Virtue Series: Temperance

Why does it seem like everyone today has an issue with alcohol, food, drugs, or porn? Why do people spend hours a day online with their phones or computers while struggling to make time to pray, read, or exercise? The answer to these questions is complicated. However, much of it is covered by understanding that few people today have the virtue of temperance. One of the four cardinal virtues, temperance is the virtue of moderation and self-restraint. It is the virtue that helps us to combat temptation and do the things that we should.

Which things are covered by temperance? In short, quite a lot. Aristotle describes virtues as golden means that lay between two vices. For example, the virtue of courage falls somewhere between the vices of cowardice and recklessness. Since temperance is the virtue that helps us to avoid excesses of the wrong things, it is involved the gaining of practically every other virtue. No wonder then that so many people today are messed up. No one has temperance, and thus no one can have the moderation needed to build good habits.

Our lives are essentially conditioning us to suck at moderation. Everything around us is as addicting as it can possibly be. Food is more addicting than ever. Drink has never been so accessible. Phones provide us with essentially all of the comforts we could ever want while demanding that we stay on them as long as possible.

Yet, as men, we cannot give up. How many of us have seen people who have been trapped by addiction to something? Maybe, while reading this, you are currently enslaved to something that you know that you shouldn’t be. We cannot allow ourselves to remain this way. A life of unbridled excess will ultimately lead to emptiness.

To grow in temperance, thus allowing oneself the freedom to pursue other virtues, we need to get the will under control. For many men, this comes in the form of taming the will to be chaste and fight lust. For others, it is to control the appetite to prevent a disordered approach to food or drink.

How can we get the will under control? By fasting. By going without the pleasures that we usually allow ourselves. Aristotle describes the gaining of virtue like a bent plank of wood. To straighten it out, you usually need to bend it past the point where you want it to eventually stay. Many of us would benefit from doing something similar with the things that we are too attached to.

As men, we need to be able to use our reason. To use our reason, we need to be able to stave off temptations of pleasures when the come our way, and they will come our way. Temperance allows us to do this, and all men should strive to grow in it.