Prudence provides guidance on the appropriate course of action in specific situations. It does not will the good that it discerns. Prudence has a directive capacity with regard to the other virtues. It lights the way and measures the arena for their exercise. Without prudence, bravery becomes foolhardiness, mercy sinks into weakness, free self-expression and kindness into censure, humility into degradation and arrogance, selflessness into corruption, and temperance into fanaticism. The purpose of prudence is to consider the circumstances of time, place, and manner that are relevant in any given situation, known as medium rationis in the Scholastic tradition. So while it qualifies the intellect and not the will, it is nevertheless a moral virtue.
Prudence provides guidance on the appropriate course of action in specific situations It does not will the good that it discerns. Prudence has a directive capacity with regard to the other virtues. It lights the way and measures the arena for their exercise. Without prudence, bravery becomes foolhardiness, mercy sinks into weakness, free self-expression and kindness into censure, humility into degradation and arrogance, selflessness into corruption, and temperance into fanaticism. The purpose of prudence is to consider the circumstances of time, place, and manner that are relevant in any given situation, known as medium rationis in the Scholastic tradition. So while it qualifies the intellect and not the will, it is nevertheless a moral virtue.