Four Cardinal Virtues

8/3/2019 Four Cardinal Virtues

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/four-cardinal-virtues 1/33

FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES

Burdette, Charm

Capul, Claire

Gonzales, Mitch



PRUDENCE



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.



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.



KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY

AND THE REALIZATION OFTHE GOOD



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.



JUSTICE



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)



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



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



Who is that other one?

-community or the social whole

-God



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



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.



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.



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



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)



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



It is not justice that orders. It is the

just man, it is man who orders.



FORTITUDE



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.



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



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.



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.



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.



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



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.



TWO BASIC ACTS OF FORTITUDE

1. Endurance

2. Attack

Endurance is more of the essence of fortitude

than attack.



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

Documents

Four Cardinal Virtues