Abstract
Juridical prudence is the virtue that guides the formulation of sound public policy and law as well as just judicial adjudication. 1 Within natural law jurisprudence and Catholic social thought, juridical prudence relies on two kinds of principles, namely, foundational principles that subordinate public policies, judicial rulings, and law to morality; and methodological principles for adjudicating difficult cases. These foundational and methodological principles seem to have evolved from those that emphasize the common good (as best exemplified by the classical jurisprudence of Saint Thomas Aquinas) to those that emphasize inviolable human rights (as best exemplified by the contemporary jurisprudence of Pope John Paul II). This emphasis on inviolable rights, moreover, seems to place contemporary natural law jurisprudence at odds not only with utilitarianism and legal positivism but also with the classical tradition--insofar as that tradition permitted evil to be tolerated for the sake of the common good and insofar as the toleration of evil seems to involve a failure to protect inviolable rights. Determining whether the classical and contemporary forms of natural law jurisprudence are at odds is one of this paper's four main objectives. The second objective is to identify the principles that determine which evils are to be tolerated and which are not to be tolerated. The third and fourth objectives are to identify the principles that permit the toleration of evil not only in the formulation of policies and legislation but also in the adjudication of difficult cases. While attaining these objectives, this paper will ...