Prudence and Acquired Moral Virtue

The Thomist 69 (2005): 535-55 PRUDENCE AND ACQUIRED MORAL VIRTUE ANGELA MCKAY The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. IT IS WELL KNOWN that Aquinas holds that the acquired moral virtues can exist apart from charity.1 Several Thomist scholars, however, have argued that we are to understand Aquinas's repeated assertions that the acquired moral virtues can exist apart from grace only in the following highly qualified sense: although an individual can acquire disconnected dispositions to various good actions apart from charity, he cannot possess connected acquired moral virtue.2 In this paper I wish to address a defense of the above claim recently put forward by Thomas Osborne.3 Osborne questions 1 Aquinas makes this claim explicitly in STh I-II q. 65, a. 2; and STh II-II q. 23, a. 7. Aquinas's remarks in other texts, such as his assertion in Quaestiones disputatae De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 9, ad 5 that the acquired virtues are not destroyed by mortal sin, imply the same thesis. 2 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange holds that the acquired virtues cannot be connected apart from grace; see Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. Sr. Timothea Doyle (New York: Herder Book Co., 1947), 59. Jacques Maritain also argues in favor of this position (Jacques Maritain, Science and Wisdom, trans. Bernard Wall [London: The Centenary Press, 1940], 145-52). Robert Miner has recently defended the same thesis on the basis of his reading of STh I-II q. 61, a. 5; and STh I-II q. 62, a. 4. Miner believes that the "purgative virtue" Aquinas describes in the fifth article of question 61 is a description of the highest form of acquired virtue, and concludes on the basis of this that acquired prudence cannot exist without charity. Due to length constraints, I will not address Miner's argument in this paper. However, I should note that a comparison of De virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 2; and STh I-II q. 61, a. 5 indicates that what Miner takes as a description of acquired virtue is in fact a reference to infused virtue. See Robert Miner, "Non-Aristotelian Prudence in the Prima Secundae," The Thomist 64 (2000): 401-22. 3 Thomas Osborne, "The Augustinianism of Thomas Aquinas's Moral Theory," The Thomist 67 (2003): 279-305. Osborne is responding to Brian Shanley, "Aquinas on Pagan Virtue," The Thomist 63 (1999): 553-77. 535 536 ANGELA McKAY whether the pagan can possess connected moral virtue. Specifically , he argues that because there can be no acquired prudence without charity, neither can there be any connected acquired moral virtue without charity, but only disconnected inclinations to good actions.4 Definitive proof for this conclusion, he believes, can be found in the first and second articles of question 65 of the Prima Secundae. He argues that these articles establish that (1) without prudence the acquired moral virtues can be no more than isolated dispositions to good actions, and that (2) prudence cannot exist without charity. Consequently, we cannot but conclude that (3) without charity there can be no prudence and hence no connected acquired moral virtue.5 If such an argument can be found in question 65, it certainly seems to prove Osborne's point. However, as I shall argue in this paper, it is by no means clear that we ought to interpret the second article of question 65 as Osborne and others do. I shall argue that a careful reading of the relevant textsespecially question 65 of the Prima Secundae-indicates that Aquinas does believe that the acquired moral virtues, connected by acquired prudence, can exist apart from grace. If scholars believe the texts indicate otherwise, it is most likely because they overlook Aquinas's distinction between acquired and infused moral virtue in general, and his distinction between acquired and infused prudence in particular. My argument will have three parts. First, I will examine Aquinas's treatment of the connection of the virtues in his Quaestio disputata De virtutibus cardinalibus. This text reveals that Aquinas recognizes three separate levels of virtuous habits: (1) disconnected inclinations towards good actions; (2) the acquired moral virtues, which are connected by prudence but which...