The Four Cardinal Virtues

Pieper is a superb moral thinker, but one firmly grounded in the Gospel. He says "Growth in love is the legitimate avenue and the one and only justification for 'contempt for the world.'" The Unibomber should have read that line first.

This is a book to read every six months profitably, to make marginal notes in and underline. I suggest reading it alongside Budziszewski's book Written on the Heart.


Striving towards true human existence   March 28, 2008
CDS (Boston,MA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book contains four separate sections, one on each of the cardinal virtues. In each of these, Pieper takes a look at the virtue as defined, or often mis-defined by the contemporary world and he contrasts this with how the Church in general and St. Thomas in particular understand that given virtue. What emerges is a picture of true humanity. Often what the world offers us is appealing but insufficient, God calls us to go deeper and strive to reach higher, and in return He promises us true joy. As other reviewers have noted, this is a challenging but rewarding read. The insights it provides leave much to ponder as to how we can truly begin to live more richly in God's desire for us.


Thomistic   February 13, 2003
Tina Bell (Ramsey, NJ United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I read this book over and over again. Pieper is a great antidote to the vagueness of some modern Catholic writers who tend to use a feel-good approach to virtue and write vaguely about sharing, caring, and being nice to people. This book tells you what the virtues really are and what they have meant to the Church for two thousand years.


Clearing a Path   November 22, 2006
R. Bono (Pennsylvania)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Tapping into the core of the western philosophical tradition, Pieper shows the reader how the ancient virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, have a universal and pressing contemporary application, in the world of human decision making....i.e., the right thinking that clears a path ahead. Formulated out of the Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and Christian traditions, he reminds of their elemental spirtual basis in Faith, Hope, and Charity.

He notes with special emphasis, the primacy of the Cardinal Virtue of Prudence, as the clear eyed and humanly perfectable, effort to take a hard, and as objective as possible, look, at the entire factual context of a decision. And, in one of the most beautiful chapters among many in this wonderful book, is Pieper's elucidation of how this caluclation is aligned and informed by the the Spiritual Virtue of Charity.

I find the book to be both a practical and a spiritual insight into human awareness itself.