Aristotle’s Unduly Restrictive Virtue of Temperance

why does Aristotle think temperance is only about eating, drinking, and having sex?

Temperance is a centrally important disposition within a number of virtue ethics approaches. In Greek, sophrosunē, in Latin, temperantia, in the present this virtue is also sometimes translated as “moderation” or “self-control”. It was acknowledged and valued by pretty much all of the main approaches in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. For many of them — notably the Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, various eclectics like Cicero, and later Christian authors — it numbers among the four cardinal virtues, along with wisdom, justice, and courage.

Aristotle’s approach to the virtues differs from these other schools in several important manners. One of these, which ends up being appropriated by other philosophical traditions, is of course his doctrine of virtue as a mean between extremes of vice.

Another is that Aristotle’s treatment of the virtues does not attempt to reduce them down to a small set like the four cardinal virtues, but instead maintains a larger set, differentiating them along lines of their subject-matters.

When it comes to the virtue of temperance specifically, there’s another important difference as well. He restricts the domain this virtue bears upon to essentially three kinds of pleasures — those for food, drink, and sex — and the desires for those pleasures.

Distinguishing Between Pleasures

Aristotle begins his analysis of temperance in the Nicomachean Ethics by noting that it is a means (mesotēs) bearing upon pleasures (peri hēdonas). It does not apply or extend to to all pleasures, however, and Aristotle suggests we need to “define”, or perhaps translated a bit more precisely, to mark off (aphorisōmen) what pleasures temperance is concerned with. In his Eudemian Ethics, he notes that temperance is concerned with certain desires (peri epithumias tinas), and suggests we need to “ascertain” (labein) what those pleasures and desires are.

What sorts of distinctions does Aristotle make here about pleasures, desires, and temperance? In the Nicomachean Ethics, he discusses four:

• pleasures of the body and pleasures of the soul

• pleasures associated with different bodily senses

• different pleasures associated with taste and touch

• desires common to all people and desires particular to some

Examining the first three of these distinctions, which focus primarily on kinds of pleasures and secondarily on our desires for them, allows Aristotle to progressively zero in on what matters he takes the virtue of temperance — and the associated vices of self-indulgence or “prolifigacy” (akolasias), and insensibility (anaisthēsia) — to really be concerned with. The fourth lets him further specify these states or traits of character in terms of the desires or “appetites” that orient people towards pleasures.

Pleasures of the Body vs. Pleasures of the Soul

The first distinction Aristotle thinks we need to make (diērēsthōsan) is between pleasures that are bodily (sōmatikai) and those that are mental or “of the soul” (phukhikoi). It is worth pointing out that this distinction gets made in the Nichomachean Ethics but not in the Eudemian Ethics.

Pleasures of the soul are not the sorts of matters temperance as a virtue is concerned with, Aristotle tells us. And likewise, the vice of self-indulgence doesn’t bear upon these either. Presumably the vice of deficiency wouldn’t have anything to do with them as well.

What are these mental pleasures then? Aristotle mentions a few pleasures and the people who desire, pursue, and enjoy them, providing us a non-exhaustive list:

• ambition (philotimia) and lovers of honor

• love of learning (philomatheia), and lovers of learning things

• lovers of “marvelous tales” (philomythoi) and those who tell stories (diēgetikoi)

• those who gossip about whatever happens (peri tōn tukhontōn katatribontas)

With respect to the last two he says that we do call those who pass their days in these “idle chatterers” (adoleskhas), but not self-indulgent, so there can clearly be a right amount for these. It simply isn’t one that has to do with the virtue of temperance.

When it comes to ambition, or literally, loving and desiring honor, there is actually a different virtue that deals specifically with this. Among the moral virtues Aristotle distinguishes and discusses in the Nicomachean Ethics, there is a mean between being too honor-seeking and not being honor-seeking enough, one that we typically translate as “right ambition.”

As Aristotle interprets it, the virtue of temperance has nothing to do with these or any other mental pleasures. So we have to turn to bodily pleasures then to find it.

Pleasures of Sight, Hearing, and Smell

By the “pleasures of the body”, Aristotle has in mind those of the five senses, those we take in and enjoy through perception (aisthēsis). In his view, most of our bodily senses — and the pleasures we enjoy through them — have nothing to do with the virtue of temperance.

He rules out those concerned with sight or vision first. He tells us in the Eudemian Ethics that the temperate person isn’t so with respect to matters of sight (tēn dia tēs opseōs), whether it be pleasures caused by beautiful things (hēdone tōn kalōn) or pains caused by ugly things (lupē ton aiskhrōn). He does make an interesting and important exception, though —sexual desire (epithumia aphrodisiōn).

The Nicomachean Ethics treatment of temperance echoes this, but gets a bit more specific about pleasures of vision. People delight in colors (khromasi), forms (skhemasi), and paintings (graphēi). Aristotle also tells us that “it would appear these things can be enjoyed in the right manner, or too much, or too little,” which suggests pleasures of the eye should fall under some kind of virtue.

Pleasures of hearing similarly don’t fall within the scope of temperance for Aristotle. He tells us in the Nicomachean Ethics that nobody would consider a person self-indulgent who takes excessive pleasure in music (melesin) or acting (hupokrisei), that is, in listening to music or drama. The Eudemian Ethics amplifies a little, mentioning pleasures and pains deriving from hearing harmonious and discordant sounds.

And likewise, our sense of smell doesn’t fall within the scope of temperance, “except by accident” (plēn kata sumbebēkos). Aristotle provides more examples for this sense than for the others. We might enjoy the smells of fruit, roses or other flowers, incense, perfume, or food. Other than the last one, enjoying or desiring these too much does not render a person self-indulgent. And in the case of the smell of food, the connection with self-indulgence is that the person associates the odor with the object of their intemperate desire.

In the Eudemian Ethics, he goes so far as to say that:

A person would not be considered prolifigate if when looking at a beautiful statue or horse or person, or listening to someone singing, he did not wish for food or drink or sexual indulgence but only wished to look at the beautiful objects or listen to the music — any more than the persons held spellbound in the abode of the Sirens.

He also stresses in both Ethics that the human enjoyment through these three senses of sight, hearing, and smell is distinct from whatever pleasure other, lower, non-rational animals might derive from them “accidentally”. His argument in the Nicomachean Ethics is rather implausible:

Hounds do not take pleasure in scenting hares, but in eating them; the scent merely made them aware of the hare. The lion does not care about the lowing of the ox, but about devouring it, though the lowing tells him that the ox is near, and consequently he appears to take pleasure in the sound. Similarly he is not pleased by the sight of ‘stag or mountain goat’ but by the prospect of a meal.

For those of us who spend time with animals, experience would suggest that they genuinely desire and enjoy pleasures of these three senses for their own sake, not simply because of associations with eating. Aristotle’s strategy here, motivating this reductionist take, is to suggest that temperance really bears upon the desires and pleasures we share with the “lower animals”. So making that dubious claim that they only really enjoy pleasures of taste and touch figures into the way Aristotle aims to restrictively reinterpret temperance.

Pleasures of Taste and Touch

We might say at this point: All right! Let’s go along with Aristotle for the time being. We’ve finally figured out what temperance, self-indulgence, and insensibility are concerned with. It’s not pleasure as a whole. We’ve ruled out the pleasures of the mind or soul, and focused on those of the body instead. And then we narrowed in even further, and set aside the pleasures of three of our senses, sight, hearing, and smell. We’ve got taste and touch left. So in how we handle the pleasures and desires of those two senses — that’s where we’ll find the virtue of temperance, right?

Well. . . . not quite. Aristotle is going make the range of matters temperance deals with even more restrictive. And he will do so in two main ways, one focused on taste and flavor, the other focused on touch. The key point he will stress several times is one mentioned earlier. The virtue of temperance, and the vices of self-indulgence and insensibility, bear upon three main objects or experiences of bodily pleasure

• eating and food (esthiein, sitos)

• drinking and drinks (pinein, potos)

• sexual matters (aphrodisia)

His discussion of these in his two Ethics is more underdeveloped than one might like, particularly when it comes to understanding what the pleasure involved in drinking is. Should we take it as mainly satisfaction of thirst? Probably not. So, should it — like eating — be viewed in terms of taste? Perhaps so, but given that one of the drinks the Greeks could overindulge in was wine, might the pleasures of drinking not also include those of intoxication? Aristotle doesn’t say so, but he also doesn’t exclude that either.

While pleasures of eating and drinking are a main concern for temperance, as it turns out, Aristotle does not consider the sense of taste to play a significant role by comparison to the sense of touch. He tells us in the Nicomachean Ethics that taste is concerned with judging or “discriminating” flavors (krisis khumōn), for instance with those who evaluate wines or those who prepare savory dishes. It is really the sense of touch that has the primary role in enjoying the object, according to Aristotle, and he cites the example in both Ethics of a “gourmand” who wished that his throat might be longer than a crane, so he could prolong the pleasure of swallowing down the food

In the Eudemian Ethics, he lists off a set of activities that are characteristic of the self-indulgent:

• drinking wine excessively (oinophlugia)

• gluttony (gastromargia)

• lechery or sexual indulgence (lagneia)

• and gourmandizing (opsophagia)

Each of these, as he say, have to do with the “sensations” (peri tas. . . aisthēseis) specified, that is, of touch, and they comprise the parts or portions (moria) of the vice of self-indulgence. It might seem a bit odd that the last of these, “gourmandizing” which derives its name from opson, sauce or relish, is categorized as being less a matter of the tongue and more of the throat and stomach, but the application of the term opsophagos did extend not only to people obsessed with seafood, but also to those who would train themselves to eat large quantities.

Not all pleasures of touch, even if they are enjoyed or desired excessively, fall under the vices of self-indulgence or insensibility, or figure into temperance. There are some that are “refined”, or literally most characteristic of the free person (eleutheriōtatai), and these include pleasures of the gymnasia, or as we might say today, health club.

One that Aristotle mentions is “friction” or “rubbing” (tripsis), by which we might think of massage and other pleasant things one has done to one’s body as a whole. The other he names is hot baths (thermasia). We could imagine that lying in the sun, enjoying a cool and refreshing breeze, relaxing in bed, or other bodily pleasures might fall into this category.

Again Aristotle’s reasoning seems at odds with our own experiences and observations of other animals, but his view in the two Ethics is that the pleasures we share with other animals are indeed just those three main ones of food and eating, drinks and drinking, and sexual intercourse and related matters, all of which he thinks are concerned with sensations of touch in particular organs — the throat, stomach, and genitals.

To be vicious, self-indulgent, to enjoy and desire those pleasures too much, more than other, better, more distinctively human pleasures, is to lower oneself to the level of mere animality, rendering people slavish (adrapodōdeis) and bestial (thēriodeis). So temperance as Aristotle conceives it seems to be exclusively concerned with food, drink, and sex.

Distinguishing Desires For Pleasures

Besides the distinction of bodily and mental pleasures, Aristotle’s analysis of temperance in the Nicomachean Ethics has one other key feature lacking in the Eudemian Ethics treatment, and that is an explicit discussion of desires or appetites. He isn’t focused on desire in general, since he uses the term epithumia rather than the wider term orexis. What he clearly has in mind are desires for bodily pleasures, specifically those we have centered in on, i.e. desires for the enjoyments involved in food and eating, drinks and drinking, and sexual activity.

We can distinguish between two sorts of desires that people feel and are motivated by. There are “general” or more literally “common” (koinai) desires that we have by virtue of being human beings. Desire or appetite for food is natural, as is sexual desire (at least as long as we do feel it). Few people go wrong with respect to these general desires, Aristotle claims, and when we do go wrong in relation to them, it is by excess of quantity. We want things that are normal for us to want, but we indulge ourselves in too much of those things.

Many more people go wrong when it comes to desires that exist for specific or particular people (idioi) or “adventitious” (epithetoi). Different things are pleasant to different people. Some people like some kinds of foods, and other people other kinds. With respect to these more individuated pleasures and our desires for them, we are liable to go wrong in a variety of ways, each of which can receive its own euphemistic label of being “fond of” that kind of matter (philotoioutōn). We can:

• enjoy (khairein) things we ought not to, even things that are odious (miseta)

• enjoy things more than most people do

• enjoy things in the wrong manner

The self-indulgent person typically goes wrong, Aristotle tells us, in all three ways, with respect to the things they as an individual, or a type — for example the glutton or the lecher — particularly enjoy and desire. The temperate person would also have particular likes and desires, but they would enjoy the right things, to the right extent, in the right manner, and their desires would be in harmony with reason. As Aristotle says:

The temperate person keeps a middle course in these matters. They take no pleasure at all in the things the self-indulgent enjoys most. To the contrary, they dislikes those. Nor in general do they find pleasure in the wrong things, nor excessive pleasure in anything of this sort . . . but such pleasures as conduce to health and fitness (pros hugeian. . . pros euexian) they will desire (orexetai) in a measured way (metriōs) and as they should, and the other pleasures so far as they are not detrimental to health or fitness, and not slavish (mē empodiōn) or beyond their means.

In temperance one maintains not just proper limits, but a sense of proportion. By contrast, the self-indulgent person is led by — and indeed becomes a prey to — their own desires for food, drink, and sex, driven by desires to prefer or choose (hairesthai) these pleasures to everything else.

Although Aristotle does not say this explicitly, this vicious preference or prioritization could well involve setting immoderate indulgence and enjoyment of food, drink, and sex above all the other pleasures a human being can enjoy, including the better pleasures of touch, the pleasures enjoyed through sight, hearing, and smell, and the mental pleasures, all of which Aristotle has excluded from his reductive account of temperance. Looking at matters this way would not bring them back under that virtue itself, but would at least give them some negative role in the vice of excess, self-indulgence or prolifigacy.

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An earlier version of this article was published in Practical Rationality