Prudence as the “mother” of all virtues
Prudence was considered by the ancient Greeks and later on by Christian Philosophers, most notably St. Thomas Aquinas, as the cause, measure and form of all virtues. It is considered to be the auriga virtutum or the charioteer of the virtues.
It is the cause in the sense that the virtues, which are defined to be the “perfected ability” of man as a spiritual person (spiritual personhood in the classical western understanding means having intelligence and free will), achieve their “perfection” only when they are founded upon prudence, that is to say upon the perfected ability to make right decisions. For instance, a person can live temperance when he has acquired the habit of deciding correctly the actions to take in response to his instinctual cravings.
Prudence is considered the measure of moral virtues since it provides a model of ethically good actions. “The work of art is true and real by its correspondence with the pattern of its prototype in the mind of the artist. In similar fashion, the free activity of man is good by its correspondence with the pattern of prudence.”(CITE) e.g., the stock, amount, time and means) is the product of an act of prudence, while the actual carrying out of the decision may involve other virtues like fortitude (doing it in spite of fear of failure) and justice (doing his job well out of justice to his company and his family). The actual act’s “goodness” is measured against that original decision made through prudence.
In Greek and Scholastic philosophy, “form” denotes that which provides a thing the specific characteristic that makes it what it is. With this language, prudence confers upon another virtues the form of its inner essence; that is, its specific character as a virtue. .
