Prudence

Prudence (Latin: prudentia, contracted from providentia meaning "seeing ahead, sagacity") is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason.

Prudentia is an allegorical female personification of the virtue, whose attributes are a mirror and snake, and who is frequently depicted as a pair with Justitia, the Roman goddess of Justice.

In this sense, prudence is a virtue that involves taking calculated risks, but excessive caution can become a vice of cowardice.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives a lengthy account of the virtue phronesis (Ancient Greek: ϕρόνησις)—traditionally translated as "prudence", although this has become problematic as the modern usage of that word has changed.

Prudence was considered by the ancient Greeks and later by Christian philosophers, most notably Thomas Aquinas, as the cause, measure, and form of all virtues.

It is mentioned in the fifth of the Principal Doctrines of Epicurus, and in his Letter to Menoeceus, where he says: "Prudence is the foundation of all these things and is the greatest good.

For instance, a person can live temperately when he has acquired the habit of deciding correctly the actions to take in response to his instinctual cravings.

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.

The Christian understanding of the world includes the existence of God, the natural law, and moral implications of human actions.

The following are the integral parts of prudence: In ethics, a "prudential judgment" is one where the circumstances must be weighed to determine the correct action.

Aristotle's notion of phronesis fits with his treatise on rhetoric because neither, in his estimation, could be reduced to an episteme or a techne, and both deal with the ability to deliberate about contingent, variable, or indeterminate matters.

Cicero maintained that prudence was gained only through experience, and while it was applied in everyday conversation, in public discourse it was subordinated to the broader term for wisdom, sapientia.

Instead, through gauging the situation and through reasoned deliberation, a speaker should determine the set of values and morals by which to base his or her actions.

For example, as rhetorical scholar Lois Self explains, "both rhetoric and phronesis are normative processes in that they involve rational principles of choice-making; both have general applicability but always require careful analysis of particulars in determining the best response to each specific situation; both ideally take into account the wholeness of human nature; and finally, both have social utility and responsibility in that both treat matter of the public good".

[12] Robert Hariman, in his examination of Malcolm X, adds that "aesthetic sensibility, imitation of a performative ideal, and improvisation upon conventions of presentation" are also components of practical reasoning.

[14] Jasinski argues that Andrew Cuomo's speech to the Catholic Church of Notre Dame cannot be judged solely on the basis of its consequences, since prudence is not reducible to episteme (knowledge or understanding) or techne (technique or art).

[11] Thus, while Gadamer judges prudence based on a set of principles, Jasinski emphasizes the artistry of communication and its reception by its audience.

However, recent developments in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles have led academic critics to accuse the International Standard-Setting Body, IASB, of abandoning prudence.

[19] In the British reporting standard FRS 18, prudence, along with consistency, was relegated to a "desirable" quality of financial information rather than fundamental concept.

[21] In a 2011 report on the financial crisis of 2007–08, the British House of Lords bemoaned the demotion of prudence as a governing principle of accounting and audit.