Virtue & Prudence

Here’s the opening paragraph to my thread, “Painfully obvious statements on life and morality.” viewtopic.php?f=1&t=181245

You speak of the ideals of virtue and prudence; I find them to be almost too abstract to even talk about, but a large part of my life was spent on asking the same questions you’ve asked here. Being somewhat nihilistic or I could just say cynical, I only see the smallest use in discussing morality in most ways. But, I’m fine with people holding onto these ideals and struggling to make them work. I think most people, whether you would say they made them work or not, approached them mostly on the safe side as far as their self interest went, I didn’t.

If I didn’t over think the results of a debate on how to be virtuous using prudence, I might agree that those results are worthwhile for people to try to use. The issue for me is how to try to teach, explain and just generally get the message across in various ways. Likely most people don’t worry much about moral advice, so using a confident and simple approach of how to be virtuous would be the best hopt of getting them to listen. Some people do worry a lot about moral advice, and just because we avoided over thinking it, so as to avoid its inherent contradictions they won’t necessarily do so.

When explaining or teaching our moral views to people we don’t know how seriously they are going to take them. So this becomes a moral problem in itself. Do we teach morality in a simple way and let the worriers end up obsessed with those ideas, which when taken literally are self destructive, just so that the majority will at least make some effort at being moral?

This idea that prudence limits virtue is extremely odd to me. When virtue is taken beyond prudence, it is no longer virtue. One can be so generous as to be foolish in giving away all of his resources, for example. That sort of generosity ceases to be a virtue at that point though. I don’t think your example suffices in showing that an act can be prudent without being virtuous or vice versa.

Why not? I think selfishness can be quite prudent in some circumstances. One of the definitions of prudence is “regard for one’s own interests”.

Why not? I can think of scenarios in which all of those acts might be prudent.

Take the case of having sex with sheep. Most everyone would say it’s immoral (barring certain regional prejudices ), but imprudent? She won’t get pregnant, I don’t know of any ovine-human vectors for STDs… It’s imprudent if other people find out about it, of course, or perhaps it’s imprudent because other people might find out about it, but that is certainly not why one would say it’s immoral.

As another example, it might be considered prudent to marry the daughter of a powerful family, to ensure your wealth and your family’s security. That’s not why it would be moral to marry her - it might be prudent yet immoral, if she is besotted with you and you only have your eye on her family status.

They often overlap. Prudence, having an informed eye to the consequences, is a significant concern within a moral decision, as you point out in your example - it’s a useful guide to finding a golden mean, for one thing - but it’s not the only moral concern.

Self-interest is not the same as selfishness. See: thousands of tedious discussions as to why everyone is “selfish” all the time because they choose what they want. Selfishness is harming others through your self-centredness.

I’d argue that it would be considered immoral for the same reasons it would be considered imprudent. Why do you think a utilitarian might find such an act immoral?

That’s exactly why it would be moral—for the sake of my family. If we could get by without me being married, then the act is unnecessary and isn’t prudent.

Then it isn’t prudent. It would be prudent for me to seek status in a way that doesn’t obligate me to a person or family that I have no concern for. It is rather imprudent to waste the families’ time and resources in needlessly seeking status. It’s prudent if I need the security for some reason, in which case I’d make sure the relationship worked for all of our sakes.

I don’t know if I’d say it’s the only moral concern. I do think morality and prudence are very much the same, or they inevitably overlap. I’m still trying to decide if they are one in the same as I think Rivers is arguing [correct me if I’m wrong, Mo].

I think that’s a little hyperbolic. Selfishness is just thinking only of oneself, maybe at the expense of others. I think that can be prudent.

Which are?

As long as the sheep’s enjoying herself, I’m sure the utilitarian’s all for it.

I disagree. I think the advantage gained is prudence; I’m not postulating a family starving on the breadline.

So you’d say it’s moral to marry someone you’re not that into, but will give it a go for the sake of the security?

I don’t think this is resolvable, because I’d disagree with that, but one could theoretically just insist that prudence and morality are the same thing and use the words interchangeably (not saying you are, but one could). As I see it, prudence is more or less the consequentialist part of morality - the wisdom to see the consequences. The less one has moral scruples about treating others as a means to an end, or no conceptions of virtues that are worth accepting suboptimal outcomes for the sake of upholding, the closer they will probably be.

I don’t know if I’d say it’s the only moral concern. I do think morality and prudence are very much the same, or they inevitably overlap. I’m still trying to decide if they are one in the same as I think Rivers is arguing [correct me if I’m wrong, Mo].

I think only of myself when I choose to brush my teeth and floss every night. I’m not keeping these teeth warm for someone else, you know

I don’t know, that’s why I asked you. I mean, if you’re harming the animal, for example, it isn’t prudent. Would you say it’s prudent to harm anything for sex?

Exactly. I mean, just because it’s repulsive doesn’t mean it’s immoral.

Then I think it’s excessive and unnecessary and therefore imprudent. Especially if I’m feigning a relationship with some poor woman.

Yes, under the right circumstances; like if my family genuinely needed that security. In other words, if the benefit to my family was greater than the cost to me and my bride, I think I’d be obligated.

I do think we’ve arrived at a fundamental disagreement. What you seem to be saying here is that prudence and morality are very much the same for a consequentialist, but not so much for a deontologist, which I agree with. My contention is that deontic morality goes wrong in separating virtue and prudence.

Exactly. And that’s prudent; no? Say I’m a recovering drug addict going through rehab. My parents are paying for it, I’m sucking up time and resources from counselors and psychiatrists et al. But I have to focus on getting myself better before I can begin to repay any of them. I’m thinking only of myself for a time at the expense of others because it’s prudent.

Your position is that anything is moral if you demonstrate a greater benefit to you than the loss to someone else?
That’s odd.
And when making the decision to perform an act, you are the sole judge of the benefit and loss. Doesn’t that automatically skew everything in your favor?

No. Greater aggregate benefit or greater benefit to the greatest number of people.

No and no.

This is what I read in your posts:
If you steal from a rich guy who doesn’t need the money and it benefits you and your family, then your action is morally correct.

It could be, sure. It’s not necessarily immoral.

Dear friends and neighbors,

Be very careful when reading an OP whose first steps are to quote from Wikipedia, and then to follow it with the words, “This is all very straightforward”. There’s only two possibilities at such a point: (1) either that statement is true, and thus everything that follows is dull and not needed to be written; or else the person making the statement is full of shit, possibly because of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has made everyone here dumber—in direct proportion to the amount you read and use it. In English when we’re talking about prudence, we’re really talking about the Greek ‘phronesis’—the virtue of practical thought. (‘Prudence’ is just how we translate ‘phronesis’). Prudence doesn’t make virtue possible—it just is a virtue, an intellectual one, among others (art and science).

For those who think there is an essential distinction between morality and prudence… I’ve challenged them to explain that distinction, just as I’ve explained how it arose, and why it is a false and bad distinction. No one has even tried. They cling to a distinction that confuses them about what exactly morality is, and why you should even be moral. They’re lobotomizing themselves.

The best you get is a supposed example, like: “Yo, giving away all of your money is moral, but not prudent”. (As if giving away all of your money to some worthy cause only to make yourself a worthy cause was moral. Or that if the cause really was deserving, then fighting for it would not be prudent—as if it’s not prudent to fight for worthy causes).

They have stupefied themselves with a false distinction. —A distinction without a difference. Well, we have a new OP with a similar example…

Yes, limiting your generosity is probably worthwhile sometimes. Why are we supposed to think that limiting your generosity is not also required by virtue or morality?? It’s an excess, which tilts the Golden Mean and becomes a vice. (And why does that question not strike anon as obvious enough that he would need to answer it in the OP?)

It’s about time that someone admitted that I’m right. It’s just a matter now of getting the person who wrote this to agree with what he said.

In any case, I saw no distinction in the entire OP. A simple definition of each term, and an example of how they are separate would have sufficed…

FOR THOSE interested in the longer case, read this: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=180441#p2349405

This is agreed to and codified by society? Is it also clearly specified what constitutes ‘rich’ and what constitutes a legitimate ‘benefit’?

As far as I know, most human societies don’t consider stealing to be moral. (When it’s ‘moral stealing’ it’s called taxation.)

This is a bad example, but even if it was a better example, it would at best show that prudence and morality are different ways of talking about the same thing. In other words, it’s not an example of an act that is moral but not prudent (or vice versa).

Frankly, I would say this is imprudent for the same reason it is immoral. It’s not imprudent because others might find out about it—it’s imprudent because of what they’ll think if they do. And what they’ll think if they do find out about it is the same reason it is immoral. That’s my suspicion.

This is an example that does not work. Why are you assuming it is immoral to marry the girl to secure your family? Why are you assuming marrying someone is immoral if the reasons why you’re marrying are different from your partner’s? This doesn’t even work at an intuitive level, particularly if he treats her like a princess and she is delighted by it.

There’s a general trend in what’s wrong with these examples… they never really attempt or want to say precisely why something is or isn’t “moral”. —I know why that is…

Mo, thanks for admitting I was right.

Right about what?

von Rivers, I misread your post. I went to your link and just quickly looked through it, you seem to be the first person I’ve ever met who believes in moral objectivity and is willing to go to great lengths to defend that view. I think sometime I’ll read through that thread and then see what I have to say.

Whether or not it is agreed to by everyone else is irrelevant. By “rich”, I took you to mean having excess. What constitutes a legitimate benefit is—you guessed it—prudence.

Again, irrelevant.

The difference between morality and prudence?

First, let’s consider the evaluation of an action in a legal context:
There is a a set of laws covering correct legal action. If you act within the law, then you cannot be legally punished. However, there may be circumstances in which breaking a law is considered justified by reasonable people. For example, driving the wrong way on a one-way street in order to take someone to the hospital in an emergency. The prudent action is illegal but judged to be correct by reasonable people.

Similarly, morality is a code of conduct which spells out correct behavior. It cannot cover every possible situation, so again prudent action is judged to be right even when it goes against the established code.
It should be noted that prudence and legal laws and moral codes will usually be in agreement since the laws and codes are derived from what was in the past considered prudent.

One can conclude that prudence is synonymous with ‘natural’ law or ‘natural’ morality. And what is considered ‘natural’ is decided by wise and virtuous men and women.

The problem with prudence is that imprudent people don’t have it. Aristotle mentions this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis
So a young person is at least amoral and possibly immoral until he gains sufficient prudence. Clearly it is useful to codify morality and use it.

Prudence = the application of practical wisdom to particular situations
Morality = the general principles for action in all situations

That will be a subjective judgement made by people.

Again, prudence is a judgement.

I don’t understand why you try to remove people out of everything.
Either ‘what is moral’ is established by God - which you don’t believe. Even in this case, people decide who is a true prophet of God and who is not.
Or it is discovered by people (like universal gravitation) - in which case people write it down in a book and pass it on.
Or it is fabricated by people for what they believe is a practical purpose - in which case they write it down in a book and pass it on.

On none of these cases is ‘moral’ floating around without context or reference to people. People are the judges of what is moral.

Cool. I am a river to my people.