Too little
Attractive haste: recommend the move because the model looks inviting.
Prudence
Consider who may bear the delayed costs of advice that sounds attractive today.
A disposition to weigh consequences before choosing a worthy course of action.
Prudence lets practical understanding look ahead. Advice should consider who will carry it out, what it may require and which later effects deserve attention. A worthy purpose needs a course that can serve it in real circumstances.
Try a practice
A scene of understanding
On the community hall’s miniature layout, you propose moving the heavy bookcase to create a reading nook. It looks splendid from above. A companion opens the tiny door, which now stops against the bookcase. You move the model back. Your excellent advice has just met its first visitor.
An invented illustrative scene.
Prudence gives…
Prudence gives counsel a chance to fit the lives it enters. Considering the doorway before moving the actual bookcase can preserve both the reading nook and access to the hall.
What Prudence makes possible
You can offer a conditional suggestion, ask about constraints and compare a reversible trial with a large commitment. That makes advice more informative while leaving the decision with those affected.
Prudence: finding the balance
A fitting response
Considered counsel: check access, effort and affected users before proposing a trial.
Pursued too far
Endless forecasting: invent remote obstacles until no workable option receives consideration.
A decision cannot wait for knowledge of every consequence. Prudence identifies the important uncertainties and chooses a proportionate way to proceed.
Prudence in ordinary life
An ordinary recommendation
Ask about the recipient’s constraints before suggesting a demanding method.
A shared change
Consider a modest reversible trial and review what it actually changes.
Nearby virtues, different work
Discernment
Discernment examines the grounds; Prudence considers the course and its consequences.
Perspective
Perspective widens the moral frame; Prudence weighs what a choice may bring within it.
Prudence and its counterfeits
Pessimistic paralysis counterfeits Prudence when every imagined difficulty becomes a veto. Prudence weighs relevant consequences and can support timely action when the grounds are sufficient.
How to cultivate Prudence
- Name the worthy purpose.
- Ask who does the work and who bears later effects.
- Compare the promising option with a feasible alternative.
Try it today
For a minor decision of your own, identify one delayed consequence and one reversible first step. Use those to choose a fitting course.
Revisit the choice after the trial. What did experience add that prediction could not?
Use ordinary personal decisions. A character exercise supplies no individualized medical, legal or financial advice and does not authorize hazardous furniture moving.
Questions worth returning to
- Whose effort makes this advice possible?
- What would I want to know before carrying it out?
Keep the practice proportionate
Use ordinary personal decisions. A character exercise supplies no individualized medical, legal or financial advice and does not authorize hazardous furniture moving.
These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.
About these practicesQuotations and further reading
Seven readings, one for each day. All remain available here. Historical arguments and fictional dialogue are identified in their source notes.
… What if the plainest reasons are the best seated? the meanest, lowest, and most beaten more adapted to affairs? …
Michel de Montaigne · Essays
(zero-based); exact span 511–622
Michel de Montaigne’s essay voice · 1877 Cotton/Hazlitt edition; current Gutenberg 3600 transcription
English translation by Charles Cotton; revised and edited by William Carew HazlittPlain, familiar reasons may fit practical affairs best. The model doorway supplies a concrete reason that the attractive overhead view missed.
… But he that wishes to give an appropriate answer must carefully consider both the question and the mind of the questioner …
Plutarch · Morals: Ethical Essays
(zero-based); exact span 1258–1379
Plutarch’s essay voice; ancient report rather than modern evidence · 1888 George Bell and Sons translation; current Gutenberg 23639 transcription
English translation by Arthur Richard ShilletoAn appropriate answer considers the question and questioner. Practical advice needs the recipient’s actual situation, not only an available explanation.
… Hear much and put aside the points of which you stand in doubt, while you speak cautiously at the same time of the others:— then you will afford few occasions for blame. …
Confucius · The Analects
(zero-based); exact span 304–473
Confucius, Analects II.18 · Legge translation of The Chinese Classics; current Gutenberg 3330 transcription
English translation by James LeggeThe counsel to hear and observe cautiously joins speech to action. It illuminates examining uncertainties before recommending a change.
(3) Men in business, who are answerable with their fortunes for the consequences of their opinions, and are therefore accustomed to ascertain pretty accurately the grounds on which they act, before they commit themselves on the event, are often men of remarkably quick and sound judgements. …
William Hazlitt · Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
(zero-based); exact span 0–290
William Hazlitt’s essay voice · 1821–1822 essays; current Gutenberg 3020 transcriptionHazlitt connects accountability for consequences with examining grounds. His class generalization is historical opinion; the relevant question is who bears the result of advice.
For it is among the repulsive effects of this bad temper, which is supposed to be compatible with shining virtues, that it is apt to determine a man's sudden adhesion to an opinion, whether on a personal or impersonal matter, without leaving him time to consider his grounds. …
George Eliot · Impressions of Theophrastus Such
(zero-based); exact span 0–275
The fictional narrator Theophrastus Such · 1879 work; current Gutenberg 10762 transcriptionTouchwood’s temper settles allegiance before grounds are examined. It shows why a satisfying immediate response can make poor counsel.
Good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign powers; ‘tis folly to think that human prudence can play the part of Fortune; and vain is his attempt who presumes to comprehend both causes and consequences, and by the hand to conduct the progress of his design; and most especially vain in the deliberations of war. …
Michel de Montaigne · Essays
(zero-based); exact span 0–322
Michel de Montaigne’s essay voice · 1877 Cotton/Hazlitt edition; current Gutenberg 3600 transcription
English translation by Charles Cotton; revised and edited by William Carew HazlittMontaigne distinguishes prudence from control over fortune. Advice can weigh important effects without promising to command every outcome.
… Nor can Protagoras himself maintain that one man is as good as another in his knowledge of the future; …
Plato · Theaetetus
(zero-based); exact span 1648–1750
Benjamin Jowett, introductory interpretation · 1871 Jowett translation; current Gutenberg 1726 transcription
English translation by Benjamin JowettJowett’s account of the dialogue separates prediction about expediency from equal present appearances. Advice has to consider the future, with its uncertainty openly retained.
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Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.