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8/3/2019 Four Cardinal Virtues
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FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES
Burdette, Charm
Capul, Claire
Gonzales, Mitch
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PRUDENCE
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PRUDENCE: First of the Cardinal Virtues
Mother of all the other cardinal virtues.
A good man is good as long as he is prudent.
Prudence is the cause of other virtues beingvirtues at all.
Prudence is the measure of justice, of
fortitude, or temperance.
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PRUDENCE: First of the Cardinal Virtues
What is prudent and what is good aresubstantially one and the same.
Whatever is good must first have beenprudent.
Every sin is opposed to prudence.
Everyone who sins is imprudent.
Prudence is the cause, root, mother, measure,
precept, guide, and prototype of all ethicalvirtues; it acts in all of them.
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KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY
AND THE REALIZATION OFTHE GOOD
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KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY AND THE
REALIZATION OF THE GOOD
One can do good when he knows what things
are like and what their situation is.
Prudence is the mold and mother of all virtues,the circumspect and resolute shaping power of
our minds which transforms knowledge of reality
into realization of the good.
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JUSTICE
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JUSTICE: ON RIGHTS
Mans greatest and most frequent troubles
depend on mans injustice more than on
adversity.Kant
The many forms of injustice make the many
forms of justice quite clear.Aristotle
Plato on Justice: It is the notion that each man is
to be given what is his due (suum cuique)
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Justice is a habit (habitus), whereby a man renders to
each one his due with constant and perpetual will.
Justice is that whereby what is ones own is distinct
from what belongs to a stranger.St. Thomas Aquinas
Justice is that ordering of the soul by virtue of whichit comes to pass that we are no mans servant, but
servants of God alone.Augustine
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Therefore: Justice is the virtue which enables manto give to each one what is his due.
If the act of justice is to give each man his due, thenthe act of justice is preceded by the act whereby something becomes his due.
* There are rights which do not arise out of oneswork; in other words, that man has a right to somethings as his due, which has no basis in any actionof his.
* It is through creation that the created first being
first comes to have his rights.
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Therefore, creation itself is not an act of justice;
creation is not anyones due.St. Thomas Aquinas
* For being due means something like belongingto or being the property of someone.
Whatever is due to a person, the suum, is
something that one man may demand of another asowing to him, and him only.
The man who does not give a person what belongs
to him, withholds it or deprives him of it, is really
doing harm to himself; he is the one who actually
loses something, he even destroys himself.
Justice belongs to a mans true being.
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On the one hand a thing might be due to a man on
the basis of agreements, treaties, promises, legal
decisions and so on; on the other hand, it might bedue to him on the basis of the nature of the thing,
ex ipsa natura rei.St. Thomas Aquinas
We cannot state the basis of a right and of a judicial
obligation, unless we have a concept of man, of
human nature.
Man is a person, a spiritual being, a whole unto
himself, a being that exists for itself and of itself,
that will its own proper perfection.
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Man has inalienable rights because he is created aperson by the act of God, that is, an act beyond allhuman discussion.
We have a divine Sovereign, and his divine gift toman is mans right.Kant
A thing is just not only because it is willed by God,
but because it is a debt due to a created being byvirtue of the relationship between creature andcreature.
The act of justice not only presupposes that act
through which a man comes to have his due; it alsopresupposes the act of prudence, which meansthat the truth of real things is transposed into adecision.
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JUSTICE: DUTY IN RELATION TO THE OTHER
Justice is directed toward the other man.
In the relationship of justice, men confront each
other as separate others, almost as strangers.
To be just means to recognize the other as other ; it
means to give acknowledgment even where onecannot love.
Justice says: That is another person, who is other
than I, and who nevertheless has his own peculiardue. A man is just, therefore, because he sanctions
another person in his very separateness and helps
him to receive his due.
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Justice consists in living one with another; the just
man has to deal with the other.
To be just means to owe something and to pay thedebt.
The distinguishing mark of justice is that some debt
is to be paid.
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Who is that other one?
-community or the social whole
-God
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Justice is realized above all in an external act; in
the realm of what is just or unjust, what man does
externally is the main point at issue.The other person may be in need or not, he may be in
distress or not; but if it is a question of his right,
then I am obliged to satisfy it.Kant
Only by an external act will the other receive what
is his, his due.
The mode of doing acts of justice, which falls under
the precept, is that they be done in accordance with
right; but not that they be done from the habit of
justiceSt. Thomas Aquinas
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Thomas quotes the Nicomachean Ethics: It is
an easy matter to do what the just man does;
it is difficult, however, for one who does not
possess justice to do the just thing in the way
the just man does it. That is, with promptitude
and pleasure.
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THE RANK OF JUSTICE
Justice is the highest of the three moralvirtues: justice, fortitude and temperance.
Justice is the fundamental virtue.
Justice claims a higher rank because not only orders man in himself but also the life of mentogetherSt. Thomas Aquinas
Not only do the object and material of justice(objectum sine material) establish its higherrank, but the subject does so too.
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The demands of justice beset man at his spiritual
core.
The good of reason shines more brightly in justicethan in any of the other moral virtues; justice is
closer to reason.St. Thomas Aquinas
Iustitia est humanum bonumJustice is the humangood.
Justice simply means doing ones own work and
fulfilling ones own taskPlotinus
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THE THREE BASIC FORMS OF JUSTICE
Firstly, the relations of individuals to one
another (ordo partium ad partes);
Secondly; the relations of social whole toindividuals (ordo totius ad partes);
Thirdly, the relations of individuals to the
social whole (ordo partium ad totum)
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THE THREE BASIC FORMS OF JUSTICE
1. Reciprocal or mutually exchanged justice (iustitia
commutative)orders the relation of individual
to individual partner
2. Ministering justice (iustitia distributiva)brings
order to the relations between the community as
such and the individuals who are its members
3. Legal or General Justice (iustitia legalis, iustitiageneralis)orders the members relations to the
social whole
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It is not justice that orders. It is the
just man, it is man who orders.
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FORTITUDE
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READINESS TO FALL IN BATTLE
Fortitude presupposes vulnerability; withoutvulnerability there is no possibility of fortitude.
Fortitude is basically readiness to die, or moreaccurately, readiness to fall, to die, in battle.
The essential and the highest achievement of
fortitude is martyrdom, and the readiness formartyrdom is the essential root of all Christianfortitude.
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Man must be ready to let himself be killed
rather than to deny Christ or to sin grievously.
The pain of martyrdom obscures even the
spiritual joy in an act pleasing to God, unless
the overflowing grace of God lift the soul with
exceeding strength to things divine.St.
Thomas Aquinas
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FORTITUDE MUST NOT TRUST ITSELF
It is for the sake of the good that the brave man
exposes himself to the danger of death.
Fortitude must not trust itselfSt. Ambrose
Only the prudent man can be brave. Fortitude
without prudence is not fortitude. Fortitude becomes fortitude only through
being informed by prudence.
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The nature of fortitude is not determined by
risking ones person arbitrarily, but only by a
sacrifice of self in accordance with reason,
that is, with the true nature and value of real
things.
Prudence-gives the inner form to all the other
cardinal virtues: justice, fortitude, and
temperance.
Fortitude is less directly informed by prudencethan justice.
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Justice is the first word of prudence, fortitude
the second; prudence informs fortitude. Justice is based upon the recognition of reality
achieved by prudence; fortitude is based upon
prudence and justice together.
The actual good of man is his self-realization in
accordance with reason, that is, in accordance
with truth of real things.St. Thomas
Aquinas
Without the just cause, there is no
fortitude.
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Not the injury, but the cause makes martyrs.
St. Augustine
Man does not expose his life to mortal danger,
except to maintain justice. Therefore, the
praise of fortitude depends upon justice.St.
Thomas Aquinas
Fortitude without justice is a lever of evil.St.
Ambrose
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ENDURANCE AND ATTACK
Fortitude recognizes, acknowledges, and
maintains the natural order of things.
Fortitude presupposes in a certain sense that
man is afraid of evil; its essence lies not in
knowing no fear, but in not allowing oneself to
be forced into evil by fear, or to be kept by
fear from realization of good.
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TWO BASIC ACTS OF FORTITUDE
1. Endurance
2. Attack
Endurance is more of the essence of fortitude
than attack.
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Patience is a necessary component of
fortitude.
The patient man is not the one who does not flee from evil, but the one who does not allow
himself to be made inordinately sorrowful
thereby.
Patience is the radiant embodiment of
ultimate integrity.
Patience is the pillar which nothing can
softenHildegard of Bingen
Through patience man possess his soulSt.
Thomas Aquinas
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