Article II: On the Connection of Virtues

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 65, a. 1; De Virt. q. 5, a. 2.

604. Principle I. Imperfect moral virtues are not connected. - For inchoations of moral virtues, which dispose us to choosing this or that in certain circumstances, whether they inhere in us from nature on account of the disposition of the body, or come from custom, are not connected, as is clear from experience: for someone can be prompt toward liberality who is not prompt toward chastity. But those inclinations are sometimes called imperfect virtues; nevertheless they are not true and properly so called virtues, because they do not render one perfect.

605. Principle II. Perfect moral virtues are connected, which incline us to doing a good work constantly and in all circumstances, notwithstanding any difficulties whatever. Thus according to the mind of Saints Augustine1 and Thomas, against Scotus. For:

a) Moral virtue, which is a habit making choice good, cannot exist without prudence, because for choosing rightly the intention of the due end, to which moral virtue disposes, is not sufficient; but good counsel, judgment, and command concerning good means to the end are also required, to which prudence disposes: for to do evil on account of a good end is morally evil; whence perfect prudence is required for always acting rightly.

b) Prudence cannot exist without moral virtues; for:

1. For ordering means honorably there is required the intention of some good end, to which moral virtue disposes: for to order good means to an evil end is morally evil; and the ordering of means will not always and in all circumstances be honorable unless in all circumstances there is had the intention of the due end, to which we are not disposed except through all the perfect moral virtues.

2. Each one ordinarily judges according as he is affected; therefore moral virtues are necessary so that man may always judge well and in every case.¹

¹ To the matter Lessius, de Prudentia, c. 1, dub. 4, from Aristotle, VI Eth., c. 5 and 13: "It belongs to prudence to apprehend what is honorable in individual actions, or to judge it as fitting here and now. But moral virtue existing in the will (or appetite) brings it about that what is honorable seems fitting to the intellect and to be accepted here and now. Each one ordinarily judges according as he is affected: for the angry man apprehends vengeance by the intellect as fitting, and the intemperate man pleasure, the avaricious man having an abundance of money; but they do not apprehend keeping the mode of reason in these things as fitting to themselves here and now, but at most as fitting in general, or for some time and state of things... Therefore moral virtues lying hidden in the will (or appetite) bring it about that the intellect judges the honorable good in actions to be fitting to be done here and now; and they furnish this partly because they compress the passions which disturb reason in the consideration of the honorable and display the delectable good, partly because they so dispose the subject that the honorable work is as congruous to him as drink to one thirsting, food to one hungry... For that agreement which is between object and affection is the cause on the part of the object that it be apprehended by way of something fitting; just as, on the contrary, dissonance is the cause why the intellect apprehends it as disagreeable."

c) This, moreover, is clear from experience, for a judge well affected toward justice but desirous of money, when money is offered, will judge unjustly; and a chaste but timid woman, through fear of some evil, will consent to fornication; and many strong, liberal, devout persons, through defect of prudence, badly choose means to the end of virtue.²

² He writes in the epistle to St. Jerome: "That point concerning the inseparability of virtues... pleased all the philosophers (for example, Aristotle, Eth., l. VI, last chapter)... Certainly from this they persuade, that whoever has one virtue has all, and that all are lacking to him to whom one is lacking, because prudence can be neither cowardly, nor unjust, nor intemperate; for if it were any of these, it would not be prudence. Moreover if prudence will then exist, if it is also strong and just and temperate, certainly wherever it is, it has the others with it. So also fortitude cannot be imprudent, or intemperate, or unjust; so it is necessary that temperance be prudent, strong, and just; so justice is not, unless it is prudent, strong, temperate. Thus where any one of them is true, the others similarly are; but where the others are lacking, that one is not true, even if in some way it seems to be similar." P. L. XXXIII, 735.

Hence prudence and the moral virtues mutually include one another, and consequently all the virtues are connected through prudence. Prudence is of the essence of the definition of moral virtue, and moral virtue is of the definition of prudence insofar as prudence must be toward a good end.

1. Hence every man, in order to be perfectly virtuous, must be exercised concerning all the matters of the moral virtues which perfect man according to the common state and as to those things which commonly occur to be done in every human life; but the virtues which perfect man according to some eminent state (magnanimity, magnificence, liberality, virginity), not every virtuous man has in act, but he has them in proximate potency and in preparation of soul, so that they may be acquired by moderate exercise (a. 1, ad 1).

606. Observation. - Merely intellectual virtues are not all connected among themselves nor with the moral virtues, because they are concerned with diverse matters not ordered to one another, as is clear from the diverse sciences and arts; nevertheless all depend on the understanding of principles, but this, in turn, does not depend on the others.