Conference: Spring 2006

April 6-8, 2006
University of St. Thomas
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

 

In the Catholic moral tradition, prudence is understood to be a moral virtue that enables a person to reason well about things to be done. Prudence concerns reasoning both about goals to be pursued and means to be employed to accomplish them. The tradition acknowledges the importance of moral principles, which shape practical reasoning in very fundamental ways, but it also insists that concrete actions are determined by prudential judgment, which wisely takes account of particular conditions. In recent years, a number of public policy questions, such as the permissibility of the death penalty, the morality of the war in Iraq, and the justice of welfare reforms, have provoked controversy among Catholics. Advocates of very different policies have claimed that their positions follow from the Catholic social tradition and, at times, some have even insisted that their positions alone are faithful to this tradition. These controversies highlight enduring questions about the proper relationship between moral principles and prudential judgment. In much the same way, controversies have accompanied some of the formal positions adopted by the American bishops and the Vatican on questions of public policy. Here again there has been an indistinct line between direct inference from moral principles and sound prudential judgment, where the former invites commitment and the latter tolerates disagreement. Participants in the Murphy Institute's 2006 conference, held April 6-8 2006 at the School of Law building in downtown Minneapolis, investigated these questions. A roster of approximately 25 speakers made presentations in both concurrent and plenary sessions.