Humans are choosing creatures. We can envision our lives in different ways and choose to live them however seems best. It’s a great honor to be creatures that choose, and it’s our responsibility to choose well. But that doesn’t always make choosing easy. At times, we feel singularly inadequate for the very thing that we are made to do. Choices can be bewildering: You studied graphic design, and here you’re being asked about a management situation. Choices can be intimidating: You think you’re ready to propose, but can’t imagine yourself as a happy husband and father. Choices can be disheartening: You realize a friendship is codependent and destructive, but lack the desire to end it.

Choices are made harder by sin. In addition to depriving us of grace, original sin also wounds our nature.

• First, our intellects are darkened by ignorance. We often aren’t fully aware of our reasons for acting, and others’ motivations can be yet more opaque.
• Second, our wills are twisted by malice. We are consumed with desire for recognition and control and look on others as a threat to our freedom.
• Finally, our emotions are inflamed by weakness and concupiscence. We find difficult undertakings repulsive and are inclined toward whatever is comfortable and effortless.

With all of this interior tumult, it’s no wonder that we experience choice as difficult, a heavy burden to bear. In tough moments, we might be led to wonder: Why couldn’t God have made us incapable of failure? Why couldn’t he have set it up so that we simply did what we were supposed to do without all of the anguish? Well, God did make creatures like that. Rocks don’t choose. Rocks aren’t ignorant, malicious, weak, or concupiscent. They’re just rocks. The same is true of plants and animals, in their own way. Each fulfills its purpose as a matter of course — whether by gravity, nature, or instinct. Very few people, though, if given the choice between rock or human being, would choose to be a rock. Because, even though we face the prospect of failure in ways that rocks do not, we are far more noble than boulders or pebbles. More ventured, more gained.

Think of St. Teresa of Calcutta. When she left home to enter religious life, her mother told her to put her hand in the Lord’s and to follow him alone; and that’s just what she did. When Christ led her to serve the poorest of the poor in a radical way, she was ready. There was no script for what she did, and yet she discovered her “call within a call” and chose it freely. Rocks can’t do that. Trees can’t do that. Dogs can’t do that. Human beings can. Can you?

As we attempt to answer this question, we hold two convictions in mind. First, God has something good in store for us, and he wants us to be happy. Second, he gives us what we need to live up to our calling. Even with these convictions, though, the way forward remains difficult. If we are to consent to and cooperate with his grace, it will mean doing so in a genuinely human way. It will mean choosing well. And, since prudence is the virtue that helps us in a particular way to choose well, consenting to and cooperating with grace will mean growing in prudence.

How then do we work through the difficulty of choice and fashion a coherent life? The traditional Christian response is straightforward: by growth in virtue. By growth in virtue one learns to choose well not just once or twice, but consistently and dependably as a matter of character. Virtue makes one the kind of person who chooses well, so that choosing well becomes second nature. Virtue frees one to be who he or she is called to be, in accord with God’s revelation of himself in Scripture and Tradition.

Saint Augustine defines virtue as “a good quality of mind, by which a man lives nobly, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us without us.” To say that virtue is a good quality of mind is to say that it is a kind of perfection added to, but deeply in concert with, human nature. Just as one can get better at a particular instrument, sport, or profession, so too one can get better at living life in general. Virtue is the type of quality which works this transformation. To say that virtue is the type of quality “by which one lives nobly” and “of which no one can make bad use” fills out the picture. Some qualities have no particular tendency either to good or to evil. If you learn a lot about stocks and bonds, you could use that knowledge to invest ethically or to game the system. If you have a charming personality, you could use that trait to put your friends at ease or to manipulate your acquaintances. But a virtue is directed to good action by its very nature. One cannot be just or courageous or temperate for evil ends. It’s absurd. If you were to try to imagine a situation in which one were just in order to steal or seduce, you wouldn’t be describing true justice. Saint Augustine’s definition concludes by describing its source, “which God works in us without us.” This goes back to the discussion of acquired and infused virtues. While some virtues can be acquired over time through repeated action, the greatest of virtues cannot. They are simply infused by God. When a baby girl is baptized, God doesn’t take into account what she has done up to that point in her life or whether she is worthy of divine blessing. Instead, God just floods her soul with grace, virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are done in her, without her.

When exercised in daily life, virtue solidifies character. It heals wounded loves and strengthens weak desires so that one can choose the good more freely and enjoy it more fully. As a result, virtue has a humanizing effect. It enables one to become himself in the most genuine sense. In What Catholics Believe, philosophers Josef Pieper and Heinz Raskop say this about virtue:

A good man is more of a man than a bad one, in the sense that he is making more of his humanity. He is in every respect more fit. Thus a man’s virtue shows that he is putting his ability into practice; here and now he is making actual what would otherwise remain merely possible within him. This means that he does good — and that he does it not because he has to, but because he wills to. He wants to, and he can.

Virtue fills up and fills out what it means to be a human. It empowers one to be excellently human — to think, to choose, and even to feel well. Ultimately, virtue provides us the tools to live a happy and holy life. A couple of examples will help to illustrate the point.

Temperance is a virtue which heals and elevates the passions of love, desire, pleasure, hatred, aversion, and sorrow. These are simple passions that arise when we encounter something good or evil, causing us either to advance toward the good or withdraw from the evil. Without temperance, we can be easily undone by simple emotional responses. You open a bag of Chex Muddy Buddies and are soon surprised to find there are none left and that you’re covered with powdered sugar. The thought of doing something productive is so oppressive that you watch four episodes of a new Netflix series before realizing where the time has gone. When it comes to dealing with sensible things — like food, drink, or sexual intimacy — we need the virtue of temperance to help us cling to our purpose, lest we be swallowed up by lower goods. Temperance puts reason into our passions, so that when looking at a plate of chocolate-chip cookies we can think, “Looks delicious, but I’d prefer not to snack between meals,” or “One would be perfect, but I should move on before I have a second,” or “Let me pass this around to the guests first.” A temperate person has a healthy relationship with sensible goods. He or she is not ruled by them but is able to incorporate them into life in a way that’s well-ordered.

Fortitude is a virtue that heals and elevates the passions of hope, despair, fear, daring, and anger. These are more complex passions that arise when we encounter a good that is difficult to attain or an evil that is difficult to overcome. While temperance helped us deal with the plate of cookies right in front of us, fortitude made the cookies possible in the first place when it meant braving a busy supermarket, making the dough without an electric mixer, and timing them perfectly in an erratic oven. Fortitude comes to the rescue in a variety of circumstances. Perhaps all you need to finish off the master’s degree is a fifty-page thesis, and you’ve been stuck at forty pages for the last four months. Fortitude helps you get it across the finish line. Or maybe your boss makes work intolerable with his micro-managerial terrorism, but frankly you’re terrified of him and unwilling to confront the situation. Fortitude helps you to speak up. In these circumstances, the good represents the fruit of some struggle, and we are forced to confront our own weakness. To brave these trials, we need the virtue of fortitude so that we’re not cowed by fear and turned aside from the goal. Fortitude, like temperance, makes our passions more reasonable so that when God asks for a sacrifice, we can offer it without hesitation; or, when the battle rages on every side, we can stand and fight for love of what is ours. A courageous or brave person has a healthy relationship with difficult goods. He or she is not tossed to and fro but is self-possessed and resolute.

Temperance and fortitude are immediately recognizable to us as good for the human person and as helps in choosing well. How often have you wished you could stop at one cookie or felt unable to tackle a difficult conversation? We know for sure that we can be easily derailed by sense delights or difficulties, and when we are, choosing well becomes infinitely more complicated. With virtues like temperance and fortitude (though we might add justice, humility, chastity, and others), we train ourselves to live more reasonably and so experience less conflict in choice. In so doing, the virtues chart a path to freedom. Virtue makes us persons who choose well and frees us to flourish.

As we grow in the virtuous life, we become truly free — free to choose what is good because we love it. St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle before him, insists that the point of the moral life goes well beyond restraint or discipline. The virtuous life isn’t intended to be a continuous series of Herculean efforts. Rather, the virtuous life makes choosing and possessing the good easy, prompt, even joyful. When you see an elite athlete at the top of his game or a concert musician at the height of her powers, they make it seem almost effortless. The goal for each of us is to live our human lives in just this effortless way.

On this point, Aristotle and Saint Thomas highlight how virtue differs from continence, incontinence, and vice. Since these are fine shades of moral reality, it’s worth illustrating each state. To that end, take the example of someone who is deciding whether or not to be honest on her tax returns. For the virtuous person, it’s not even a question. She reports her earnings accurately and precisely, and she couldn’t fathom doing anything else, regardless of present financial straits. She isn’t motivated by fear of discovery, nor does she think in terms of duty-driven obligation. In fact, she derives a kind of enjoyment from filing. For the vicious person, again, it’s not even a question, but in the opposite sense. She feels 100 percent entitled to all of her dollars. If they want to come after her, she’ll tell them the exact same thing. She knows the law and the purpose of the law; she just doesn’t care. She wants the extra cash.

Virtue and vice live at opposite ends of a spectrum. Between them are the two intermediate states of continence and incontinence. Continence is closer to virtue, while incontinence is closer to vice. The continent person experiences conflict or difficulty in her pursuit but eventually succeeds in choosing the higher good. In our example, the woman struggles to balance the ledger, running through different rationalizations why she might report a little less for income or a little more for charitable donations. After some tortured moments, she overcomes the temptation, motivated in part by an ill-defined terror of the IRS, and reports honestly. The incontinent person also experiences conflict or difficulty in her pursuit, but she succumbs to her weakness. That being said, she’s not nearly as pleased with her choice as is the vicious person. The choice makes her nervous, and whenever her phone rings, she assumes that she’s been found out.

This spectrum of states delineates how human beings can be more or less well-formed in their estimation and pursuit of what is good. The vicious person is malformed. The virtuous person is well-formed. The continent person is on the way and the incontinent person a bit further off. This range of options also helps to clarify the goal of the moral life. Man is made for more than merely following the rules well or performing his duty. He is meant to cultivate a real knack for the good and to incline spontaneously toward it as if by a kind of second nature. By growth in virtue, he develops this facility for living well — for choosing well. To become virtuous is to become a virtuoso at living human life.

Consider a musician. At some point in primary school, whether third or fourth grade, practically half of the class signed up for an instrument rental and music lessons. Our musician was among their number. By the end of the sixth grade, most of her classmates have dropped out, but she persisted. At first it was a bit of a slog, but then she started to get the hang of it. A steady ration of scales, arpeggios, and etudes revealed to her the beauty of the instrument. In time, she advanced from modest pieces to arrangements of increasing technicality. She corrected her initial sloppiness with renewed commitment to posture, technique, and form. Soon, her first tastes of excellence fueled a desire for perfection — for greater artistry and subtlety. Her talent, first encouraged by parental oversight, then grew by its own interior laws. Love of the art inspired her efforts. What began with mastering the rudiments soon had her excelling at and delighting in her craft. The fruit of her discipline was a freedom made visible in both workmanship and flair. She had become a virtuoso — a virtuous — musician.

The example of the musician helps us better to grasp the crucial difference between being continent and being virtuous. A lot of people seem to think that the point of the moral life is continence, as if we were made for a lifetime’s toil of scales, arpeggios, and etudes. In fact, the point of the moral life is virtue. We are made for concert performance. We are made to fire on all cylinders and to do so as if effortlessly. Virtue is not a matter of mere moral might; it actually changes us in our inmost being. It makes us good and fit for good deeds. The virtuous person knows what the good life is and chooses it without hemming or hawing. Virtue empowers us to think, to choose, and to feel well. Virtue frees us for flourishing. This is the vision to hold before your mind’s eye as you keep reading. Whether we are focusing on better theory or better practice, it is ultimately to this end. In what remains of the chapter, we will continue advancing toward this goal, homing in on prudence in particular. Before that, though, we’ll situate prudence among the different kinds of virtues.

Faith adheres to God as First Truth speaking. Hope fastens to God as Final Good promised. Charity embraces God as First and Best Friend.

When listing virtues, the Christian tradition thinks in terms of categories or groups. First, there are the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. The theological virtues are called theological because they come from God and go to God. Earlier it was said that some virtues are acquired, while others are infused or received. The theological virtues can in no way be acquired; they can only be infused. Also, when we say that they go to God, this means that they have God as their end — each of these virtues genuinely approaches or arrives at God in some way. Faith adheres to God as First Truth speaking. Hope fastens to God as Final Good promised. Charity embraces God as First and Best Friend. Between their arising from God and returning to God, the theological virtues come to rest in the spiritual powers of the human soul. Faith perfects the intellect, and hope and charity perfect the will. Together, they are considered the greatest of virtues since they come from the highest cause, attain to the highest end, and perfect our highest powers.

Second, there are the moral virtues of justice, fortitude, and temperance. These virtues can be both acquired and infused. There is a lively debate among Catholic theologians on this point, but most hold that the soul can accommodate both acquired and infused versions of these virtues at the same time. So, by acquired temperance, you might concern yourself with dieting for purely natural reasons, whereas by infused temperance you might concern yourself with fasting primarily for the love of God. By contrast to the theological virtues, the moral virtues stay within the limited sphere of human affairs — bringing order to the interior dynamics of sense life and the exterior dynamics of human interaction. Justice perfects the will (rational appetite), and fortitude and temperance perfect the passions (sense appetite). Whereas the theological virtues make one more perfectly like God, the moral virtues make one more perfectly human.

At this stage, you might be remembering grade-school catechism and thinking, “Wait, isn’t prudence a moral virtue?” It is and it isn’t. Most Catholic theologians teach that moral virtues are found in the appetites, whether in the will or the passions. Prudence is involved with the appetites, but it is really and truly found in the intellect. But because of its close cooperation with the appetites, it plays a double role, bridging the moral virtues and the intellectual virtues. If we are being precise, prudence is an intellectual virtue. There is a way, however, of grouping prudence with the moral virtues. Together, they are called the cardinal virtues. The word cardinal is taken from the Latin word for “hinge.” Used in this way, it signifies the importance of these four virtues for human flourishing. Together, they are the very “hinges” of the door through which we enter into the fullness of the moral life.

That covers theological, moral, and cardinal virtues; only the intellectual virtues remain. Or do they? Often enough, many people are content to leave the intellectual virtues to the side, and some go so far as to caution against them. As Charles Kingsley chides, “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.” But must we choose between intelligence and goodness? The main current of the Christian tradition doesn’t think so. In fact, it sees intelligence and goodness as inextricably bound up. The recent popularity of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has helped raise contemporary cultural awareness to the fact that flourishing is, in part, a product of thinking and knowing well. All virtue bears the mark of reason, and virtue of whatever sort requires a reason that is itself perfected by virtue. Intellectual virtues, especially the virtue of prudence, answer to this need.

The human intellect can be exercised in two different ways. Sometimes we seek to know for knowing’s sake. This use is referred to as the speculative reason. (Reason just means intellect in this context.) Other times, we seek to know for doing’s sake. This use is referred to as the practical reason. To be clear, there aren’t two reasons, rather there are just two different uses — speculative and practical — of the one reason.

There are three main virtues of the speculative reason: understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. Understanding is the habit that discloses the most basic principles of human knowing. Before you even begin to think, you already have an innate capacity for making sense of reality. Understanding is the virtue that registers these fundamental insights — things like, “A whole is greater than any of its parts.” Knowledge is the fruit of one’s judging and reasoning upon reality. It registers necessary conclusions about the world — things like “All men are mortal” and “Whatever is moved is moved by another.” Wisdom is both the knowledge of the highest things, and the highest mode of knowledge. The wise person has a keen intellectual sense for how all of reality hangs together and is able to know and order all things fittingly.

There are two main virtues of the practical reason: art and prudence. Art is defined as right reason applied to making. Obviously, this covers more than just painting or music. It includes any trade or skill that shapes material reality. Carpenters, athletes, teachers, and poets all qualify. Art, and the artist, is judged good or bad based on whether the thing is well or ill made. The excellence of the artist is not determined by his motive or his sincerity, but by the excellence of his product.

The last virtue standing is the virtue of prudence. You are probably interested in understanding and practicing prudence better; after all, you picked up this book and have read this far. And yet, many people seem to care little for the subject, or at least not enough to read a book about it. Why is that? In part, it’s because prudence sounds, to many ears, like a wet blanket. We often think of the prudent person as someone who is shrewd in business dealings. He is a maker of economical arrangements. He is cautious and careful in providing for his own interests. Josef Pieper writes of this modern characterization in The Four Cardinal Virtues:

In colloquial use, prudence always carries the connotation of timorous, small-minded self-preservation, of a rather selfish concern about oneself. A ‘prudent’ man is thought to be one who avoids the embarrassing situation of having to be brave. The ‘prudent’ man is the ‘clever tactician’ who contrives to escape personal commitment. Those who shun danger are wont to account for their attitude by appealing to the necessity for ‘prudence.’

Is this all there is to it? Again, the Christian tradition has much more to say on the matter, and limiting prudence to narrow self-interest only obscures its true beauty. The word as it is often used is an impoverished version of the true virtue.

Prudence is right reason applied to doing. It’s the habit of intellectual competence or practical wisdom. It’s related to what the French call savoir-faire or clairvoyance. Prudence suggests sagacity or intellectual penetration. It means clear and skillful knowledge of the truth. Importantly for our purposes, prudence plays a decisive role in moral growth. It works to perfect human choice by degrees, helping one to become completely and truly free. Prudence sees to it that our choices are not isolated instances of moral misery, but part of a bigger story of growing in virtue, maturing in freedom, and attaining true happiness.

Prudence sees to it that our choices are not isolated instances of moral misery, but part of a bigger story of growing in virtue, maturing in freedom, and attaining true happiness.

In the virtuous life, the role played by prudence is paramount. Mindful of this, the remaining chapters are devoted to understanding prudence better, so that we can apply ourselves to practicing it better. The hope is that, with a bolstered prudence placed squarely at the center of our moral imagination, we can make strides toward living and choosing well. Because although human life is filled with difficult choices, it is our high calling to see it through. By the grace of God, the prudent person can ascend by choice all the way to genuine happiness. Rocks can’t. Trees can’t. Dogs can’t. You can.

What do you imagine when you think of the life of virtue? Do you feel like you are doomed to a life of boring rule-following or to a white-knuckling climb on the brink of hell-fire? How does this picture of virtue challenge that notion?

Think of someone whom you consider a virtouso of human life. What marks out his or her life as so wonderful, so admirable? What are some of this person’s virtues that you want to incorporate in your own life?

What role does intelligence play in the good life for you? Are you more likely to overthink or to underthink your pursuit of happiness and holiness? How does envisioning the good life in terms of the intellectual virtues help to work through that?