The question is all lined up: What is prudence? Specifically, how does it help us to choose well or how does it perfect practical reason? With the goal — happiness — held before our mind’s eye, the help of God in ready supply, and the virtuous life to animate our efforts, it’s time to start answering the question in earnest. One of the best ways to address this question is by exploring and engaging all of the parts that together make up prudence. By focusing our efforts in this way, we see both how attractive is the life of prudence and how to begin growing in it.

This chapter and the next are a little more philosophical than the last three. If you find the discussion difficult at points, don’t be discouraged. Things will make more and more sense as you read on. Think of it as an apprenticeship in prudence as you work your way toward mastery.

Prudence, we have said, is right reason applied to doing. It’s the habit of acting according to sensible, reasonable standards. It perfects the practical reason — the dimension of our reason concerned with knowing for doing’s sake. What is more, prudence perfects every imaginable aspect of practical reason. But what are all these different aspects? A good way to proceed is by sketching the different stages or parts of human action and then describing prudence’s activity at each stage. Following the clear teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, we will explore:

• First, the stages of human action, focusing on those stages in which prudence is at work.
• Second, how a prudent act unfolds.
• Third, the different parts of prudence. This section illustrates the different perfections that make up the virtue and gives a detailed picture of how prudence empowers one to know, to choose, and to live well.

Typically, when describing a human act, we treat it as a single thing. What did you do? I went grocery shopping. I watched the basketball game. I registered for classes. But each of these acts is made up of a more involved series of smaller steps. Saint Thomas identifies the smaller steps and groups them together in three main stages of human action.

In the first stage of human action, you intend the end. The end is the goal, purpose, or ultimate meaning of the action. For instance, you might choose to diet for any number of reasons — to lose weight, to manage food allergies, to treat anxiety, and so on. Any of these might function as the end of your action. The end is the most important feature of any action, because without it the choice never gets off the ground. Just as there’s no sense in preferring vegetables to chocolate-chip cookies without a notion of nutrition, so there’s no sense in human action without an end. The end shapes the whole act from start to finish. Though it’s the last thing carried out, it’s the first thing envisioned. And so, at the outset of any choice, we apprehend (grasp) and intend the end.

In the second stage of human action, you choose the means. Means are just ways of achieving an end. If you intend to diet you have to decide how to go about it. Specifically, what method will you adopt? In certain scenarios, choosing the means will be relatively straightforward. If the diet was suggested to you by a friend who already has a regimen in mind, all that’s required is to get on board. If it’s up to you to decide, it may be a bit more involved. There are so many different dieting options, and you have to think through, consent to, and ultimately choose the one that is best for you. For instance, there are all kinds of meal options and fitness programs available. Which ones are well-suited to you? Are there certain things you just can’t live without? Are there certain workouts that you know you won’t or can’t do? Are there some challenges you’ve been hoping for the opportunity to tackle? Are there some life hacks you’ve just been waiting for the moment to test out? In this process, you gradually home in on a decision, as you advance from what’s possible to what’s best. At this stage, then, we judge and choose the means of our act.

In the third stage of human action, you use the means. At this point, the choice has been made; it’s just a matter of seeing it through. In the first and second stage of action, your choice probably had to mature through thought and conversation. In the third stage of action, it gets fleshed out and translated into bodily movement. No longer are you just intending to diet or choosing a diet, you’re really dieting. This doesn’t mean that the action’s over, though. At this stage, you have to remain engaged — to oversee and direct the choice. It’s not as if you have to continually rechoose the means. That’s a done deal. But what follows isn’t automatic. The choice needs to be continually embodied in practice. With changing circumstances, it can be a real effort to ensure that the act is carried out in the best way. In the case of your diet, perhaps you have some success in your first few weeks, only to plateau for a month. What then? Do you give it up and try something new? Or do you stay the course? Perhaps at this point, you realize that you’re beginning to enjoy exercising, which is a promising development. So you add length and intensity to your workouts and don’t tinker with anything else. Eventually, the pounds start coming off again. You haven’t revised your choice, so much as applied it in new circumstances. At this stage, we execute the action as we command and use the chosen means.

This is the basic template of any human action. At each stage there are paired acts of intellect and will. First, one apprehends (intellect) and intends (will) the end; second, one judges (intellect) and chooses (will) the means; and third, one commands (intellect) and uses (will) the means.

Where does prudence fit in this overview of human action? Prudence isn’t directly concerned with the first stage. The ends of human action are supplied by will and passions under the guidance of the moral virtues — how that works will be discussed in the next chapter. Prudence steps in at the second stage, once the end is set. Prudence concerns the choice and use of the means. Once you have apprehended and intended the end of dieting, prudence sees that intention all the way through to weight loss. Prudence is about the means — the “how” of human action.

Saint Thomas identifies three acts of prudence, which he calls counsel, judgment, and command. These three acts map onto the second and third stages of action described above. We have already come across judgment and command. They are the intellectual components of the second and third stages of human action outlined above. But what about counsel, the first act of prudence? Counsel hasn’t come up yet explicitly, but it precedes judgment in the second stage of human action. Specifically, it comes to the aid of judgment when there are many means from among which we can choose.

An action may be more or less complicated at the second stage. In a less complicated action, there might be only one means to a particular end. If you want to visit a friend who lives halfway around the world, it may be physically possible to go by foot, bicycle, or train, but the chances that you would actually entertain these options are effectively zero. If you go, you’re going to fly. In actions like this, or in the earlier case of dieting when the friend has a regimen in mind, you move right from intention (first stage) to choice (second stage) without an intermediate stage. Many habitual and unimportant choices unfold in this way. You don’t agonize about what barber or hair salon to use each time. You just go to the same one. You don’t spend much time choosing your route across town. You just follow the GPS.

In a more complicated action though, there might be a few means to a particular end. Say, for instance, you want to travel from Washington, D.C., to New Haven, Connecticut. If you drive, it will take about six hours. You like listening to podcasts and audiobooks, but aren’t especially excited to drive alone. If you take the train, it will take about the same amount of time. On the one hand, that would free you up to work en route. On the other, you’d be without a car in New Haven. These two options cost about the same amount and are much more efficient than flying. So what will you do? In choices like this one, and the earlier case of working through the different diet options, you don’t move directly from intention to choice. Instead, you pass through an intermediate stage during which you weigh those different options. In the process, certain candidates emerge as more reasonable or more preferable for whatever reason. These options become the fodder for our judgment/choice. This intermediate stage is called counsel (from the vantage of the intellect) or consent (from the vantage of the will). In these more complex human actions, the second stage is composed of two distinct acts — counsel/consent and judgment/choice — which are just the first two acts of prudence. After all that, the third act of prudence is straightforward. It corresponds neatly with the third stage of human action.

Let’s trace the workings of prudence through each of its three acts. Counsel is the stage of discovery. It’s the point at which we entertain different means, compare them to the end, and size them up against each other. Counsel plays out different possible patterns of cause and effect for the action under consideration to determine which means are most likely to conduct us to the end. So we might ask a variety of questions: Which is easiest? Which is quickest? Which is noblest? Which is most consistent with my character? Which is most likely to make me the man or woman I want to be? There are a variety of helpful ways for thinking through different scenarios. Answering these questions can prove difficult, though, especially if you haven’t encountered a similar situation before.

To work toward an excellent choice, certain things have to be in place at the stage of counsel:

• First, the end has to be good. If the end is evil, it’s a non-starter. Better to abandon ship than chart a course to destruction.
• Second, the means themselves have to be good. As Saint Paul instructs the Romans, one cannot do evil that good may come (Rom 3:8). A good end doesn’t justify evil means.
• Third, counsel has to have a sense of timing. Neither hasty nor halting, counsel aims for what is fitting at the proper time.
• Fourth and finally, counsel has to account for the big picture. While a particular means might make sense on its own terms, it must fit in with the whole of one’s life. Counsel weighs all of the relevant factors.

From counsel, prudence passes to judgment. In its most basic form, a judgment is just a comparison of two things. That comparison can be expressed in the form of a proposition. For instance, “Penguins exist,” or “My brother is not short,” or “I shouldn’t cheat on this test.” In a judgment, one is either composing two things — like penguins and existence — or dividing two things, like my brother and shortness. Judgments, in the broad sense, can be either speculative or practical. The penguin and brother examples are speculative judgments. Both are occasions of knowing for knowing’s sake. There’s nothing further to be done with the knowledge they supply. Since judgments of this sort do not concern action, they do not engage prudence. Rather, they engage speculative intellectual virtues like knowledge and wisdom.

The cheating example is a practical judgment. In this case, it’s an occasion of knowing for doing’s sake. There is something further to be done. Here, one doesn’t compare a being to its existence or to one of its characteristics. Instead, one compares an abstract principle of human action, like “Evil is to be avoided,” with a concrete, particular action under consideration, like “Cheating on this test would be evil.” From this comparison, one draws the conclusion, “Cheating on this test is to be avoided” or “I shouldn’t cheat on this test.” In this example, the judgment moves beyond itself. It is directly ordered to action, and it isn’t complete until it shapes and moves the will and passions. Judgments of this sort do engage prudence. They account for prudence’s second act.

From judgment, prudence passes to command. Command is the intellectual act at work in the third stage of human action. Command ensures that the chosen means are seen through. It brings our counsel and judgment continually to bear on reality as the action is brought to perfection. It achieves the end of practical reason. Command is the distinguishing, determining, culminating, and animating act of prudence.

First, command is the distinguishing act of prudence. Whereas counsel and judgment, at times, contribute to the working of other virtues, command is peculiar to prudence. At a certain point, Saint Thomas refers to prudence simply as “the virtue which commands.”

Second, command is the determining act of prudence. Command is where one’s character is brought to bear on reality. On the one hand, command shows the thought that went into a choice and the quality of the person who chose it. On the other hand, it indicates that person’s trajectory in life and conducts him or her along that path. Command is the place where one passes from was and is to can be and will be.

Third, command is the culminating act of prudence. Command carries with it the power of actual performance of a chosen word or deed. It is immediately concerned with doing since it actually applies the choice. As such, command is able to mobilize the full force of practical reason, that is, knowing for doing’s sake. We can counsel all kinds of courses of actions and make all kinds of excellent judgments as to how best to realize those plans, but until such time as we actually carry them out, those deliberations and judgments remain incomplete. Command fully applies them to action.

Finally, command is the animating act of prudence. In prudent action, we look always to command, to the full embodiment of the action in real time. To aspire to less would be impractical. Counsel is ordered to judgment, and judgment is ordered to command. Command, in turn, draws counsel and judgment to itself, reaching back and shaping all that comes before.

These three acts — counsel, judgment, and command — sketch a passable likeness of the virtue, but they’re really just a scaffolding built around the edifice of prudence itself. What then of the foundation, the walls, the roof, and all that goes into the building? What of the real substance of prudence which makes for the excellent human being, the type we want to be, the sort who would be an irreplaceable colleague, a trustworthy friend, a strong lover of God?

By a closer look at the metaphorical foundation, walls, and roof that together make up prudence, we discover a wealth of subtle perfections, testimony to the divine craftsmanship at work in the life of reason. Saint Thomas calls these perfections the integral parts of prudence. He lists eight of them: memory, docility, understanding, shrewdness, reason, foresight, caution, and circumspection. The common mistake when describing these parts is to think of them as eight moments of prudent action occurring one after another in chronological sequence. This paints an overly neat and potentially misleading picture. Rather than moments, they are perhaps best thought of as bricks in the edifice of prudence. Together, the integral parts work jointly in prudent action to build out the fullness of the virtue.

Saint Thomas divides the eight integral parts into two main groups, based on whether they concern knowing or commanding. The integral parts which concern knowing are memory, understanding, docility, shrewdness, and reasoning. These help with acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge.

The first part of prudence that Saint Thomas treats is memory. Memory recalls experiences of the past. In matters of prudence, experience goes a long way. It’s for this reason that young people are more likely to lack prudence and old people are more likely to have it. Since prudence concerns practical matters which involve all kinds of particularities and contingencies, it’s basically impossible to have a tidy science of decision-making. There’s just too much that’s up in the air. And so, the prudent person weighs his or her experience of the past and uses that memory to account best for present circumstances. Memory recalls what tends to happen and applies that as best it can.

While it may be helpful for the prudent person to have a vast memory, it’s more important that he or she have a profound memory. Some people think that their lives are necessarily enriched by many different experiences, as if you were better for having traveled to Thailand, South Africa, and Norway. But, breadth doesn’t always make for depth. When it comes to the memory involved in prudence, it’s more important that you experience reality well than that you experience a lot of it. It’s a matter of what Josef Pieper refers to as “true-to-being memory.” For memory of this sort, it is sufficient that you judge with careful attention, that you seek to retain events and things as they really are.

Saint Thomas gives some advice on how best to cultivate memory of this sort. First, you have to work to retain memory, lest it slip away. This might be by mental association or frequent recalling or journaling. Second, you have to organize your memory. That means finding an orderly place for the things you want to remember, rather than just heaping them up in a pile of random facts. Third, you have to return to it often. If God is teaching through memory, then it merits continual attention. Here, prudence touches prayer. In time with the Lord, there is opportunity to revisit the past, ask for insight, and think through connections, and then anticipate how you might respond again in similar circumstances. This ensures the healthy working of memory.

Take the simple example of planning and enjoying a meal with some friends. As you make a reservation, you consult your memory of past outings. What has worked before and what hasn’t? What makes most sense for this occasion, given what you’ve learned? Memory serves as a backdrop for present experience.

In time with the Lord, there is opportunity to revisit the past, ask for insight, and think through connections, and then anticipate how you might respond again in similar circumstances.

The second part of prudence is understanding. This kind of understanding is something other than the virtue of the speculative intellect we described earlier. This understanding concerns knowledge of the present. Specifically, it is the part of prudence that instantaneously sizes up a particular action. By understanding, you have a sense for whether or not this is to be done before ever making a judgment. You still need to reason upon the proposed action, but understanding provides an initial evaluation of the task. You preview a particular action and have a feel for how it ought to go.

Again, when planning the evening out, you might have the intuitive sense that, given those in attendance, you ought to play it safe. Adventurous dining can be fun, but this group is just getting comfortable with each other. So too, in the course of the meal, you might “see” what needs to be said or done in order to draw everyone into the conversation and out of themselves.

The third part of prudence is docility. In general, there are two ways of acquiring knowledge. Either you can learn it on your own (by discovery) or from another (by instruction). Docility aids with receiving instruction. For any number of reasons, you might find it difficult to consult others about decisions. Perhaps it’s laziness. Perhaps it’s pride. As a result, you might not perceive the benefit of docility in decision making. And yet, practical matters are so various that there’s no way to consider every avenue well in a reasonable amount of time. From this vantage, it’s a great help to have the assistance of those who are older or wiser. Their experience and their prudent reasoning may be of great service. But, to access this font of wisdom, we have to humble ourselves and ask for it. We have to love the truth more than we love ourselves. Docility means a genuine open-mindedness. As Josef Pieper writes in The Four Cardinal Virtues, “What is meant [by docility] is the ability to take advice, sprung not from any vague ‘modesty,’ but simply from the desire for real understanding.”

To be docile, you have to overcome obstacles to seeking counsel, remain open to what is offered, and then weigh and incorporate that input. This doesn’t mean that you should become hesitant, impressionable, or enslaved to others’ pronouncements. To be prudent means to be genuinely self-actualized, albeit with the recognition that there is much to be gained from the counsel of others. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, / and do not rely on your own insight” (Prv 3:5). “Stand in the assembly of the elders. Who is wise? Cleave to him” (Sir 6:34).

Returning to the evening’s events — it can help to consult some reviews and food critics ahead of time. Perhaps you’ll learn that the restaurant operates by European standards of hospitality and that, if you’re going to get the check, you’ll have to ask for it directly. Seeking advice saves you from some awkward indecision at the end of the meal.

The fourth part of prudence is shrewdness, sometimes called sagacity or acumen. Whereas docility aids with instruction, shrewdness aids with discovery. Shrewdness is a keen first estimate or judgment of what should be done. By comparison to understanding, which intuits the situation, shrewdness assesses it. The shrewd person has a knack for settling practical matters. He or she works them out effortlessly by a kind of nimbleness of mind, always at the ready with very reliable snap judgments.

The importance of shrewdness reveals something significant about prudence. The practical wisdom that prudence provides isn’t necessarily a matter of lengthy deliberation. It may be worthwhile to consider a course of action for a period of time, but prudence comes from the quality, not the quantity, of that consideration. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve thought a lot about it. It matters that you’ve thought well about it. The goodness of an action is measured by its being done virtuously. When the Lord called the first of the apostles, the Gospel recounts, “And immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Mk 1:18). Was that hasty of them? Might they have taken some time to think it through? In this case, they didn’t need to. They had been awaiting the Lord, and they recognized him when he arrived. Theirs was a genuinely excellent response to a genuinely excellent call. By shrewdness, they judged in an instant, and by prudence they responded with the assent of their whole person.

Back at the restaurant, you draw upon shrewdness to coordinate the order. After quite a few minutes, everyone continues perusing the menu non-committally despite the waiter’s increasing impatience. At an opportune moment, you gently but firmly settle on a couple bottles of wine for the table and foster consensus for hors d’oeuvres, helping all present to arrive at a choice with which they are pleased.

The fifth part of prudence is reasoning, used here to signify the way that the human intellect moves step by step when working out a choice. As human beings, we are made toward the goal of life, but we aren’t quite there. To arrive at happiness, we must take the right steps. Our intellectual nature reflects this fact and reasoning sees to it that we take those steps well. We are intellectual pilgrims on a journey toward the goal, and part of being prudent is proceeding well along this pilgrimage of many movements.

Reasoning is especially visible in how you plan the evening. From start to finish, you see to every detail. You do the research and make the reservation. You alert the restaurant to your friends’ dietary restrictions. You scout out parking, estimate transit time, and make sure each of your friends has all the information he or she needs. All is accounted for.

These first five integral parts — memory, understanding, docility, shrewdness, and reasoning — perfect prudence’s work of knowing. The remaining three integral parts perfect prudence’s work of commanding.

The sixth integral part of prudence is foresight. Foresight provides for the future by ensuring that we hold the end in mind when carrying out the action. In the moment, it can be easy to get a bit caught up, and at times, we risk losing ourselves in the excitement. Foresight has one look to the end. It’s a kind of prudential recollection in the purpose of action.

The goal of your dinner is to enjoy the company of some old friends and make some new ones. When one friend alerts you that she’ll be late in arriving, you are justly upset but take a moment to work out a solution. You could confront her for being irresponsible, but that’s likely to dampen the mood and ruin the evening. So, you just have her meet you at the restaurant, not letting a little hiccup get in the way of the evening’s enjoyment. Here, foresight holds the end in mind and sees to it that the action responds to that vision.

The seventh integral part of prudence is circumspection. Circumspection continues to compare the means to the end in the performance of the act. For instance, having arrived at the restaurant, your intention to enjoy a delicious meal looks a particular way at the outset. After you have eaten a bit or had a few drinks over the course of the evening, though, your thinking shifts on what that enjoyment entails. When you perceive that you may be expected to eat quite a lot in the circumstances, you begin splitting plates and leaving courses unfinished. When you realize that your friends are able to handle more than you, you start sipping a little slower and staggering your drink orders. As the act unfolds, it requires revisiting, and circumspection sees to that. If one were to simply sit down and say, “I am here to eat and drink” without ever revisiting the choice during the course of the evening, it might make for an uncomfortable and regrettable meal.

The eighth and final integral part of prudence is caution. Caution avoids obstacles that appear in the performance of an action. With many good choices, some potentially perilous circumstances may be mixed in. That’s just the way of contingent and complex realities. Caution gauges these circumstances in order to avoid or manage them. For instance, you know that certain topics may come up in the course of the evening, and if they do, the conversation may be a bit tense. You prepare in anticipation and remain on the lookout as the meal progresses. Mindful of your friends’ sensitivities and strongly held opinions, you’re able to facilitate an engaging discussion and chart a course around any potential pitfalls.

Interestingly enough, when many people think of prudence, they only think of caution. Remember that popular appraisal of prudence at the end of the last chapter? It sounded a lot like what we just identified as caution, one of eight integral parts. Caution is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story. If we treat it as the whole story, we end up with a limited understanding of prudence. We can’t content ourselves with that. We want the full grandeur of prudence.

Clearly, prudence is an amazing virtue bringing a tremendous variety of resources to bear on human action. All at once, prudence helps mine the past, build the present, and secure the future. It weighs past experience, draws from the wisdom of others, perfects our instincts, refines our judgments, disciplines our thinking, looks down the road, anticipates the unforeseen, and improvises when necessary. Prudence is the virtue that perfects practical reason in all of its ins and outs. It’s an excellence for the way, suiting us beautifully to a life on the way.

Caution is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story. If we treat it as the whole story, we end up with a limited understanding of prudence.

Given that the goal of the virtue of prudence is essentially practical, what is the benefit of understanding all these detailed philosophical distinctions? How do the different stages of human action and acts of prudence help you to make sense of your life and choose confidently?

Is the priority of command reflected in your own approach to life, or do you sometimes get stuck in analysis paralysis? Now that you grasp the reality that counsel looks to judgment, and judgment looks to command, do you need to (or how might you) adjust your approach to everyday choices?

Which of the eight integral parts of prudence come as a surprise to you? What place do these perfections occupy in your present approach to making decisions? What place might they occupy in a future approach?