2. About the Connection of all the Virtues in a Single Prudence

94. On the other part of this article [n.42], namely about the connection of all the virtues in a single prudence, the Philosopher seems to say that there is such a connection, Ethics 6.13.1145a1-2, “Prudence exists as one and all the virtues will be present in it.” See the Commentator there [Eustratius On Ethics 6.18].

a. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

95. Now how there is one prudence for all morality can be posited in the same way as for the habit of science - see the opinion [of Henry] and its rejection Commentary on the Metaphysics 6 q.1, Lectura III d.36 nn.87-89, 91-101.

b. Scotus’ own Opinion

96. To this question, therefore, one can say that just as art concerns makeable things so prudence does doable things, and there is no greater connection of doable things as they regard one habit than of makeable things. So just as diverse makeable things require their own diverse arts, so diverse doable things require their own diverse prudences. And just as someone can be morally well disposed as to some doable things and badly as to others, so can one in giving commands be habituated to giving them rightly in these matters but not in those - and yet the former are not principles for giving commands about the latter nor conclusions following from the latter.

97. Now the way that all prudences are one habit, and all habits of geometry belong to one universal science, was stated in the Commentary on Metaphysics 6 q.1 nn.17-27, 40, 42. For a single formal unity is not to be understood there but a virtual one. For just as the habit about a first subject is formally one because of it and is virtually, but not formally, about everything contained in the first subject, so the habit that is formally about some end in doable things is virtually of everything of which the practical knowledge is included virtually in that end. But it is not formally of all those things, and so the one prudence formally is of all virtues virtually, if we extend the name ‘prudence’ to the habit that is the understanding of the practical first principle.

98. Accordingly one can expound the authority of the Philosopher in Ethics 6 [n.94] such that either he is speaking of one prudence formally, and then one must understand that all the virtues will be in one existing and perfect prudence, not only as to intension but also as to extension. Indeed, prudence is never as perfect in extension as it can be unless it is perfect about all the things that it can be extended to, and these are all the objects that belong to all the virtues.

99. Aristotle’s authority can be expounded in another way, not about unity formally but about unity of genus. For just as temperance is said by the Philosopher to be one virtue and formally different from fortitude, and yet each of these is a certain intermediate genus possessing many species under it (as was said before d.34 nn.31-33), so in the case of the numbering of intermediate genera one can say (because of the unity of the intermediate genus) that, although it contains under it many species, yet it can be one in unity of genus.

100. And by understanding the unity of prudence in this way, all the moral virtues are connected in one genus of prudence insofar as any virtue is connected to it according to some species or other under it. And this was stated earlier, on the supposition of the preceding article about the connection, mutual or not [nn.77-83], of any virtue with its own prudence [n.99].