Aquinas and prudential judgment

In contemporary debates in Catholic moral theology, a distinction is often drawn between actions that are flatly ruled out in principle and those whose permissibility or impermissibility is a matter of prudential judgment. For example, it is often noted that abortion is wrong always and, in principle, whereas how many immigrants a country ought to allow in and under what conditions are matters of prudential judgment.

But exactly what does this mean, and how do we tell the difference between the cases?

It is important at the outset to put aside some common misunderstandings. The difference between matters of principle and matters of prudential judgment is not a difference between moral questions and merely pragmatic ones. Morality is at issue in both cases. Prudence is, after all, one of the cardinal moral virtues. One can be mistaken in one’s prudential judgments, and when one is, one is guilty of imprudence, which is a kind of moral failure (whether or not one is culpable for the failure).

Contrary to another misunderstanding (which I recently had occasion to rebut), to say that something is a matter of prudential judgment and then go on to note that reasonable people can differ in their prudential judgments is not to commit oneself to any kind of moral relativism. Prudential judgments can indeed simply be mistaken. To say that reasonable people can disagree is merely to note that a person might have made such a judgment in good faith on the basis of the evidence available to him, even if the evidence later turns out to be misleading or his reasoning turns out to have been flawed. He is still objectively wrong all the same. Or there may, in some cases, be more than one reasonable way to apply a certain objective and universal moral principle, so that reasonable people might opt to apply it in any of these different ways.

As always, illumination can be found in St. Thomas Aquinas. In several places, he makes remarks that are relevant to understanding the difference between straightforward matters of principle and matters of prudential judgment. For example, in On Evil, Aquinas notes:

The will of a rational creature is obliged to be subject to God, but this is achieved by affirmative and negative precepts, of which the negative precepts oblige always and on all occasions, and the affirmative precepts oblige always but not on every occasion… One sins mortally who dishonors God by transgressing a negative precept or not fulfilling an affirmative precept on an occasion when it obliges. (Question VI, Regan translation)

Though the distinction between matters of principle and matters of prudence is somewhat loose, it seems largely (though perhaps not always) to correspond to Aquinas’s distinction between negative precepts, which oblige on every occasion, and affirmative precepts, which do not. What this distinction amounts to is made clearer in some remarks St. Thomas makes when commenting on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:

He lists the negative precepts, which forbid a person to do evil to his neighbor. And this for two reasons. First, because the negative precepts are more universal both as to time and as to persons. As to time, because the negative precepts oblige always and at every moment. For there is no time when one may steal or commit adultery. Affirmative precepts, on the other hand, oblige always but not at every moment, but at certain times and places: for a man is not obliged to honor his parents every minute of the day, but at certain times and places. Negative precepts are more universal as to persons, because no man may be harmed. Second, because they are more obviously observed by love of neighbor than are the affirmative. For a person who loves another, rather refrains from harming him than gives him benefits, which he is sometimes unable to give. (Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, Chapter 13, Lecture 2)

Aquinas’s examples hopefully make his meaning clear. Consider the negative precept “Do not commit adultery.” Because adultery is intrinsically evil, we must never commit it, period, regardless of the circumstances. And because we therefore needn’t consider circumstances, no judgment of prudence is required in order to apply the precept to circumstances. Whatever the circumstances happen to be, we simply refrain from committing adultery, and that’s that.

By contrast, applying the affirmative precept “Honor your father and mother” does require attention to circumstances. To be sure, the precept never fails to be binding on us (which is what Aquinas means by saying that it “obliges always”), but exactly what obeying it amounts to depends crucially on circumstances (which is why he says that “times and places” are relevant).

For example, suppose your father commands you to bring him a bottle of wine. Does honoring him oblige you to do so? It depends. Suppose he has had a hard day, finds it relaxing to drink in moderation, and is infirm and has trouble walking. Then it would certainly dishonor your father to ignore him and make him get up and fetch the bottle himself. But suppose instead that he has a serious drinking problem, has already had too much wine, and will likely beat you or your mother if he gets any drunker. Then it would not dishonor him to refuse to bring the bottle.

As Aquinas suggests in the Romans commentary, affirmative precepts involve providing someone with a benefit of some kind, which one is “sometimes unable to give.” Consider the affirmative precept to give alms. Even more obviously than in the case of the precept to honor one’s parents, what following this precept entails concretely is highly dependent on circumstances. Obviously, one cannot always be giving alms, for even if one tried to do so, one would quickly run out of money and not only be unable to give any further alms, but would be in need of alms oneself. How to follow this affirmative precept clearly requires making a judgment of prudence. How much money do I need for my own family? How much might I be able to spare for others, and how frequently? Exactly who, among all the people who need alms, should I give to? Should I give by donating money, or instead by giving food and the like? The answers to these questions are highly dependent on circumstances and will vary from person to person, place to place, and time to time.

The more complicated and variable the circumstances, the more difficult it can be to decide on a single correct answer, and thus the greater the scope for reasonable disagreement. The disagreement can be reasonable in either of two ways.

First, what might be obligatory for one person, given the details of his circumstances, may not be obligatory for another person, given the details of his own very different circumstances. For example, a rich man is bound to be obligated to give more in the way of alms than a poor man is. Second, disagreement can be reasonable insofar as the complexity of the situation might make it uncertain which course of action is best, even for people in the same personal circumstances. Aquinas makes such points in the Summa Theologiae:

The practical reason… is busied with contingent matters, about which human actions are concerned: and consequently, although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects. Accordingly then… in matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles: and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all.

It is therefore evident that… as to the proper conclusions of the practical reason, neither is the truth or rectitude the same for all, nor, where it is the same, is it equally known by all. Thus it is right and true for all to act according to reason: and from this principle it follows as a proper conclusion, that goods entrusted to another should be restored to their owner. Now this is true for the majority of cases: but it may happen in a particular case that it would be injurious, and therefore unreasonable, to restore goods held in trust; for instance, if they are claimed for the purpose of fighting against one’s country. And this principle will be found to fail the more, according as we descend further into detail, e.g. if one were to say that goods held in trust should be restored with such and such a guarantee, or in such and such a way; because the greater the number of conditions added, the greater the number of ways in which the principle may fail, so that it be not right to restore or not to restore. (Summa Theologiae I-II.94.4)

Points like these are ignored when, for example, it is alleged that Catholics who favor enforcing immigration laws are somehow no less at odds with the Church’s teaching than Catholics who favor legalized abortion. For one thing, as I’ve shown elsewhere, the Church herself acknowledges the legitimacy of restrictions on immigration. For another, the principles involved in the two cases are crucially different in exactly the ways Aquinas describes. “Do not murder” is a negative precept that flatly rules out a certain kind of action, regardless of the circumstances. And since abortion is a kind of murder, it flatly rules out abortion regardless of the circumstances. There is no question of prudential judgment here.

By contrast, “Welcome the stranger” is an affirmative precept, whose application is highly dependent on circumstances. Moreover, these circumstances involve millions of people and complex matters of culture, law, economics, and national security. Here, even more than in the case of almsgiving, there is much room for reasonable disagreement about how best to apply the precept. That would be obvious even if the Church had not explicitly acknowledged that immigration can be restricted for various reasons (as, again, in fact she has).

It is thus sheer sophistry to pretend that by appealing to the notion of prudential judgment, Catholics who support immigration restrictions are somehow trying to rationalize dissent from Catholic teaching. On the contrary, they are (whether one agrees with them or not) fully within the bounds of what Catholic moral theology has always acknowledged to be a legitimate range of opinion among Catholics.

Similar sophistry is committed by those who speak as if supporting a living wage or government provision of health care ought to be no less a matter of “pro-life” concern than abortion and euthanasia. Here, too, the comparison is specious. Abortion and euthanasia are flatly prohibited in all circumstances because they violate the negative precept “Do not murder.” But principles like “Pay a living wage” or “Ensure health care for all” are affirmative precepts, and how best to apply them to concrete circumstances is highly dependent on various complex and contingent economic considerations.

There can be no reasonable disagreement among Catholics about whether abortion and euthanasia should be illegal. But there can be reasonable disagreement among them about whether a certain specific minimum wage law is a good idea, or which sort of economic arrangements provide the best way to secure health coverage for all.

The same point can be made about other contemporary controversies, mutatis mutandis. And it applies across the political spectrum (e.g., to those who, during the most recent presidential election, pretended that there could be no reasonable doubt that any loyal Catholic must vote for their favored candidate).

(Editor’s note: This essay was first posted, in slightly different form, on the author’s blog on July 10th. It is posted here with the kind permission of the author.)