The Virtue of Prudence and Lawmaking
by
Christopher Dodson
Executive Director, North Dakota Catholic Conference
April 2009
What makes a good legislator? What makes a good citizen in
a democratic society where citizens have the opportunity
and duty to engage in the legislative process? What makes a
good lobbyist or advocate?
Essential to Christian belief is that God respects our free
will. This means, in turn, that we must act in order to do
good. Doing the right thing does not just magically happen.
The ancient Greeks called this virtue and the Church
Fathers, drawing on St. Paul, adapted them to a Christian
understanding of human nature. A virtue is an habitual and
firm disposition to do the good.
The Catechism calls four of these virtues “human
virtues.” They are prudence, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. They are also called the cardinal virtues, from
the Latin word for “hinge.” Think of the
cardinal virtues as the hinges upon which the door of the
moral life swings.
Prudence is the virtue that allows us to use practical
reason to discern the true good in every circumstance and
to choose the right means of achieving it. St. Thomas
Aquinas says that prudence is “right reason in
action.” The exercise of right reason is at the core
of prudence, for prudence is what ultimately should
determine how we act and when we act.
For this reason, prudence is called the charioteer of the
virtues. It guides the other virtues. Justice, fortitude,
and temperance can veer off-track if we don’t
exercise prudence. Suppose a farmer chooses a particular
week to plant a particular seed. The factors going into his
decision (soil conditions, growing season, market prices)
are part of the act of prudence. 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).
In modern English, prudence is often viewed the same as
being timid or over-cautious. But this is not what it
really means. Indeed, acting timid is, by definition, not
acting prudent.
Prudence is essential when making laws. Laws are not just
expressions of opinion. They are concrete rules of action
with real consequences. Lawmakers - which in a democracy
includes all citizens - should be viewed like a surgeon
operating on a patient. Bills are like the scalpel and
society is like the patient. Just as a surgeon exercises
prudence when deciding how to act, the legislator should
exercise prudence in how to address a particular issue.
Similarly, just as a surgeon uses prudence to determine
when to act, legislators must consider when is the right
time for a particular law.
It was not that long ago that most observers thought that
the U.S. Supreme Court, if given the opportunity, would
rule that school vouchers for religious schools were
unconstitutional. Sending a case to the Supreme Court at
that time risked having the court establish a case
precedent against school vouchers. Once the court directly
decides on a particular issue, it is hard to get it to
reverse its position.
Advocates for parental choice decided to pursue the issue
in steps, setting up cases on the periphery of the
court’s religious establishment cases which they
could win and which would eventually set up the conditions
for a favorable ruling on vouchers. This “teeing
up” strategy worked and eventually the time was right
to push for a decision on vouchers. The court ruled that
vouchers were constitutional. Had school choice advocates
pushed for vouchers before the other cases, it might have
set the school choice movement back many years. The
decision to wait and act incrementally was an exercise of
prudence.
Today we often think of Abraham Lincoln as the Great
Emancipator and forget that he was harshly criticized
during his presidency by those who favored the abolition of
slavery. Lincoln opposed slavery as much as they did. He
thought, however, that immediate abolition could not be
achieved politically or legally without negative
consequences. For this, he was called
“equivocating,” “vacillating,”
“weak,” and “timid.” Yet, he took
another, more prudent approach and eventually paved the way
for emancipation.
We should be thankful that Lincoln did not cave-in to his
detractors and fellow opponents of slavery and that he took
time to exercise the virtue of prudence. It is a lesson
every legislator and all of us must take to heart.
Future columns will address how the other human virtues
impact the making of laws.
