Full transcript
0:00In this video, we shall examine St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the moral virtues.
0:05Like his ancient and patristic forebears, St. Thomas showcased the cardinal virtues
0:09as the building blocks of human flourishing and happiness.
0:23The ancients recognized that certain habits, once acquired, help to make men and women
0:28good by making their actions good.
0:30These habits—or virtues—included strengths like magnanimity,
0:34liberality, sobriety, and friendliness.
0:37Over time, ancient thinkers explained how all good habits represent parts of four principal
0:43moral virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
0:48All good action, these philosophers argued, express at least one of these general virtues.
0:54Later on, Christian writers incorporated the
0:57ancient appreciation of virtue into their descriptions
1:00of Christian holiness.
1:02St. Ambrose, for example, was the first to call prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance
1:06the “cardinal” virtues, in recognition of their centrality for good living.
1:11He and other patristic writers recognized
1:13that the graced life of faith, hope, and charity—described
1:16in the New Testament—does not eclipse the cardinal virtues but instead envelopes and elevates them.
1:23Accordingly, the Church Fathers described the believer’s
1:26path to glory as paved not only with acts
1:29of faith, hope, and charity but also with
1:30prudent acts of justice, fortitude, and temperance.
1:35Because of their appreciation for graced virtue, the early Fathers celebrated the brave and
1:41chaste martyrs as the most virtuous of Christian believers.
1:46For his part, St.Thomas grouped the virtues under two general
1:51categories: the intellectual virtues and the
1:54moral virtues.
1:56The intellectual virtues—wisdom, understanding, and knowledge—strengthen man in his speculative
2:01life, or his rational life, his life of thinking.
2:04The moral virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—strengthen man in his practical
2:09life, or his moral life, his life of doing.
2:13In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas spends much more time explaining the work of the moral virtues
2:18than that of the intellectual virtues.
2:22Let’s examine then what Aquinas teaches about each of the moral virtues.
2:26For St. Thomas, prudence stands as the queen of the moral virtues, for prudence works to
2:31perfect every action that we undertake.
2:34And by “every action,” Aquinas means every action—there are no exceptions.
2:40All action follows the same three steps, which prudence supports.
2:45When we set out to achieve any goal, we first deliberate about the means necessary to attain
2:50the goal, and we distinguish the preferable means from the non-preferable.
2:55Then, from among the preferable means, we judge one of them to be the most fitting for
2:59attaining our goal given the circumstances at hand.
3:03Finally, after judging and choosing the most fitting means, we command ourselves to take
3:08up the means and perform it, and thereby achieve our goal.
3:13As a perfection of the practical intellect,
3:16prudence ensures that reason conforms our actions to reality.
3:21By not adhering to reality in our deliberating, judging, and commanding, we risk becoming
3:26imprudent persons, who fail to achieve their goals.
3:30By contrast, the prudent person regularly conforms his action to reality and thus he
3:36regularly achieves, and achieves well, what he sets out to do.
3:41Like prudence, justice is an expansive virtue.
3:45As every action that we undertake remains a fruit of prudence, every action that we
3:49undertake also bears on justice.
3:52Aquinas explains the reason for this: stated plainly, none of us is a mere individual.
3:59We are naturally and ineluctably linked to others through the bonds of family and city.
4:05Consequently, we perform of our actions as a part of some society, whose better and greater good
4:11is always the common good of all the parts, which is the good of the whole.
4:17As a result of our social nature, we can never commit truly isolated,
4:22private acts of good or evil.
4:25Every act that we undertake, as the act of a part, has some bearing
4:28upon other persons, other parts.
4:33For Aquinas, this is why justice perfects every action.
4:38Justice is a firm disposition of the will to render the other—another part in the
4:42same greater whole—his due.
4:46Justice seeks to preserve the other duly in his life, in his bodily integrity, in his
4:50good name, and in his possessions, all toward
4:53the free and mutual sharing, with the other, of the common good.
4:58The just person ensures that the other—especially the stranger—receives even his particular
5:04good, so that together they might enjoy the common good more perfectly.
5:09As in the life of action prudence perfects the intellect and justice perfects the will,
5:13the remaining two moral virtues perfect the passions or emotions of the human person.
5:18Fortitude perfects the irascible passions, and temperance perfects the concupiscible passions.
5:24Both virtues bring our emotions under the rule of reason, not as a tyrant would—through
5:30domination—but as a wise ruler would—through the guidance and persuasion of repetition.
5:37For its part, fortitude moderates the passion of fear, so that we may remain reasonably
5:43fixed on the good that we is pursuing if this good proves difficult or even dangerous to attain.
5:49Fortitude keeps us from abandoning the pursuit of the difficult good too easily
5:53or too quickly.
5:55Fortitude can also prompt us to confront the source of the difficulty or threat, to
5:59remove it so that we might again seek the good in ease and peace.
6:05The brave person isn't rid of all fear, but, as brave, he endures his fear, and sticks to his
6:12reasonable pursuits, and thereby he regularly attains the difficult and even dangerous good.
6:19Lastly, temperance moderates the desire for pleasure, so that we may remain reasonably
6:24fixed on the good that we are pursuing without being unreasonably distracted by the pleasure
6:29that it offers.
6:31Temperance keeps us from pursuing the pleasurable good too easily or too quickly.
6:37Temperance moderates our desire for pleasure so that we might enjoy the pleasurable good
6:42according to the rule of reason.
6:44This applies especially to the great pleasures attached to the goods that keep us and our
6:48species alive—the goods of food, drink, and sex.
6:54As specifications of temperance, abstinence helps us to desire food according to right
6:59reason, sobriety helps us to desire drink according to right reason, and chastity helps
7:06us to desire sex according to right reason.
7:09In the absence of these virtues, the concupiscible appetite desires these pleasures inordinately.
7:16Continence keeps us from succumbing to these desires, but only temperance quells
7:21them and directs them to move within our appetite according to the rule of reason.
7:27For Aquinas, fortitude and temperance play a supporting role in the work of prudence
7:31and justice.
7:33As they moderate the movements of the passions and bring them under the rule of reason, fortitude
7:38and temperance create a stable environment in the soul that allows us to pursue
7:43the higher acts of prudence and justice more surely and more easily.
7:48As habits of intellect, will, and passion, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance
7:53perfect our external actions and internal
7:56movements, which perfection, according to Aquinas, renders
8:00not only our pursuits but also our persons good.