Imitating the prudent
What would the prudent person do here? Imitate their discernment until it becomes your own.
For , telling things apart is taught by no rule: perceives what is right in the singular case, and you first learn it by watching those who have it. Right action, he says, is what « the prudent person » would decide. This rule gives you a living compass rather than a recipe: when no method settles the matter, take your bearings from the discernment of those you admire, until in time you come to judge as they do.
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- Scope of action · What is up to us
- Scope of action · Prometheanism
Source: Aristotle
- Can one learn to be good? — Can goodness be taught, like a body of knowledge, or is it acquired through habit? And how is it that we sometimes know the good yet fail to do it?