Why is temperance so important

By refining the claim to which Young seems committed again: that the sphere of temperance excludes pain only where that means the temperate person does not feel pain at the absence of otherwise healthily pleasant objects , the real dispute with Curzer becomes clearer. Curzer argues for the claim that temperate people feel the right degree of pain at the absence of appropriately pleasurable objects.

Curzer argues for the former. Young seems committed to the latter. To state my position in this dispute another way, I believe that Young is right but not for the best reasons. Curzer also argues that although Aristotle does not say the temperate person is pained by the presence of some food, drink, or sex objects, he ought to. Thus, Curzer argues for an appropriate amount of pain at both the absence and presence of particular things on particular occasions.

The issue of absence will be discussed for the remainder of this paper. As for presence, Curzer relies on an example. He says that, "a second hot fudge sundae is enjoyable for the self-indulgent, but unenjoyable or even nauseating for the temperate. First, if the mere presence of the sundae is at issue, the temperate person will not feel pain due to its presence. If eating the second sundae is the issue, certainly the temperate person might become nauseous, but the point is that she would not have eaten the second sundae in the first place.

Her interpretation of the distinction between virtue in accordance with right reason kata ton orthon logon and virtue involving right reason meta tou orthou logou helps me develop the argument in part III of the paper. They both state that the temperate person feels no pain as a result of the absence of what is pleasant. Thus, he must finds ways to qualify these statements.

His first attempt hinges on indirect evidence from [a]. He infers that since the intemperate person "is pained more than he ought," there exists a right amount of pain to feel over unsatisfied, appropriate appetites. What warrants this inference, according to Curzer, is the fact that Aristotle criticizes intemperate people for feeling too much pain rather than for feeling pain at all.

It is not clear, however, that this is what warrants the blameworthiness of the intemperate person for Aristotle. They are blameworthy insofar as they desire bodily pleasures too much, not for feeling too much pain. The fact that they feel too much pain is a consequence of having placed such importance on those bodily pleasures in the first place, a point Aristotle makes in the parenthesis at the end of [a] when he says the pain is caused by the pleasure.

The pleasure, or estimation of the worth of that pleasure, is the cause for assigning blame. Thus, [a] does not give indirect evidence that there is a proper amount of pain to feel at the absence of appropriately pleasant things. There is a relevant passage at EE a First, he mentions a case where a waiter fails to bring coffee. He says it is appropriate to feel some sorrow over this, while an intemperate person might throw a tantrum.

I believe this case is analogous to the chocolate cake example I gave above. The temperate person might prefer the enjoyment of the cake or coffee but does not suffer in their absence. His second example highlights an important reason for this. He says, "temperate people feel sorrow when they cannot satisfy their temperate sexual desires" Ibid. The content of the phrase "temperate sexual desires" needs to be specified.

Recall that one refinement of the NE account of temperance over the EE account is the distinction between common and peculiar appetites. Aristotle only gives a positive, rather than privative, account of temperance when he limits it to peculiar appetites.

For temperance governs only our peculiar appetites. Aristotle is no stoic, so he certainly would agree that it is bad even for a temperate person to be deprived the satisfaction of a common appetite. Rather he must be saying that a temperate person feels sorrow about not satisfying peculiar sexual desires. But common sense does not judge that a temperate person should feel pain about not having the particular kind of sex he wants at the moment. It also might be argued that the virtue of mildness ba3 , which governs anger, is appropriate for the example of the waiter.

And if the sex example is describing a case in which even the common appetite is not satisfied, the appropriate virtue might be courage, which Aristotle says is the appropriate virtue for standing firm against pains b The relevance of other virtues for the cases where appropriate appetites are left unsatisfied will be developed below in the discussion of the unity of the virtues.

With the discussion of continence, he makes further refinements to the treatment of the subclass of virtues concerned with the feelings of pleasure and pain. Recall that courage is the virtue concerned with the feelings of fear and confidence. So if something goes wrong, they often blame the alcohol. A truly virtuous person is in control of themselves in every situation. People should also seek to rid themselves of any kind of dependencies.

Alcohol can cause several, the most obvious one being outright alcoholism. But frequent boozing can also make a person dependent on liquor for confidence and for a good time. It becomes a crutch. The truly virtuous will be confident enough to not need liquid courage and dynamic enough to create their own good time through their personality and charm.

Robert E. Lee, general of the Confederate army during the American Civil War, lived the virtue of temperance. Lee was a masterful military tactician. He graduated second in his class at West Point and received no demerits while there.

He led a rag tag Confederate army in outmatched battles against the Union and won several of them. Speaking about the need to avoid alcohol, Lee said:. Did it ever occur to you that when you reach middle life, you may need a stimulant, and if you have accustomed yourself to taking stimulants in your early life it will require so much more to have the desired effect at a time when you may need it?

How much better it would be if the young man would leave intoxicants in his student days. People often try to numb themselves with food, alcohol, and drugs to avoid dealing with their real problems. Gaining the self-discipline to moderate your intake of food, alcohol, and drugs will give you the confidence to start making other improvements in your life. Many of his friends were with him. They rode out in good spirits, carrying their bows and arrows.

Behind them came the servants with the hounds. It was a merry hunting party. The woods rang with their shouts and laughter. They expected to carry much game home in the evening. At a word from their masters they would fly high up into the air, and look around for prey. If they chanced to see a deer or a rabbit, they would swoop down upon it swift as any arrow. All day long Genghis Khan and his huntsmen rode through the woods.

But they did not find as much game as they expected. Toward evening they started for home. The king had often ridden through the woods, and he knew all the paths.

So while the rest of the party took the nearest way, he went by a longer road through a valley between two mountains. The day had been warm, and the king was very thirsty. His pet hawk had left his wrist and flown away. It would be sure to find its way home. The king rode slowly along. He had once seen a spring of clear water near this pathway. If he could only find it now! But the hot days of summer had dried up all the mountain brooks. At last, to his joy, he saw some water trickling down over the edge of a rock.

He knew that there was a spring farther up. In the wet season, a swift stream of water always poured down here; but now it came only one drop at a time. The king leaped from his horse. He took a little silver cup from his hunting bag.

He held it so as to catch the slowly falling drops. It took a long time to fill the cup; and the king was so thirsty that he could hardly wait. At last it was nearly full. He put the cup to his lips, and was about to drink.

All at once there was a whirring sound in the air, and the cup was knocked from his hands. The water was all spilled upon the ground. The king looked up to see who had done this thing. It was his pet hawk. The hawk flew back and forth a few times, and then alighted among the rocks by the spring. The king picked up the cup, and again held it to catch the trickling drops. This time he did not wait so long. When the cup was half full, he lifted it toward his mouth.

But before it had touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again, and knocked it from his hands. And now the king began to grow angry. He tried again, and for the third time the hawk kept him from drinking. The king was now very angry indeed. But before he tried to drink, he drew his sword. But the king was looking for this. With a quick sweep of the sword he struck the bird as it passed.

But when he looked for his cup, he found that it had fallen between two rocks, where he could not reach it. With that he began to climb the steep bank to the place from which the water trickled. It was hard work, and the higher he climbed, the thirstier he became.

At last he reached the place. There indeed was a pool of water; but what was that lying in the pool, and almost filling it? It was a huge, dead snake of the most poisonous kind. The king stopped. He forgot his thirst. He thought only of the poor dead bird lying on the ground below him. He was my best friend, and I have killed him. He clambered down the bank. He took the bird up gently, and laid it in his hunting bag. Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly home.

He said to himself,. For it brings order to the concupiscible appetite, and thus to the emotions of love, hate, sensible satisfaction, desire, aversion and sorrow as they bear upon a pleasant good. Temperance is primarily about desires for the greatest pleasures, and the greatest pleasures result from the most natural operations, which are those that have as their purpose the preservation of the individual and the preservation of the species.

That is why the greatest pleasures are to be found in the consumption of food and drink and in the union of the sexes. Thus, temperance is principally about the pleasures of touch, and secondarily about the pleasures of taste, smell, sight and sound insofar as the objects of these latter senses, i. The measure of temperance is the order of reason. The determination of the mean of reason depends upon the real needs of the present time.

It depends upon intelligible human goods life, truth, beauty, leisure, sociability, religion, etc. As we said above, the good has the aspect of an end.

Human goods are intelligible ends. A good life on the whole is one that is ordered to its proper end, which is the possession of virtue. The good of virtue consists in that order; for the proper end of a thing is the rule and measure of whatever is directed to the end, and everything within the human person is to be directed to the supreme end, which is the possession of the Supreme Good. But there are a number of intelligible human goods that motivate the human person who is himself ordered to this supreme end, and the pleasurable activities of eating and drinking are evidently ordered to the intelligible end of human life, that is, its preservation.

The rule and measure of sexual desire will also be discovered in the intelligible ends of the sexual powers. In the case of temperance, therefore, the real needs of this life constitute the rule of reason that makes temperance a virtue. The mean of virtue here is not a real mean, as in the case of justice, but a mean of reason. The mean of justice is often a real mean, for instance, if one is robbed of twenty dollars, the real mean between excess and deficiency will be twenty dollars, not fifteen, and not fifty.

But determining the mean of temperance is not so simple a matter. One cannot say that 8 ounces of Corn Flakes constitute the mean of temperance when it comes to eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast. The mean depends upon the needs of the individual person and his circumstances. A large breakfast may very well be reasonable for the mailman who is required to walk twenty kilometers that day, but it may be excessive for the one who is only required to drive a bus.

Furthermore, the mean of reason in this case does not refer to a measure that is based on the strict needs of this life. Thomas understands necessity in two ways. Temperance embraces both meanings of necessity. But temperance makes moderate use of those things that are not a hindrance to health and a sound condition of body, and uses them according to the demands of the situation in which one finds oneself.

It is thus not contrary to temperance to desire other pleasant things that are not strictly necessary for health, as long as they are congruent with the demands of place and time.

So for instance, it is not necessarily immoderate to snack on potato chips or popcorn while watching a movie with some friends, or to enjoy some appetizers at a Christmas party. Insensibility is one vice opposed to temperance. Hence it is fitting and reasonable that we make use of these pleasures to the degree that they are necessary for our well-being our own, or that of the species.

To reject pleasure to the extent of omitting things that are necessary for our preservation is unreasonable and immoderate. Moreover, the use of reason depends upon the health of the body, and the body is sustained by means of food and drink. It follows that the good of human reason cannot be maintained were we to abstain from all pleasures. Intemperance brings about an arrest of emotional development, a personality arrest, so to speak.

Thomas refers to intemperance as a childish vice. Unchecked concupiscence is like a child in a number of ways. Anyone who has raised children knows that a child left to himself does not attend to the order of reason, for example in his choice of food, or in his choice of things to play with.

Taking a child to a department store can be very taxing; for there is virtually no end to what a child thinks he needs. In the same way intemperance strays from the order of reason.

Moreover, a child left to his own will becomes more self-centered. Similarly, the concupiscible power left to itself, without the governance of reason, gains strength and becomes less and less able to subject itself to the direction of reason, like the spoiled child.

Finally, intemperance is like a child in its remedy. A child is corrected by being restrained. So too, it is by restraining concupiscence that we moderate it according to the demands of virtue. As we said above, failing this one cannot successfully cultivate the other three virtues, especially justice, which perfects the will. The will must be free, but a person who is at the mercy of his own concupiscence is not a free man, but a slave. Paula Standridge is a member of St.

John the Baptist Church in Hot Springs. In , she completed the diaconate formation training with her husband, Deacon Robert Standridge. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic Nov. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher. Understanding Our Church. Pilgrimages open our hearts, minds to find God in all things.

As pure spiritual beings, angels do exist. Virtue of temperance can offer life balance. However, we have to keep in mind that there should be an order between the action and pleasure. God has also placed an order in our spiritual faculties: intelligence and will to be above and guide our senses, feelings, and emotions. Many people have stopped practicing the virtue of temperance, which is key to our desire for pleasure that our nature tends towards in check.

If we want to live with the dignity of human persons and not become lower than the animals, then the practice of this virtue is absolutely necessary. Temperance is important, not because it makes us not want to desire pleasure or enjoy things.