Prudence or Practical Wisdom or Phronesis

Another distinguishing feature of AVT is that the striving for virtue leads to the acquisition of an inner wisdom.

‘Aristotle thought that it was ‘good judgment’ or phronesis that was of the greatest importance in ethics. Good judgement (which centred on

81

perception rather than the abstract formulation and interpretation of general principles) was the product of a good upbringing, a proper education…..what is required in and every particular case is the ability to balance and weigh competing concerns and come to say a ‘fair’ conclusion. What’s say fair is not the outcome of one or several pre- ordained principles of justice, it is a judgement call’ (Solomon, 1992a, pp. 328-329).

Phronesis guides us when we start thinking about how to act (praxis). It’s the capacity to make wise decisions regarding which virtues are called for in

particular situations and the best way to enact those virtues (Fagothey, 2000; Kane & Patapan, 2006; Klein, 1998a, 1998b). Bragues (2006) has written about the importance of this in the business context. He explains how practical wisdom has the task of guiding action through the thickets of particularity. Human behaviour is messy and unpredictable and to act well one needs certain sensitivity to the particular good of the people involved and to the contingency of the

circumstances.

Practical wisdom or phronesis depends on the virtuous dispositions of the acting individual (MacIntyre, 1999). Aristotle held that phronesis encompassed all the virtues, as it was impossible without a virtuous orientation. As Mele (2005) has noted:

Ethical perception depends on certain human capacities, related with character. This capacity to perceive the ethical dimension of the reality is no more than practical wisdom or prudence (in the moral sense), an intellectual virtue, which is the result of striving for virtue (p. 102).

This is because judgements about what to do are determined to some extent by how a person habitually acts. The more virtuous the actor is, the more clearly will a virtuous act be judged as a good thing to do. This is due to the intimate link between the human intelligence and will. For example, a lazy person is more likely to subjectively judge cutting corners in work to be OK for him/her; whereas

82

a virtuous person would not want to work like that - they would subjectively judge that to be unacceptable for her/him.

A virtuous character and phronesis are connected because the actions of the actor modify the actor. One’s free actions have exterior but more importantly interior effects (Mele, 2005).Virtuous choices make a person more virtuous because human nature has a purpose or end; as has been seen, certain actions are not morally indifferent to that end and so either distance a person from or move a person closer to their proper end - that end established by human nature (Guardini, 1999). Furthermore, Arjoon (2008b) asserts that phronesis assists not only with judging well, but also in carrying out the judgement made; he calls phronesis ‘a disposition to act’. He explains this as follows:

Philosophers have long realised the gap between knowledge (to know the good) and action (to do the good). It is precisely the virtues, in particular phronesis, that establish the link between knowing and doing; virtues regulate the dynamic interplay between knowledge and behaviour in concrete situations. Practical judgement entails having the right moral beliefs and the requisite knowledge to reach a decision in a concrete situation and to act on this disposition to do the right thing (p. 235).

MacIntyre (1999) concurs on this point. He argues that practical judgment entails: A chain of reasoning whose first premises concern the human good (goods that one desires, that would achieve human flourishing), whose intermediate steps specify what virtues require, if the human good is to be achieved, and whose conclusion is the action that is good and best for us to perform here and now (p. 159).

Phronesis distinguishes AVT from Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. According to Annas (2004) AVT is not a theory which tells us what to do (like the formulaic Kantian ethics and utilitarianism) rather it guides us by improving the practical reasoning with which we act.

83

If a moral actor neglects Aristotelian phronesis (which includes excellences of character or moral virtue), he or she cannot mediate adequately between moral rules and principles and moral problems (Klein, 1998b). AVT says that morally good habits arise from repeated experiences that are good, and these experiences help to develop the moral perceptiveness and sensitivity found in phronesis (Klein, 1998b).

Principles-based approaches such as deontology and teleology ignore the impact of the actor’s character on ethical behaviour and moral judgement (Mele, 2009). Kupperman (1988) maintains that deontology and teleology are incomplete without Aristotelian phronesis. He argues that the way a Kantian maxim is perceived is dependent upon the type of character nurtured. In utilitarianism the consequences that we do consider relate to our moral perceptions of what is relevant. These theories provide in simple terms a decision procedure totally detached from the life of the actor (Annas, 2004). Such theories are praised for being egalitarian - available to anyone who takes the trouble to master the decision procedure. However, Hursthouse (1999) has rightly pointed out that if these theories were a reflection of the real world we could perhaps look to the advice of very clever teenagers or very brilliant people regardless of their character.