Wisdom

Abstract The specific character of wisdom will vary from moral framework to moral framework, but in all cases, it is a concerned, participant understanding of life lived as human beings. It can be deepened and extended by reflection on living life well, and that is what virtue ethics is. Wisdom is the thought by which the moral agent identifies the good at which her virtuous caring aims. Since that good is segmented into aspects by the virtues of caring (compassion, justice, generosity, and so forth), each of these virtues has its own special department of wisdom. Somewhat differently, the enkratic virtues involve a kind of self-managing know-how that can also be called wisdom.