Temperance isn’t just a virtue, it can be a tool.

Temperance has a lot of nuisance and meaning. For me it invokes thoughts of self-regulation, self-restraint, and discipline. 

When we think of temperance as a tool I think there is a natural tendency to  see it as useful for controlling our physical desires, but I think it can also be an effective tool for regulating our emotional response and our thoughts.

When we view our emotions through the lens of temperance we can start to evaluate the validity of emotion along with the power of the emotion. This allows us to better select and scope our feelings to better fit the context of the world around us. Instead of feeling enraged, maybe we can scale back to annoyed… if that is proper.

The lens of temperance can also help us evaluate our thoughts by asking if they are problematic or biased by our heuristics in some way. This allows us to think about our own thinking to make sure it is squared against a true measure and not running a muck.

Overall I think it is a good idea to look at traditional virtues like temperance and ask how they can be used as tools in our lives instead of just populating lists of things we admire. Learn More