  Cardano claims that there can be five kinds of responses to calamities in one’s life. The first two are “paradoxical” and have nothing relevant to say about possible applications to the practical aspects of one’s life. These are the Christian and the Stoic responses: adversities are either good in themselves, or they have absolutely no incidence in someone’s happiness. The remaining three kinds of response are of a “pragmatic” nature, for they appeal to the human senses and have possible social outcomes. First, they teach us how to avoid misfortunes or mitigate the impact they have on our life; second, in case they happen, they direct our attention to ways of coping with misfortunes or escape dangerous consequences; third, they tell us how to gain “some good” out of “any kind of ill” (De utilitate, OO, II, 10b, 27b, 39a). For Cardano, this ethical program in three stages is an approach that suits people involved in the many activities of civic life and helps meet their social commitments. The distinctive trait of prudent people is their ability to turn difficulties into opportunities of knowledge and moral betterment (De utilitate, OO, II, 11a). Regarding the “paradoxical” attitudes to calamities displayed by Stoic and Christian sages, Cardano thinks that there is a great difference between the situation in which the wise man is deemed capable of “bearing calamities with fortitude” (the Stoic approach) and that in which he is supposed to look at them as part of “one’s goods” (the Christian attitude). Even more different, however, is to interpret calamities as useful and productive means of experience, as suggested by Cardano. Otherwise, to praise the ills of life remains a futile rhetorical exercise, and for this reason Cardano does not hesitate to place Erasmus’ Laus stultitiae (“Praise of Folly”) in this category of edifying but useless rhetoric. With the exception of irreparable losses, which can only be assuaged by resorting to a whole range of consolatory techniques, Cardano maintains that any other ill can always be turned into something useful and therefore no consolation is needed. To sum up, he identifies different levels – rhetorical, cognitive, and pragmatic – within the domain of moral philosophy: “To praise adversities is the eloquent rhetorician’s task; to bear them with fortitude belongs to a generous soul or a person who knows divine truths; to draw useful instruction from them is the mark of a prudent man” (De utilitate, OO, II, 11a).