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1. INTRODUCTION
MANY CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL PROBLEMS arise from inappropriate indulgence in food, drink, and/or sex. Temperance (sophrosyne) is the Aristotelian virtue which governs these three things, and Aristotle's account of temperance (and related failure modes) contains important insights and useful distinctions. Yet Aristotle's account of temperance has been surprisingly neglected, despite the resurgence of virtue ethics. I shall remedy this neglect by providing a passageby-passage commentary on Aristotle's account of temperance in Nicomachean Ethics III. 10-11 . I shall describe the sphere of temperance and Aristotle's distinctions among the character traits of temperance, self-indulgence, insensibility, continence, incontinence, and brutishness. I shall also describe the passions and parameters of temperance and argue that Aristotle's account of temperance is compatible with his doctrine of the mean. My interpretation includes several controversial claims. For example, I maintain that Aristotelian temperance governs not only the enjoyment of certain tactile pleasures, but also the desire (and therefore the pain caused by unsatisfied desire) for these pleasures.
Aristotle's account clashes with common sense and with his own architectonic at several points. For example, he maintains that a person is intemperate only if he or she goes wrong with respect to all three of the temperance parameters. However, a few modifications will eliminate the tensions in Aristotle's account. Once modified, his account can enhance our understanding of how people relate and should relate to food, drink, sex, and other sensual pleasures. For example, I argue that Aristotle's account includes important distinctions which are absent from our contemporary understanding of alcohol abuse.
2. NARROWING THE SPHERE OF TEMPERANCE
Aristotle's account of a virtue always begins with a lengthy, detailed description of the sphere (peri ho) of the virtue. He describes the aspects of life governed by the virtue, what the virtue is about. He typically starts with a broad range of objects of passion and then gradually narrows the sphere of the virtue. His account of the virtue of temperance follows this pattern. He devotes the first half of his account to a description of the sphere of temperance. He begins by observing that "temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures" ( 1117b24-25),1 and then narrows the sphere of temperance in four-stages.
First, Aristotle restricts the sphere of temperance to bodily pleasures....