Philosophy of alcohol
Thomas Aquinas on Temperance (Secondary text from http://www.iep.utm.edu/aq-moral/#SH3b)
b. Temperance
Temperance has a twofold meaning. In a general sense, the term denotes a kind of moderation common to every moral virtue (ST IIaIIae 141.2). In its more restricted sense, temperance concerns the moderation of physical pleasures, especially those associated with eating, drinking, and sex (STIIaIIae 141.4). We display a common propensity to sacrifice our well-being for the sake of these transient goods. Thus we need some virtue that serves to restrain what Aquinas calls “concupiscible passion” –the appetite whereby we desire what is pleasing and avoid what is harmful (ST Ia 82.2). Temperance is that virtue, as it denotes a restrained desire for physical gratification (ST IIaIIae 141.2, 3).
Aquinas does not think that temperance eradicates our desire for bodily pleasure. Nor does he think that temperance is a matter of desiring physical pleasure less. Such a description suggests that physical gratification is an innately deficient type of enjoyment. Yet Aquinas denies this. Physical pleasure, he says, is the result of the body’s natural operations (ST IIaIIae 141.4). According to Aquinas, the purpose of temperance is to refine the way we enjoy bodily pleasures. Specifically, it creates in the agent a proper sense of moderation with respect to what is pleasurable. For a person can more easily subordinate herself to reason when her passions are not excessive or deficient. On this view, bodily enjoyment can in fact be an integral part of a rational life. For the moderated enjoyment of bodily pleasure safeguards the good of reason and actually facilitates a more enduring kind of satisfaction. Thus Aquinas insists that “sensible and bodily goods … are not in opposition to reason, but are subject to it as instruments which reason employs in order to attain its proper end” (ST IIaIIae 141.3).
Like prudence, temperance is a cardinal virtue. There are a host of subsidiary virtues that fall under temperance because they serve to modify the most insatiable human passions. For example, chastity, sobriety and abstinence—which denote a retrenchment of sex, drink, and food, respectively—are (predictably) all parts of temperance. Yet there are other virtues associated with temperance that may strike the reader as surprising. For example, Aquinas argues that humility is a part of temperance. Humility aims to restrain the immoderate desire for what one cannot achieve. While humility is not concerned with tempering the appetites associated with touch, it nevertheless consists in a kind of restraint and thus bears a formal resemblance to temperance. He says: “whatever virtues restrain or suppress, and the actions which moderate the impetuosity of the passions, are considered parts of temperance” (ST IIaIIae 161.4). Thus Aquinas also thinks meekness, clemency, and studiousness are parts of temperance. They, too, restrain certain appetitive drives: specifically anger, the desire to punish, and the desire to pursue vain curiosities, respectively.
