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Which virtue? Prudence vs Temperance
The ancient Greco-Roman tradition recognizes four principal, or cardinal virtues: practical wisdom (also known as prudence), courage (or fortitude), justice, and temperance (but see this article by Matthew Sharpe for a list of the sub-virtues falling under each of the big four). These are mentioned by Plato in the Republic (IV, 426–435), and there is some tantalizing empirical evidence that they are near-universal among human cultures.
Some Hellenistic schools, like Stoicism, subscribed to the doctrine of the unity of virtues, according to which the cardinal four are different yet deeply intertwined aspects of a single underlying virtue: wisdom. But two of the major philosophers that inspired Hellenism, Socrates and Plato, disagreed on which of two of the four was most fundamental: prudence or temperance.
Let’s take a look beginning with prudence, or practical wisdom, which in Greek is referred to as phronesis. The word indicates good judgment and excellence of character. The modern English “prudence” doesn’t really do justice to the concept, and Thomas McEvilley, in his The Shape of Ancient Thought suggests that a better translation may be “mindfulness.” If only that word weren’t already used to refer to an increasingly amorphous set of practices with more than a hint of mysticism.
