The Preeminence of Prudence – Part 4 (Prudence in Practice)

“Conservatives are guided by their principle of PRUDENCE.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

Conservative thinkers have long echoed the teachings of the ancients that, when it comes to politics, prudence is the chief among virtues. As we saw in Part 2, prudence acts as a bridge between intellectual and moral virtues—linking the head with the heart. Prudence also restrains our passions, which is an enormously important trait for the leaders we entrust with power. And, in Part 3, we saw how prudence stands between moderation and absolutism, allowing us to get things done while being mindful of what things ought to be done.

Perhaps even more importantly, prudence instructs us on what ought not to be done. For when it comes to public policy, getting things done far too often results in unintended and disastrous consequences. In his Treatise on the Virtues, St. Thomas Aquinas forewarns us against imprudent behavior such as impulsivity, thoughtlessness, or negligence. In this fourth and final post in the series we’ll examine three “justifications” for public policy that don’t pass the test of prudence.

It’s Not a Popularity Contest

It’s ironic that many who profess a sort of conservatism today channel a populist spirit that’s very much opposed to conservative notions of steady progression with respect for tradition. Much of the Right is given to advocating policy positions that are little more than bumper-sticker slogans:

Taxation is Theft

Run government like a business

Teachers should make more than politicians

Build the Wall—Deport them all

The point here isn’t whether these sentiments are right or wrong, but that they’re just that: sentiments. And the rigors of public policy require a wee bit more than sentiment for the same reason you can’t pass the CPA exam on fine feelings alone. What’s more, sentiment often leads to rash behavior—the precise opposite of what’s needed for sound policy. “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years,” warned British stateman Edmund Burke.

Burke was well versed in the dangers of popular sentiment directing public policy. In his day the French monarchy was deposed at the hands of popular sentiment flued by a mob mentality. Many were congratulating the French at their supposed liberation from tyranny. It was Burke who urged caution and would later be vindicated when the French Revolutiondescended into chaos:

“When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one.”

What Burke is calling for is a spirit of prudence—a desire to set aside the ever-changing whims of the majority and instead carefully scrutinize the likely outcome of a particular venture. Which brings us to the next imprudent “justification” for public policy.

It’s Not About Intentions, It’s About Outcomes

The blog Philosophical Conservatism states that the conservative’s method is “similar to the way that science itself works” in that the conservative “demands that things first demonstrate their effectiveness, and their validity beforehand in the real world.” Conservatives have accused the Left of praising the good intentions of their policy proposals at the expense of their actual outcomes for so long that it’s become cliché. Yet this is nonetheless a common misstep of much of the Left even today. From expanding entitlement programs to nationalizing industries to redistributing wealth, we are asked to focus our attention on what politicians are trying to do while hardly any thought is given to the actual effects.

It is no coincidence that prudence acts as a restraint upon our passions and a consideration for the likely outcomes of course of actions, for unbridled passions are often the very thing that prevent us from truly considering likely outcomes. We may have a strong desire to help the poor. But unless that strong desire is tempered with prudence, we may find it more tempting to do something that appeases the strong desire rather than actually helps the poor.

“Wealth is the only thing that can prevent poverty,” economist Thomas Sowell taught in his book Basic Economics, “Yet many people who claim to be concerned about poverty show remarkably little interest in how wealth is generated or which policies make it harder or easier to create more wealth.” Why is this so? Could it be that what some are truly interested in isn’t preventing poverty but feeling as if they are preventing poverty? Much effort, sacrifice, and knowledge is required if we’re going to begin the difficult task of alleviating poverty, and even then there’s always the possibility of failure. And while it is true no one has hit upon the precise formula for alleviating all poverty, much of the problem persists not due to a lack of knowledge but a lack of prudence. As Sowell further observed:

“Dry empirical questions are seldom as exciting as political crusades or ringing moral pronouncements. But empirical questions are questions that must be asked, if we are truly interested in the well-being of others, rather than in excitement or a sense of moral superiority for ourselves. Perhaps the most important distinction is between what sounds good and what works. The former may be sufficient for purposes of politics or moral preening, but not for the economic advancement of people in general or the poor in particular. For those who are willing to stop and think, basic economics provides some tools for evaluating policies and proposals in terms of their logical implications and empirical consequences.”

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Treatise on Cardinal Virtues that prudence “is the ability to take all relevant circumstances into account, since otherwise what seem to be a good end and a good means can be vitiated by factors that have not been considered. To be circumspect is to be on the lookout for ways in which a contemplated means to an end might turn out not to be a means to that end at all.” Prudence demands that we not allow our good intentions to override thinking through whether our actions are likely to do any good.

It’s Not About Service to an Ideology or Abstract Reasoning

The idea that prudence demands our actions not be based on their popularity or good intentions alone is self-evident. But there is a third “justification” for public policy that doesn’t pass the test of prudence that is less obvious: prudence acts against our natural impulse to rely on our ideology or abstract reasoning alone.

Let us turn again to Edmund Burke’s teachings to flesh this out. In the late eighteenth century, Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers had spread their abstract ideas across the Western world. By “abstract” do not mean that these ideas were bad ideas or wrong ideas, but that they were just that—ideas. And as ideas alone they had not yet been fully vetted in the “real world”. Nevertheless, a strong spirit of revolution emanating first from France and eventually sparking revolutions around the world demanded that some of these ideas be put into practice immediately. The “rights of men” were too important to be held in check by tradition and careful consideration.

This approach concerned Burke greatly. “The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false,” Burke warned in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, “The rights of men are in a sort of middle, incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned.” Modern conservatism sprang out of Burke’s warnings. Burke believed that humanity’s capacity to develop perfect political theories was limited because humans were limited. Therefore, no ideology or abstract line of thinking was every justification enough for the radical pursuit of public policy. It had to be demonstrated in the "real world" that it had actual merit.

Here is where prudence comes in; for prudence is the process whereby we think through the likely outcomes of our actions based not on their allegiance to our personal ideologies but on the practical, lived, concrete, actual results. This is why prudence is the chief political virtue. Politics deals with society in the natural world. And prudence is interested in natural outcomes. It is entirely appropriate use our metaphysical measuring stick when dealing with questions of morality, religion, purpose, and being. But it is inappropriate when dealing with the natural realities of taxation, foreign affairs, and monetary policy.

This does not make prudence greater than other virtues, it simply means prudence is uniquely qualified to deal with the actions of a nation while virtues like faith, hope, and charity are uniquely qualified to deal with the actions of the individual. As Gettysburg College professor Allen C. Guelzo eloquently put it, “Prudence is not a matter of looking for guidance from voices from the sky; it is also not about ignoring them, either.”

Chief Among Virtues

Conservative writer Avi Woolf (who appeared on a recent Saving Elephants podcast) wrote an excellent article for The Bulwark in which he argued that the conservative’s response to whether government should be involved in something is almost always “It depends”. Avi identified prudence as one of the tools conservatives use to vet governmental involvement:

“Anyone creating a tool for government to use needs to view it in the same way you would view a weapon: With great care and caution. People on both the left and right have often used the metaphor of ‘war’ to describe their policy—crusade really—to rid the world of a particular problem they have identified: a war on poverty, a war on drugs, a war on crime, a war on corruption, and so on.”

“This is actually quite an apt metaphor, since war—even when absolutely necessary—is destructive by definition. It means the tearing down of rules, of structures, of institutions. Anything to get after the devil of the day. And when the war is ended, whether successful or not, the people are left to deal with the wreckage.”

“Advocates of a policy meant to help people with a given need consider just how far they are willing to go—or to be blunter: how much they are willing to willfully destroy—in order to bring about the positive result they wish. From the get-go, there should be real red lines in the name of prudence that one agrees should not be crossed.”

Prudence grants us the patience and character to identify those ‘red lines’. Prudence allows us to contemplate the likely outcome of our actions even as our passions are screaming at us to simply act. When it comes to politics, prudence truly is the chief virtue.

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Five Practical Steps for Saving Western Civilization

For those of us who enjoy talking politics, conversations with likeminded friends often involve a certain degree of whimsical solving the world’s problems. I say whimsical because we know good and well whatever solutions we offer up aren’t actually going to be put into practice in full force because—for starters—we’re not in charge. These conversations have an air of ill-fated hope, much like friends who divulge what they’d do if they just happened to win the lottery. It’s never going to happen, but it can be fun to dream.

On the other hand, the dream can turn into a nightmare. For we might be genuinely concerned about the state of things—the health of our local community, the financial stability of our state, the threat of a hostile foreign nation, global health or environmental crisis—and yet frustrated by our inability to do anything about it.

I was in a conversation of this sort the other day with a friend who had compiled a sensible list of things people could actually do. His chief concern was the state of the Republican party as it was expunging those who held conservative views and morphing into a party of nationalists and populists. He believed the best thing conservatives could do was stay in the party and work for reform from within. Here were his practical solutions:

Gather friends and neighbors to host discussions and challenge existing narratives about the GOPLaunch letter-writing campaigns and signature drivesDoor-knock for specific policies and/or causesHost speakers and support local principled candidatesOrganize a national conference with other conservatives from across the country

In this same spirit, I’d like to offer up a practical list of things you can do to combat what I deem to be an even bigger problem: the slow demise of Western civilization.

I’ve written extensively on the increasing decline of our culture throughout this blog and discussed it in many podcasts, so I shan’t get back on my soapbox here. There are many reasons for the decline of Western civilization, but chief among them is the fracturing of our institutions as homes, families, churches, neighborhoods, civic groups, and everything in-between drift further apart.

A growing loneliness epidemic and the beginnings of societal upheaval have been well documented in recent years in books such as Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, Timothy Carney’s Alienated America, Jonah Goldberg’s Suicide of the West, Patrick J. Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed, and Senator Ben Sasse’s Them. In their own way, each work tells the sad tale of a world of growing social tension and animosity caused by societal, cultural, technological, and spiritual alienation.

We Millennials have a strong desire to change the world for the better and to make a difference. Sometimes this positive energy isn’t channeled properly, such as the growing support for socialism among young Americans. I think Patrick J. Deneen hit the nail on the head in his book Why Liberalism Failed when he said, “Political revolution to overturn a revolutionary order would produce only disorder and misery. A better course will consist in smaller, local forms of resistance: practices more than theories, the building of resilient new cultures against the anticulture of liberalism.”

Small and local are key. Ever since Edmund Burke coined the phrase littleplatoons, conservatives have long recognized that the health of a nation or entire civilization can never be greater than the health of all the tiny communities it’s made of. You may not be able to save the planet or Western civilization, but you can work to restore the communities that you inhabit.

There are many steps you can take today to begin restoring your “little platoons”. Here are some practical suggestions that are not only doable but potentially enjoyable, rewarding, and nourishing:

1) Build a front porch on your house

Modern American neighborhoods are in dire need of front porches. Admittedly, this is a personal pet peeve. Our society has largely done away with the front porch—a place that once connected the seclusion of the home to the connectivity of the neighborhood—and instead built backyard patios where we carefully control who we interact with.

While this may not be on many people’s radars, I am not entirely alone in this observation. To quote Patrick J. Deneen once more, “The front porch, often sited within easy chatting distance of the sidewalk, was an architectural reflection of an era with a high expectation of sociability among neighbors.” If the thought of getting to know your neighbors is discomforting, perhaps that’s because we largely live in a world where those who live next door might as well live in another country. Building genuine community is difficult and time-consuming. Often it involves spending time around people we wouldn’t ordinarily invite to our backyard patio. But without this potential for awkward encounters, genuine communities never take root.

2) Invite friends and neighbors over for dinner

A couple I know view inviting people over for dinner as a special calling. They’ve even been known to invite people on the spot for dinner later the same day, having just met. On one such occasion, the guest they had invited for dinner took the opportunity to steal the wife’s wedding ring. Though devastated, the couple continue to invite people over most evenings. They’ve taken precautions to keep their valuables out of sight but believe it’s much too important to stop showing hospitality to strangers.

This is probably further than you’d be comfortable going, but we all have relationships within our circle of family, friends, neighborhood, community groups, workplace, or a multitude of other assemblies that could be strengthened by sharing a meal together. Oftentimes, it’s the only practical way to grow a relationship in our otherwise busied lives of sanitized conversations.

3) Form a group focusing on a common interest

Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone gets its name from the phenomenon that bowling leagues are becoming a thing of the past. But so too are just about any other institution, community, civic group, or organization that’s not political in nature or at least government-sponsored. From Boy Scout troops to 4-H Clubs to Toastmasters to neighborhood gathers, we are becoming an increasingly alienated people.

While these groups may not serve an obvious necessity in our daily lives, they are vital to the strength and nourishment of genuine communities. It is not uncommon for we Millennials to only associate in groups out of necessity—such as family (which we didn’t choose but were born into) or work. But generations past found great comfort in belonging to groups for no better reason than the sheer enjoyment of the company of others pursuing similar interests.

For years my grandfather had a morning ritual of visiting the same diner for breakfast every day. Some mornings he wouldn’t eat a thing, but he always enjoyed chatting with the familiar faces and—even when no one else showed up—seemed content to just partake in his favorite pastime of people watching. None of this was necessary but it certainly seemed to enrich his life.

4) Join a church and attend regularly

To the nonreligious this may seem a bit biased, but I believe the evidence is indisputable that regular church attendance is among the greatest means of building a thriving community. Throughout his book Alienated America, Timothy Carney shows how the professed religiosity of a person doesn’t much matter if they are not plugged into an active community of fellow believers.

Millennials are particularly fond of separating their spiritual faith from religious tradition, but those traditions are what make a difference. After citing a study that found churchgoers lived longer, Carney cautioned it shouldn’t be taken for granted that a faith community was vital: “The study that found baby boomers 40 percent less likely to die young if they went to church? It actually found mortality was higher (by 4 percent) among those who said religion was ‘very important’ to them.” Religious faith without a shared community can actually be more soul-crushing than no faith at all.

While I have argued here that going to church for the soul purpose of reaping the benefits of church attendance will most likely not produce any benefits, it must be acknowledged that attending church regularly requires actual effort. And putting forth effort to attend and build a community within your local church is something you can do.

5) Reduce the time you spend on social media

I don’t want to come across as hypocritical as this is an area I struggle with more than I’d like—but reducing your time on social media can work wonders in reconnecting with the world around you.

While maintaining a certain impulse control over our social media habits can be challenging, this has also become an area where most of us are willing to acknowledge it’s become a problem. Do a Google search for “benefits of leaving” and see what auto-populates first. More and more, the question isn’t should I quite social media? but how does one do that? I’m afraid I have no secret method to share. I suspect—like any habit—breaking it requires a great deal of work, determination, trial-and-error, and time.

Will all of this truly save Western civilization? That’s clearly a long shot. But we just may be surprised with out enriched our lives can become when we set about doing something.

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Episode 31 - We The People

Politicians are fond of talking about “the people.” But who are “the people”? That might sound like a nonsensical question but—it turns out—there are a lot of presuppositions baked into the concept of “the people” and much of the divide between the Right and the Left begins here. Identifying “the people” leads us to other important questions, such as: Who speaks on behalf of “the people”? And what system of government or society can best represent their interests and protect their rights?

In much of our political rhetoric today we are told that the most democratic expressions best represent “the people”. But what lurks behind the belief a direct, popular vote is somehow in the best interest of “the people” is the assumption is that “the people” can best be defined as a simple headcount.

They can’t.

“The people” is not a simple headcount. It is a recognition of sub-groups loosely bound to a larger group, of various interest groups within a nation-state, of factions that voluntarily choose to live in civil harmony with those with whom they don’t always agree and sometimes despise. Simply blending these sub-groups into one mass doesn’t provide clarity, it only makes our understanding of these collective interests harder to untangle.

One ought to be suspect of any political system which defines who speaks on behalf of “the people” either too narrowly or too broadly. Circumstance coupled with prudence dictates whether the polling of the majority, or the voice of the perceived “leaders” within each faction, or some truck driver who happened to call into a local radio talk show to weigh in on the matter, or some other means of discerning what “the people” have to say best represents what “the people” have to say. In practice, this means we should be suspect of the politician who seems wholly disinterested in “the people” just as we should be suspect of the politician who seems absolutely and consistently convinced they speak on behalf of “the people.”

LISTEN HERE

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The Preeminence of Prudence – Part 3 (Means and Ends)

“Conservatives are guided by their principle of PRUDENCE.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

From ancient times to modern, many political theorists and philosophers believed that prudence was the “chief” political virtue. Since conservatism is largely the act of conserving the wisdom and ideas of the past and applying them to today, many modern conservative thinkers have echoed similar sentiments (as I discussed in Part 1).

This doesn’t mean they viewed other virtues—such as courage, discernment, moderation, or integrity—as unimportant in our leaders. It means prudence was considered chief among them. Other virtues may receive higher praise in the spiritual realm (such as St. Paul’s trinity of faith, hope, and charity). But prudence is uniquely suited to the civic or political realm. In many ways it goes further than the other virtues we might expect in our leaders.

In Part 2 I quoted Gettysburg College professor Allen C. Guelzo in his article Prudence, Politics, and the Proclamation who demonstrated how prudence went beyond simple discernment in that it links the head to the heart. Guelzo further contends that prudence goes beyond even Benjamin Franklin’s most prized virtue of moderation: “Moderation is blind, which is why it necessarily leads people to grope forward slowly. Prudence, however, is based on foresight, which yields a discerning and dependable estimate of the way things are going.”

Moderation – Means without Ends

The trouble with moderation is that it leads to stagnation unless it is tethered to a larger perspective or goal. Moderation in all things makes sense as a guiding principle, but not as a THE guiding principle of one’s life. “What separates prudence from moderation is that ‘moderation’ is an attitude preoccupied with the integrity of means but not ends in political action. Moderation is a tragic attitude, because it understands only too well the constraints imposed by limited human resources and by human nature…Prudence, then, does not avoid action; if anything, it demands action of a particular kind.”

Philosophers and those with much time on their hands are often preoccupied with debates on the merits of means and ends. At the risk of oversimplifying the matter, the ends are the desired outcome whereas the means are the path one takes to get there. It shouldn’t tax the imagination much to understand that solely focusing on one or the other will lead to bad things. Means without ends gets us nowhere (for it has no sense of destination or purpose). Ends without means can take a noble goal (feeding the hungry) and achieve it using unscrupulous or even evil tactics (stealing food from others).

In the same manner, the virtue of moderation doesn’t get you far because all it’s focused on is the means (the appropriate quantity/quality of tactics or methods used) and never the overall purpose of those tactics/methods. But prudence weds the two together. Because prudence dares to ask what is most likely to come of an action (or inaction), it is just as concerned with where we are going as it is with what path we take to get there.

Absolutism – Ends without Means

But what of the opposite problem in which one is only focused on the ends? “At the other remove from prudence stands absolutism, which is about the integrity of ends without sufficient attention to the integrity of means so that it invests its servants with the attitude of disdain and certainty. This is the universe where it is supposed that wills are free from ultimate constraints and that only willing and power are lacking to attain a good end.”

Curiously, it is far more likely these days to hear someone advocating a particular political agenda out of a sense of absolutism rather than moderation—despite the fact moderation is a virtue and absolutism absolutely isn’t. This is observable in the single-issue-voter who refuses to deliberate over the complexities of certain issues and instead holds out that one highly specific issue is the only thing that truly matters.

What’s tragic about this approach is that—even if the single-issue-voter were technically “right” that their one issue was more important than anything else—absolutism always destroys the very thing it intends to save. It is common in Christian communities for believers to take an absolutist stance on pro-life matters. This leads to an unwillingness to consider the viability of candidates, an inability to recognize the societal, economic, and cultural forces that lead to abortions, the abandonment of other policy debates, and an increase in the divisiveness in the pro-life debate, making it all the more difficult to persuade others to the cause. The end result is more lives are lost as those supporting pro-life measures fail to take into account the likely outcomes of their solitary goal.

I attempted to show how support for a supposedly pro-life candidate over everything else can actually be a threat to the pro-life movement here, so I won’t belabor the point. The history of American politics is filled with examples of people or groups embracing absolutism, overplaying their hand, and inadvertently doing more damage to their cause than had they done nothing at all.

Prudence – Balancing Means and Ends

Moderation without prudence leads to stagnation. Absolutism without prudence leads to reckless progression. “Prudence, however, pays equal attention to the integrity of ends and of means,” continues Guelzo, “Prudence is an ironic rather than a tragic attitude, where the calculus of costs is critical but at the same time neither crucial nor incidental. Prudence prefers incremental progress to categorical solutions and fosters that progress through the offering of motives rather than expecting to change dispositions.”

As we discussed in Part 2, prudence is a check on our passions. And checking our passions is precisely what we must do if we are to set aside our winner-takes-all attitude and instead reach for what is less than ideal but actually attainable. There are times when a compromising attitude is the wrong approach. But this is rarely the case in matters of public policy. What’s more, our deliberative system of government is designed to withstand all-or-nothing changes. A prudent approach towards the issues we care deeply about is the surest way to make progress.

As St. Thomas Aquinas observed in his Treatise on Cardinal Virtues, “Prudence is forward-looking and so essentially involves the ability to order means to ends that are to be realized in the future—which is foresight.” True progress comes not by the timidity of complete moderation or the recklessness of absolutism but by charting a course between them. “Prudence requires that that we take care, when choosing good means to a good end, to avoid or to mitigate or at least to anticipate those evils that will likely result from a good act that we contemplate doing. So it is by caution that we take steps, if necessary, to avoid such evils. So to be cautious is to be on the lookout especially for the bad consequences of a contemplated action.”

Those bad consequences are precisely what makes prudence so important. It’s not just the corrupt or power-hungry leaders we must fear, but also those with the best of intentions who do not carefully think through the likely outcomes of their actions. In Part 4 we’ll turn our attention to some of the ways in which policy proposals that may sound great at first do not past the test of prudence.

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The Preeminence of Prudence – Part 2 (What the Heck is Prudence?)

“Conservatives are guided by their principle of PRUDENCE.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

In Part 1 we noted how a great many thinkers from ancient to classical to modern times often vaunted the virtue of prudence and how some even considered it to be the chief public or political virtue. I doubt there is much debate about whether prudence continues to enjoy this lofty position today. Some may even view prudence as more of a prudish hinderance to progress than a desirable trait in our leaders.

So, what changed? Do we live in an era where prudence is no longer virtuous—or, perhaps, no longer beneficial? Were those who came before us wrongheaded or do we lack the ability to appreciate this seemingly outdated virtue? Before we can tackle questions of this nature, however, we need to have a firm understanding what we mean by prudence.

The Simple Definition

“Prudence means practical common sense, taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it,” wrote C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. “The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not. The fact that what you are thinking about is God Himself (for example, when you are praying) does not mean that you can be content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old.” Lewis had a knack for breaking down complex ideas and expressing them simply. And, from this vantagepoint, prudence sounds agreeable enough. But it could hardly be called the chief political virtue if that’s all there were to it. Other traits—such as discernment—might get us the same results. What’s so special about prudence?

The Not-So-Simple Definition

“The link which prudence provides between seeing and acting is what distinguishes it from simple discernment, which is a function of reason,” explained Gettysburg College professor Allen C. Guelzo in his article Prudence, Politics, and the Proclamation, “It is the roadbuilder toward the goals marked out by the reason.” Professor Guelzo noted that Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas recognized the uniqueness of prudence as an “intellectual virtue” which performed two vital tasks: “First, it was the nail head which fastened the intellectual and moral virtues together. Second, because it was housed in the reason, prudence acted as a restraint on ‘impulse or passion.’ It was ‘right reason about things to be done.’”

Indeed, Aquinas is an ideal source for diving deep into the subject since the Catholic Church has long reckoned prudence as one of the Seven Cardinal Virtues. In the thirteenth century, Aquinas penned his Treatise on the Virtues which deeply examined the seven cardinal virtues and had a great deal to say on the subject of prudence. Let’s look at the two vital tasks noted above:

First, Prudence Links Intellectual and Moral Virtues

“Prudence is more properly a virtue than other intellectual virtues…because it presupposes rectitude of appetite and seeks to apply right reason to the enactment of means to morally appropriate ends,” elaborates St. Thomas Aquinas. On the other hand, “it is its formal aspect…the application of right reason to a given matter, that distinguishes prudence as an intellectual virtue from the appetitive moral virtues.” So here we see prudence as more than an intellectual virtue or a moral virtue. It’s a blending of both.

What exactly are “intellectual virtues”? Think art or science. These intellectual traits are certainly desirable and have been enormously beneficial to humanity, but there’s nothing inherently moral about art or science. Art and science can be used morally or immorally; they are nothing more than tools, not ethical behavior in and of themselves.

And what about “moral virtues”? Think humility, faith, or love. While these are fine things they must always have as their object something transcendent, not something material. There’s a lot in Christian teaching, for instance, that instructs the believer on how they are to live their lives in faithfulness to Christ. But applying these virtues to the public square in things like business or politics would be fitting a square peg in a round hole. A business that practiced the sort of charity advocated by Christianity would soon cease to be a business. A nation that turned the other cheek would soon cease to be a nation. A good Christian loves God with abandon. A good Christian leader must take into account the impact of their actions on those they are leading.

“Prudence involves the application of counsel…and so prudence is more than a merely intellectual virtue…Further, prudence is a habit of the practical, rather than speculative, intellect and is properly called wisdom with respect to human activities.” Prudence then is the link between the intellect and the moral. It is the link between the head and the heart. It is the link between mind to thing in that “speculative truth involves the correspondence of mind to thing, whereas practical truth involves the correspondence of thing to mind.”

In summary, prudence is an intellectual tool that is concerned with material ends. So, prudence might be used to comprehend what tax policy is best or whether war or peace should be pursued. But prudence is also a moral virtue that is concerned with what ought to be done. So, the question of which tax policy is best would imply best for all parties concerned and not just the reelection efforts of the current political leadership. The question of whether war or peace should be pursued would take into account the likely long-term consequences of action or inaction, and not just the immediate results.

Second, Prudence Restrains Passion

We might thing of prudence and passion as opposite ends of a seesaw. In order to exercise prudence, one must first learn to put their passions in check. A dash of passion is desirable in our leaders. But a leader that’s enslaved to their passions will be disastrous.

Passions may be good, bad, or somewhere in-between; but even the noblest passions can be destructive if they are left unchecked. A passion for feeding the hungry is commendable. But if that passion drives someone to steal food from others to feed the hungry their “good” passion has corrupted their actions. Prudence forces us to think through the feasibility, pragmatics, and morality of our decisions and actions.

“Prudence is not in us by nature,” continues St. Thomas Aquinas, “though some might be more disposed for it by nature than others, depending on their experience and upbringing and docility. Further, prudence cannot be lost directly through forgetfulness. It is rather directly diminished by the passions.” Just as prudence works as a check on our passions, passions run amok weakens our prudence. This isn’t so hard to imagine as you’ve probably known someone who was so blinded by their passions that they ultimately did damage either to themselves or the things they were passionate about.

Government, by its very nature, is an ever-expanding beast. Thomas Hobbes famously depicted the State as the Leviathan—an image that’s used to describe the monstrous and untamable nature of government. It is here where we most easily see why prudence is such an important civic virtue; for prudence is a restraint on the natural passions of our leaders.

I have written an entire series on the importance of restraining passions, so I shan’t belabor the point here. What’s important here is that prudence is the ideal virtue whereby our leaders restrain their natural passions once they take power. There are other “virtues” that might produce similar restraints—a belief that government is evil and must be reduced, sheer incompetence, a lack of ambition or vision, unceasing gridlock with opposing forces—but prudence restrains the passion with the best immediate and long-term interests of the citizens in view. Prudence accomplishes this by minding both the means and ends. That is a topic worthy of an entire post, and that’s where we’ll pick things up in Part 3.

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Episode 30 - Fusionism with Justin Stapley

The emergence of the modern conservative movement came about in the twentieth century with the fusion of multiple groups that found they not only had common interests, but they shared common foundational beliefs. Free market advocates, libertarians, Burkean traditionalists, the religious Right, and foreign policy hawks found common ground that led to the high watermark of the conservative movement culminating with the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.

What led to this? Why do conservative interest groups today seem far more splintered? Why is the conservative movement devolving into so much infighting when we were once more unified? And how might we chart a course forward that reunites the shared interests of the various factions under the conservative umbrella?

Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Justin Stapley, a freelance advocacy journalist whose writing has typically centered around federalism and classical liberalism. Justin’s first political writings appeared in 2016 on his NeverTyranny blog which was revamped as The Millennial Federalist in 2017 and today his blog is entitled Unpopular Dissent. He has written extensively on behalf of the Federalist Coalition and has also been published in the American Legislative Exchange Council website, featured at NOQ Report, and will soon be featured as a contributing opinion columnist at Porter Medium. Justin’s writings have even been featured on the Saving Elephants blog.

While Justin is certainly a conservative, he describes himself as a federalist and a classical liberal, firmly in the camp of Jefferson and Madison and their view of a government of ordered liberty. This will be evident in the conversation as Justin describes the special tension between order and liberty that has run throughout all American conservative movements.

A composite of Justin’s writings can be found at justinstapley.com. His writings extend beyond politics and touch on philosophy, religion, and the great outdoors. He was born and raised in the state of Utah and currently resides in Bluffdale.

LISTEN HERE

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The Preeminence of Prudence – Part 1 (Chief Among Virtues)

“Conservatives are guided by their principle of PRUDENCE.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

What would you say is the most important virtue our political leaders could possess? Is it charisma, the art of persuasion, the ability to move the nation to action? Is it courage and a steady hand in the face of impossible odds? Is it dependability, honesty, and integrity that would keep them humble servants of the people? What about intelligence, a quick mind, and a strong vision for the future?

All of these things are important, of course, and if any are sufficiently lacking we wouldn’t call that a good leader. But what would you say is the chief virtue?

How Did Our Ancestors Answer the Question?

In an effort to better understand the conservative worldview I have immersed myself in the writings of conservative intellectual thinkers throughout the ages. And one of the things I’ve found surprising is how often the virtue of prudence is mentioned. Even more surprising is how many insist it’s first and foremost among the civic virtues we should demand of our leaders.

Conservatism isn’t an ideology—that is, it isn’t an abstract set of ideas someone dreamt up one day. Rather, it’s a tradition that’s been molded by thinkers throughout the centuries. As a result, those who are considered the intellectual godfathers of the conservative worldview often viewed their role as simply describing something that had come before them—something that no one person was responsible for, but could nonetheless be discerned through careful scrutiny. This is certainly true of the idea that prudence is the chief political virtue; the godfathers of conservatism attribute that idea to those who influenced them who, in turn, attribute that idea to their influencers.

Take, for example, Irving Kristol whose neoconservatism was rooted in the teaching of Leo Strauss: “Strauss believed, along with the ‘greats’ he revered, that prudence was the greatest of practical virtues.” Or how about what Russell Kirk had to say about his hero Edmund Burke: “Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues.” In each case we that the idea of prudence as a preeminent civic virtue came from what the godfathers of the conservative worldview taught, who got it from the people they most admired, who got it from the “greats” of ancient times.

Though prudence is often thought of as a “secular” or “civic” virtue, it has also earned praise from religious quarters as well. Catholicism devised the Seven Cardinal Virtues in the fourth century as a means of combatting the Seven Deadly Sins and thus overcoming the evil within us. Prudence is listed among the seven, demonstrating once again its importance in the minds of generations past.

Prudent Prudes

But why prudence? What could possibly be so important about this oldfangled and seemingly outdated virtue? Surely prudence has been knocked from the lofty pedestal on which it was placed by the ancients. This descent was observed by Gettysburg College professor Allen C. Guelzo in his article Prudence, Politics, and the Proclamation: “Say the word prudence to the ancients, and it would be a virtue; say the word prudence to the faculties of the American colleges of the 19th century, and it would be a part of the curriculum in moral philosophy; say the word prudence today, and it would be part of a joke.”

Prudence is nearly inseparable from notions of prudishness in our liberated and expressive culture. It sounds a bit stuffy, intolerant, bigoted, unimaginative, boring, fearful, antiquated, even more of a vice than a virtue—let alone the chief virtue.

Did prudence lose favor because it’s no longer relevant? Have we progressed beyond some ancient relic that once held value but now just hinders our efforts at social justice or helping people? Were the ancients right to regard prudence with such seeming reverence? In this series we’ll attempt to answer these questions. But first, we need to get a better grasp on what prudence actually means beyond the images it invokes or any antiquated feelings the sound of the word might produce before we could hope to make much progress. And that is where we’ll pick things up in Part 2.

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