Practical wisdom is an intellectual virtue and part of the rational soul. Ideally, it thinks well as it guides desire, emotion, and behavior according to principle and circumstance. Practical wisdom grasps principles like fairness, courage, and friendship, and deliberates about the wisest action for the particular circumstances. It can lead us wisely toward the real goods necessary for fulfillment, or it can mislead us by foolish reasoning. Practical wisdom is a fundamental virtue, the bedrock of all the moral virtues and clearly indispensable to a good life.

The moral virtues to be discussed in this chapter are different from practical wisdom because they are only slightly rational and can be irrational at times. Moral virtues, you will recall, are really irrational emotions and their correlated actions, under the sway of prudence or practical wisdom, however gifted or feeble that may be. Moral virtues are hexes, habitual ways of responding that are developed over a lifetime. They are in a sense automatic, as the term “habit” would imply, but at the same time they are semi-conscious and semi-cognitively directed by the intelligence of practical wisdom. The moral virtues determine the way we live, for better or for worse.