look for certainty where it can be had.
45
Cf., Sellés, J. F., La virtud de la prudencia según Tomás de Aquino, pp. 63-66.
46
“Providence is in the understanding but it presupposes the will to an end.” Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-
II, q. 22, a. 1, ad 2, (my translation).
47
Cf., Aquinas, In II Sententiarum, d. 7, q. 2, a. 1, ad 1.
48
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 56, a. 3, ad 1.
20
49
Shakspeare, W., “King Henry IV, Part I”, Act V, Scene IV.
50
Cf., Pieper, J., La Prudencia, pp. 95-97.
51
Cf., Zagzebski, L., “Phronesis and Christian Belief”, p. 188.
52
Cf., ibid. Perhaps we would be better off restricting surveys of belief to those who are more expert in any
given field — asking parents or small business owners about practical affairs — rather than the population at
large.
53
“Scilicet actus rationis vel intellectus. Nam felicitas contemplativa nihil aliud est quam perfecta
contemplatio summae veritatis; felicitas autem activa est actus prudentiae.” (Aquinas, De Virtutibus, q. 1, a.
5, ad 8, italics added). Prudence is the happiness that is associated with the active life.
21