MM#358--Foundations in Flourishing, pt.5 - The Four Cardinal Virtues...But Why?

0:07 Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser. Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute and to another installment in our series called the Foundations of Flourishing, where we are unpacking how to create a flourishing life for ourselves, our friends and our family. Now, in our last Mojo Minute, we talked about why virtue is needed, why virtue is far more effective than values.

0:53 If you missed that episode, be sure to check it out. But today we want to kick off our discussion on what human history has told itself for the last 3,000 years, roughly, at least for the last 2,500 years, specifically, that there is such a thing as human nature, and human nature has specific acts and habits that we routinely do and carry out. So what are we talking about? Well, it's these. It is the four cardinal virtues. They are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

1:38 These virtues have a rich history dating back to the ancient Greek philosophies. Now let's talk a little bit about the history first. This concept of four cardinal virtues originated with Plato, who discussed them in his work the Republic, and they were further developed by other Greek philosophers like Aristotle. Now, the term cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, meaning hinge, as these virtues were considered the hinges upon which all the other virtues and moral character are built. While it's not explicitly defined in the Bible, these virtues are exemplified throughout Scripture in the actions and teachings of many of the biblical figures we read about Now.

2:25 Early Christian leaders and theologians adopted these virtues from Greek philosophy and they incorporated them into Christian ethics and moral theology. Now each of the cardinal virtues represents a key aspect of the moral character. First, prudence, which is the ability to discern the appropriate course of action in given circumstances. Justice it encompasses righteous conduct. Also fairness, honesty and integrity. Now, fortitude represents the emotional strength and courage and resilience in the face of adversity.

3:07 And temperance refers to self-control, mastery, moderation and restraint over the human soul and the human body's desires and impulses. Now, these virtues are considered fundamental to living a virtuous life and form the basis of virtue ethics. That's kind of a new term, virtue ethics. Let's not be confused by that. In the Christian tradition they complement the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love. Now we'll talk about these virtues in a later podcast, but for now let's stay on the four cardinal virtues. Again, they are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

3:49 In fact, let's grab our first pull quote from our book of the day and we're going to stay with Back to Virtue by Peter Kreeft and let's go to the book. The four cardinal virtues of justice, wisdom, which we can also call prudence, courage, sometimes called fortitude and moderation, sometimes called self-control or temperance, come not just from Plato or Greek philosophy. You will find them in scripture. They are knowable by human nature, which God designed, not Plato. Now, plato first formulated them, but he did for virtue only what Newton did for motion.

4:37 He discovered and tabulated its own inherent foundational laws. These four are called cardinal virtues for the Latin word for hinge, which we just learned about. All other virtues hinge on these four. That includes lesser virtues, which are the corollaries of these, and also greater virtues, the three theological virtues, which are the flower of these. These cardinal virtues are not the only virtues, or even the highest ones. As Einstein surpassed Newton, jesus most certainly surpassed Plato. But just as Einstein did not contradict Newton but included him, presupposed him and built on him, so Jesus' supernatural virtues do not contradict Plato's natural virtues, but presupposes them.

5:28 Plato also gives us virtues, grammar, and Jesus gives us virtues poetry. And let's pause real quick there. Is that not just great writing? I mean, kreeft really nails it with that paragraph when he says Plato gives us virtues grammar. Jesus gives us virtues. Poetry that's just great stuff. You know, even though we're learning and taking in the four cardinal virtues, the more I have read over the last 15 years, the more I can just appreciate good, solid writing, and Kreef gives us that time and time again in this book.

6:14 It's just great stuff. Now we're going to go back to the book and we're going to make a subtle change here, because normally we would dive in and go through each of the four cardinal virtues. I don't want to do that today. We might do it later, but I don't think many of you or most of you probably know about the four cardinal virtues for the most part, but most of you probably don't know how they came about and what the why behind that is. I think that's a much more substantive and a much more called for argument that we have to win.

6:56 Why do we want to study these four cardinal virtues? How do we get here? Instead of just assuming or presupposing that we need to know these four cardinal virtues, most students who have never learned this, who have never had a classical education I didn't. I was very intrigued more by the why we need these cardinal virtues versus the how or what they actually are. So let's go to the book, because Peter Kreef knocks us out of the park and it's a great story. Let's go to the book.

7:37 During the silly sixties, I was teaching a course in ethics at Boston college to a class of idealistic, impatient and anti-historical freshmen whose vision of history was the dark ages and then us. They were eager to save the world, design a new society and liberate themselves and everyone else, especially those who did not want to be liberated from the terrible, tyrannical past and to create a brave new world for the bright future. So my assigned reading list, composed of Plato, aristotle, augustine and Aquinas, hardly turned them on. They protested we know so much more than those people in the past did and were not impressed with my comeback from TS Eliot.

8:25 Yes, and they are that which we know. So they asked me whether we could do something more relevant, something more experimental, something like what other classes were doing designing their own course instead of being quote enslaved to the hoary past and to the imposed values of the teacher. I decided to go along with their scheme for a trial run. I said I'd play Socrates with them and together we'd try to design a new ethic for a new society from scratch. I would only be their Socratic questioner, not their lecturer.

9:07 They were thrilled. Now, if these students had any sense to them. If they had just read their history, just a fragment of their history, even a tiny morsel of history, and understood Socrates, they would have known. Once Professor Kreeft mentioned he would be wait, what did he call himself? Oh, here it is. He called himself. I'll play Socrates with them and together we design a new ethic for a new society from scratch. And here's the kicker. For those students, kreef says I would only be their Socratic questioner, not their lecturer.

9:53 Got them. Hey, let's face it, we were all young and dumb once too, but at least they could have read some history and know who and what Socrates was and did In fact know why he's important, because his questions, those Socratic questions, are going to be the student's downfall. But let's stay with the story. Back to the book. Off and running, we went throwing our books temporarily into the ragbag or dustbin of history and consulting only our precious creativity.

10:36 Now, what values do we want in this new society? First of all, do we want a double standard, a different ethic for society and for individuals? No, no, that was the hypocrisy of the past and the present establishments, no double standard, all right, all right. Next, what does society need? It needs harmony, cooperation, togetherness, working as one, each doing the thing he can do best for the others, for the community, doing your own thing and communalism at once. That sounds like a very progressive notion of justice, better than the old legalistic one. In fact, it sounds like music which they loved very much.

11:19 True justice is social music, harmony. What an enlightened idea. And on and on it went from the qualities of a leader should have to the values of. Oh, the leaders. Are the values, that the big one, the values. Remember the values. Then it moved on to heroism. Do we value that? Of course we do, they shouted. And on and on it went. They talked about greed. Is that a virtue or a value? Not a virtue. Capitalism is bad. It's bad, it's even. It's worse than bad. It's wicked. We need to practice Buddha's detachment or Thoreau's peace with nature, and that will remove all the greed.

12:03 They created the new economy. They created a new psychology. In fact, they created a whole new society. They even talked about happiness. They wanted everyone to be happy. Actually, let's Pick up the story there. That's as good a place as any. Perhaps we should write all this up, put it down in our new discoveries, in a book you know for the world, a book for a new age. How exciting, unless it may have been done before. How would we know whether it has or not? You in fact scorned the past. Are you quite sure what it is you've scorned?

12:43 Let's just take one sample, drilling from the soil of the past. Let's look at the first and oldest philosophical, ethic and politic in our civilization Plato's Republic. Let's test old Plato by our new wisdom and see how he scores Might. He have anticipated any of our ideas. The reader who has read the Republic can anticipate the next step. The students were truly amazed to find all eight of the ideas they had just discovered were precisely the main points of this bewhiskered old classic no double standard, justice as harmony, wisdom as understanding, courage as non-physical Moderation versus materialism, the fit between the three virtues and the three parts of the soul, the fact that justice leads to happiness for individuals in society, the justice is more profitable than injustice, and overall, the use of rational discovery and persuasion rather than force.

13:49 After reading all this in the Republic, they wanted to read more old stuff, old stuff. So we read Plato's, gregorios, aristotle's Neomachian Ethics, augustine's Confessions and even parts of Aquinas' Summa Theologia. They found Aquinas' treatise on happiness, the Summa, parts one and two, question two on those things in which happiness consists. Those things in which happiness consists a particular relevant reading, for they could classify all their friends and all their favorite characters in fiction as pursuing one or another of the candidates for happiness that Aquinas listed, explored and refuted Ah, you see folks.

14:36 And refuted, ah, you see folks. You see, that's why we read the classics and why we have the humility to understand that, even though people came before us, they were not as dumb as most of your elite liberal and radical professors are telling you they are. In fact, some of them were a hell of a lot smarter than you and I. I wanted to share that long story with you because it sets the stage for us to really genuinely have an appreciation of the four cardinal virtues and what they create for us, because they create a foundation, in fact.

15:20 Just one last quote these four cardinal virtues are not the only virtues, but they are the cadres, the hinges on which the other virtues turn. They are the necessary foundation and precondition for all the others. If a person is not courageous, for instance, he will not overcome the difficulties inherent in the practice of any virtue. If he is not wise, he will not understand what he is doing and his virtue will sink to the level of blind animal instinct. There are many more virtues than these. There has always been more, for there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

16:02 But nevertheless, this is the foundation. This must be built or rebuilt first. Social and educational experiments must be built on this foundation or on none. If we are to rebuild our civilization, if we are to rebuild a new one, we need to build on a foundation whose posts reach down into our own being, at least Ultimately. They must be anchored in God, but we are the image of God. But we are the image of God. And now we know the why of having the foundational virtues in our lives, which is an important concept.

16:50 The why is very important Because human beings, in our very same place, over the course of some 2,500 years, have thought about and pondered, debated and wrestled with these virtues, and they are the best of the best of human experience, especially what human experience has taught us over those years. The cardinal virtues have had a lasting impact on Western philosophy, on ethics, on even religious thought, and now we know the why behind those virtues.

17:31 They have been incorporated into various ethical frameworks and they continue to be relevant in discussions of moral character and behavior. Most especially in Christian teaching, cultivating these virtues is seen as essential for leading an upright and moral life and being a positive force in society. In fact, they are the foundation, the foundation in building a flourishing life. Now. Now, next time we'll talk about the three theological virtues faith, hope and love. But until then, keep fighting the good fight.

18:14 Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast. No-transcript.