One of the main organizing concepts of this book is virtue. The four cardinal virtues are treated in the first half of the book and the three theological virtues in the second half. This chapter is the first one based on one of the virtues. Temperance is examined before the other three cardinal virtues for two reasons. First, as the virtue that helps us desire and enjoy pleasures well, it is relatively straightforward. Examples of it—and of its opposing vice, intemperance—are easy to find from our experience. Second, since temperance most properly concerns sensual pleasures, it affords us an opportunity to examine how all our desires are relevant for moral theology. In the broad sense of the term, desire refers simply to something we want. It could be far off and lofty (to serve humanity), less far off and more practical (to go shopping and get some new shoes) or very immediate and carnal (to eat this food). When chapter 2 explored how our characters are ascertained through the different desires we have, and the different priorities we give them, it was referring to desire in this broad sense. But desire can also refer more specifically to those bodily longings or aversions we have that we often call feelings or emotions. This chapter not only examines the virtue of temperance, but also uses that occasion to explore whether and how our desires (in this more immediate sense meaning emotions or feelings or passions) are important for morality.

The first section of this chapter defines and explains the virtue temperance. The virtue temperance concerns not only external acts and intentions (recall chapters 2 and 3) but also our desires, our emotions. That recognition prompts the second section, which explains what exactly our emotions are and whether or not it makes sense to label them moral. In other words, does it make any sense to praise or blame someone for how they feel? Perhaps surprisingly to you, the answer offered here is yes. That leads us to the third section on how we can direct or shape our emotions so that they are more virtuous. The fourth section will answer the question, why bother? If we have already established in this book that morality is not only about exterior actions but also our intentions driving those actions, why do we need to examine another facet of how we act by looking at desires or emotions? We will actually find that the answer to this question has everything to do with a morality of happiness. For thinkers like Aristotle and Aquinas, a fully virtuous life means not only doing the right thing for the right reasons, but also doing it with “pleasure and promptness,” which comes from having well-ordered passions and desires.

Temperance is a virtue, which we know from earlier chapters is a stable tendency, or habit, to do a certain type of activity well, with good intentions. Temperance, in particular, is the virtue that inclines us to desire and enjoy pleasures well. It enables us to regulate our actions, and even our desires, concerning pleasurable activities so that they are reasonable, or in accord with the way things really are. Four key questions and points arise from this definition of temperance.

First, what are such pleasurable activities? Aquinas, following Aristotle, claimed that temperance is most properly about how we seek and enjoy the sensible pleasures of food, drink, and sex. These are the most obvious examples in our lives where our desires are not cold and detached, but entail immediate, bodily longings. With such activities our mouths water, our hearts race, our stomachs churn, or our skin flushes. We might think of other pleasures in our lives besides food, drink, and sex that arouse in us such bodily longings, such as other recreational activities. Aquinas also recognized that we have passionate longings for other things in life that engage us in such an immediate, bodily way. So he was willing to speak of being virtuously passionate for justice; that is, being neither too angrily vengeful nor too flaccidly unresponsive. Therefore, temperance most properly concerns immediate sensual pleasures such as food, drink, and sex, but in a broader sense concerns other desires we have in our lives that entail immediate, bodily longing. Temperance is the virtue of desiring these things in a reasonable or moderate manner.

This raises the second question, namely, what constitutes a reasonable, or moderate, desire? In the above definition, temperance is said to dispose us to enjoy and desire pleasures reasonably, or in accordance with the way things are. What exactly is that? In the last chapter’s examination of virtue in general, we saw that virtue lies in the mean. So the temperate person desires and enjoys pleasures not too much and not too little. While this is interesting, it does not help us specify exactly what constitutes too much or too little food, or sex, or alcohol, or some other pleasurable activity. As noted in that chapter, such exact specification is impossible without a more detailed inquiry into the particular activity under consideration. We will do this with alcohol in chapter 6.

But perhaps we can say a bit more about how to think about what is unreasonable or immoderate by looking back further to chapters 1 and 2. There we claimed that people have all sorts of different purposes or desires in life. What they are, and how they are ordered, or prioritized, in relation to each other forms our character. Recall the triangle image from chapter 2. Hopefully, the purposes we seek are ordered so as to guide us to a genuinely happy life. Pleasurable activities surely fit into this constellation. Our desires for pleasurable activities can be called immoderate or unreasonable either when they displace goals or purposes we claim to hold more important, or when they displace goals or purposes we should hold more important. To use an obvious example, if someone is playing ten hours of computer games per day, he is clearly allowing that pleasure to displace other purposes in life—there are only so many hours in a day! Perhaps studying falls by the wayside, or leisurely time with friends, or exercise, or healthy eating. Whichever the case may be, this is unreasonable, since the person chooses to elevate something fun but ultimately not that important above other more worthy goals in life. We say this desire is not in accord with the way things really are, under the assumption that those other goals really are more important than playing video games, even though one’s desires fail to reflect that truthful evaluation of things.

The same may be said when excessive, or minimal, eating impedes one’s health, or when sexual activity impedes healthy relationships with others, or when drinking alcohol impedes friendships or family commitments. These pleasures become unreasonable, or not in accord with the way things are, not because they are a no-no, and earn us someone’s disapproval. Rather, they elevate what is less important to one’s happiness and living a good life above what is truly important. Obvious examples of intemperance are given here to make the point. Determining the exact line where one crosses into intemperance is more difficult, requiring the more detailed examination of a particular activity mentioned above. For now it suffices to note that temperance disposes us to enjoy and desire pleasures reasonably, or in accordance with how things really are.

Third, despite our proclivity toward excessive desire of, and engaging in, pleasurable activities, temperance is not simply about prohibiting such desire and enjoyment, nor all about limiting it. The vice of intemperance is most often a matter of excessive desire for and enjoyment of pleasures, but it can also be a matter of too little desire and enjoyment of pleasures. This is a perfect example of the last chapter’s claim that virtue lies in the mean, or middle. This may seem odd. What if I do not like to play computer games? What if I do not choose to drink alcohol? What if I choose a celibate life as a priest or nun, and therefore give up sexual activity? None of these need be examples of intemperance. But pleasures can be renounced in an intemperate way as, for instance, if one thinks all sexual activity is dirty and sinful. One might fail to appreciate any positive role for sexuality in one’s marriage. Sadly, it is all too common that people can be intemperate in their lack of eating. As said above, examination of the particular activity at hand would be necessary to give more details, but the point here is that intemperance can be a matter of too little desire for and engaging in pleasurable activities.

Fourth and last, this treatment of temperance repeatedly refers to desire for and engaging in pleasurable activities. The term “engaging” is used here to refer to the actual partaking in the pleasure, as opposed to the mere desire for the pleasure. Yet though these two are distinct, temperance concerns both a moderate partaking in pleasures, and a moderate desire for such pleasures. In other words, the temperate person not only acts well concerning pleasurable activities, but even desires them appropriately—not too much, not too little, and in the right situations.

This observation on enjoying vs. desiring prompts us to the rest of this chapter’s exploration of whether and how we can order, or influence, the desires we have. In chapters 2 and 3 we saw how the moral life is not simply a matter of performing good actions, but also doing those acts for the right reasons and developing habits to do so consistently. In this chapter we examine not intentionality but a different sort of interiority: our desires, or feelings. To understand the difference between these two different interior facets of human action—intention and desire—consider this example. Lauren performs good acts by going to the gym regularly. She even does so for the right intentions; for example, to stay healthy. Yet she hates doing so. It is struggle each time she goes. She does the right thing, for the right reasons, but without accompanying desires. Her friend Kathy, however, not only does good acts (goes to the gym) for good reasons (to be healthy), but she also enjoys it. She has good desires because she feels like going each day, and is even disappointed if she cannot for some reason. In this case, both women act well and have good intentions. Surely that is what is most important. But only Kathy has good desires, or feelings. How can we account for this difference, and is it at all important?

The virtue temperance is about not only doing pleasurable activities for the good reasons, but also having the desires to act well, and not having desires to act poorly. So this chapter affords us the perfect opportunity to explore the related but distinct question of the role of our desires, or feelings, in the moral life. What are our passions or desires, and can we ever label them morally good or bad? Is it possible to shape our desires so that we not only do good things for good reasons, but even have good desires; and if so, how? And why does it matter? These are the three questions that the following three sections address.

What are our emotions, or desires, and what sense does it make to call them “moral”? In other words, can people really be praised or blamed for their emotional responses in different situations? After all, we constantly hear people retort, “but that’s just how I feel,” as if to say that we cannot hold it against them. This section explains what is meant here by feelings, and argues that we may indeed be responsible for how we feel. True, our control over our emotional responses is not as great as, say, our deliberate decisions. Nonetheless, if we attend carefully to the nature of our emotions, it will be clear in what ways it does indeed make sense to praise or blame people for how they feel.

Preliminary Point One: Distinguishing Emotions and Ensuing Actions

Before tackling the nuanced question of whether or not our emotional responses are moral in the sense of being praiseworthy or blameworthy, two preliminary points must be made. First, what we are examining here is the morality of an emotional response itself, and not any subsequent action we may take that is prompted by the emotion. This is seen quite clearly in Christ’s words on anger in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says:

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, “You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.” But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, “Raqa,” will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, “You fool,” will be liable to fiery Gehenna. (Matt. 5:21–22)

Christ clearly condemns actions taken by people who are unjustly angry.The reader may wonder why the term “unjustly” is used here when that does not appear in the biblical text. With few exceptions, thinkers throughout the Christian tradition have interpreted this passage not as a condemnation of all anger but only of vicious anger, the sort that leads to murder, as mentioned in this passage. The broad question of whether anger is compatible with the Christian life is beyond the scope of this chapter. For more on this topic, see William C. Mattison III, Christian Anger? A Contemporary Account of Virtuous Anger in the Thomistic Tradition (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2003). See also William C. Mattison III, “Christian Anger? Beyond Questions of Vengeance,” Journal for the Society of Christian Ethics 24, no. 1 (Spring, 2004): 159–79. In this case, he mentions those who lash out verbally in anger. But note that his first targets are those who are simply unjustly angry, even if they do not act on this anger.

This is an important point, since students who are asked whether or not their emotions may be praiseworthy or blameworthy almost universally respond by referring to actions done in their emotional state. They will say things like, “It is wrong to feel that way if you act on it.” Or, “it is OK to feel that way as long as you do not act on it.” This reflects an important insight. To anticipate the final section of this chapter, our actions are indeed closely related to our feelings. People commonly act based upon how they feel. Hence in his commentary on this passage in Matthew, Aquinas claims that Christ, like a good physician, seeks to alleviate not only the symptom of murder but also the underlying cause of murder, which may be unjust anger. It is natural and good that we so intimately connect internal feelings and external actions.

Nonetheless, they can and should be distinguished. One can be enraged and act on it by doing physical violence, or by verbally lashing out. Or one can restrain one’s self so as not to act on the anger. In the latter case, the unjust anger still exists. The crucial point is, it is this emotional response, regardless of any subsequent action, that can also be morally good or bad, as Christ clearly indicates in Matt. 5:22 and as this chapter further explains.

Preliminary Point Two: What Exactly Are Emotions?

The next preliminary point of this section addresses the question, what exactly are emotions? For the purposes of this chapter, the terms “passion,” “emotion,” “feeling,” and “desire” are used interchangeably. This topic is being addressed in a chapter on temperance because the virtue temperance concerns activities toward which we experience very immediate, bodily longings or aversions (food, drink, and sex). Our emotions (or feelings, desires, passions) are also generally manifest in immediate, bodily changes. When we are overjoyed our hearts leap. When we are angry our blood boils. When we are afraid, our hearts race and our senses become acute. Like our desires for sex, food, and drink, our emotions are bodily longings or aversions to things we encounter.

Note that though all these desires do indeed entail bodily, including hormonal, changes, they are not mere rushes of adrenalin, or blind surges. They are consistently identifiable responses to certain types of stimuli (persons, events, memories, etc.), prompting us toward certain types of actions. In other words, you get angry (or scared, or overjoyed, or sad) at certain types of events, and such events prompt you toward certain types of action (to rectify the injustice, flee the threat, rest in a good thing, or shun what causes sorrow) This is the very reason why we can even consistently label different emotional responses in the first place. It would be nonsensical if you told a friend you were sad and she said, “how wonderful!” Similarly, if you told her you were overjoyed you would not expect her to reply, “Quick! Get away!” The reason you can count on your friend knowing what you are experiencing is that each emotion is understood by us as a response to a certain sort of stimulus.

Though we are not accustomed to thinking of them in this way, our desires or emotions are forms of judgment. They make a claim, if you will, about the thing they respond to. Consider fear. This is a bodily response to a perceived source of danger, which includes an inclination to flee. Our hearts beat faster, our palms become sweaty, and our senses become acute in response to the perceived threat. Thus, the presence of fear in us is a sort of judgment—granted, a judgment automatic and often nonconscious—that whatever arouses our fear threatens us, so we need to flee. Of course, there may or may not actually be a threat. And we may or may not act on the emotion. Nonetheless, though an emotional response is a passive reaction in response to a situation, it is still an identifiable, or intelligible response. It is a sort of claim, or bodily judgment,Every judgment is embodied in some sense, since we persons are embodied. But feelings are more obviously embodied, since they are partially constituted by the bodily changes we associate with different emotions. This explains the slew of psychological studies where subjects report feeling angry when certain brain and bodily changes are induced by an experimenter, even without a genuine cause of anger being present. that the perceived event or entity really is a certain sort of thing.

The moment we recognize that our emotional responses are bodily judgments of the situation at hand, we can then say that these judgments are more or less accurate. Consider a person sitting next to you on a plane who is afraid of flying. You and he are in the exact same situation. You perceive no danger, yet he is terrified. Which is an accurate perception of the situation? Should you be more scared? Should he calm down a bit? Obviously, people’s varied histories shape their perceptions of their situations. Perhaps your plane mate was involved in a near miss on a previous flight. Nonetheless, you are both in the presence of the same event—in this case, an impending flight—at the same time. Who perceives the situation more accurately?

To conclude this second preliminary point, since emotions are not blind surges of affect but intelligible responses to particular types of situations, we can indeed label particular occasions of emotion as more or less accurate responses to the situation at hand. In extreme cases of fear we may label someone phobic, meaning the person has irrational fears that do not reflect how things really are. In more ordinary examples we may simply counsel someone not to be so afraid of their first day on the job, or of what will happen if they dare to ask someone on a date. We are implicitly saying that the threat perceived by the scared person is either nonexistent or at least not as threatening as the person’s fear suggests.

Few of us would consider a fear of flying, or of asking someone out, an important moral question. But consider another case that will shift our attention from the nature of emotions to their moral significance. You and a friend meet someone who makes a racial slur. Though the comment did not please you, it did not upset you either. But your friend becomes rather angry. Whose response is more accurate? The emotion of anger is an embodied response to a perceived injustice that inclines us to rectify the injustice. Is your friend’s anger appropriate for this situation or not? Is it an accurate judgment about the comment that was made?

Can Our Emotional Responses Really Be Morally Good or Bad?

We are now ready to explain the central claim for this section, and indeed this chapter. Granting that emotional responses are identifiable bodily reactions constituting an appraisal of one’s situation, and that they may be examined regardless of whether or not they lead to external actions on the part of the one experiencing the emotion, does it make sense to praise or blame someone for their emotional responses? After all, as the very name “passion” indicates, it would seem that we are passive in our emotional responses, simply responding to the stimuli, or situations, in which we find ourselves.

This is usually the point where people protest that only actions ensuing from emotional responses are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy. This reaction is understandable for two reasons. First, people often assume that many of our emotional responses are not morally important. You may fear spiders and I do not. You may like vanilla and I chocolate. Unless your fear of spiders leads you to do something harmful, or your love of vanilla lead you to steal ice cream, who cares? It is granted here that many of our emotions and desires are not morally important. Second, many people assume that we are only praiseworthy or blameworthy for our actions since we can control them, whereas emotions and desires just seem to arise in us. Though it is granted here that some of our emotions and desires are wholly beyond our control, it is also argued here that most are not wholly beyond our control.

Consider again the example at the end of the previous part, where you and a friend heard someone make a racial slur. This example usually leads people to think twice. They may try to reason that certainly what is most important is that either friend, whether they are angry or not, confront the racist on her comment—granted. But should we praise the one friend for feeling angry at the comment? Or consider the racist herself. Even if she did not make the racial slur, what if she simply felt hatred toward members of a certain racial group? Can we blame her for simply feeling that way, even if she never acts on it? This is the central question of this section.

To answer it, we must identify what sorts of human activities are praiseworthy or blameworthy, or, in other words, moral. We label those activities moral that we are responsible for, because they are in some way reflective of our freedom. They are in some sense our own, rather than simply happening to us. Many people use the term “control” in this discussion (see two paragraphs above) and say we are praised or blamed for only those actions we can control. Yet that term is generally avoided here, because even deliberate decisions are rarely fully under our control. We are limited by our capacities, our knowledge of the situation, the options available to us, and so on. As described in the discussion on freedom in chapter 2, responsibility for our acts is more like a continuum. At one end are the deliberate decisions for which we are clearly responsible (even if all facets of the situation are not under our control). At the other end are activities like reflexes. Someone may have better or worse reflexes, but it would be nonsensical to praise or blame someone for their reflexes! We are not responsible for them.

The classic way of describing the difference between moral and non-moral human activities is to say only those activities that involve our reason and will (the capacities that engender our freedom) are properly called moral, and thus praised or blamed. By reflectively understanding the world around us (with our reason) and making choices based upon that understanding (with our will), we exercise our freedom and are responsible for our activities. Deliberate decisions are clearly expressions of our free will, whereas reflexes just as clearly are not.

Where do emotional responses fit on this continuum? They are certainly not deliberate decisions. You cannot tell yourself at this moment, “get angry at this,” or, “desire that” and expect it to happen. Emotions are responses to stimuli perceived as, say, arousing anger or desire. And so they depend on the presence of such a stimulus, even if it is simply our memory or imagination of such a stimulus.

Yet neither are they completely passive responses which, like reflexes, cannot at all be shaped by our reason and will. Though they arise in response to our perception of some stimulus, we can indeed through our reason and will influence if and how we perceive the people, events, and stimuli that arouse our emotions. When our emotional responses are shaped by our higher powers of reason and will, then they are rightly called moral phenomena, and appropriately praised or blamed.

This shaping of our emotions can happen in several ways. First, some desires and emotions arise spontaneously, without any engagement of our reason and will, but then are sustained and encouraged by us. Perhaps we feel a rush of sexual desire for someone in an inappropriate situation. To the extent that we dwell upon and cultivate that initial feeling, we may be called responsible for the ongoing desire, even if we never act upon it. We would be lustful, even if we never committed any sexual act. (In fact, Christ explicitly warns us about just such desire that doesn’t lead to action when he says, “everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” Matt. 5:28.) This also commonly happens with anger. We may feel an initial surge of anger at someone, but then feed it by brooding over it, and ruminating over all the other things that person has done to offend us in the past. To the extent that we willfully sustain and arouse an emotional response, we are praiseworthy for it if it is good, or blameworthy for it if it is bad.

Another way that our emotions are shaped by our reason and will is when we intentionally put ourselves in situations where predictable desires will be aroused. In the previous example, a desire or emotion already arose and our responsibility was for nurturing it further. Here we are responsible for the initial desires that arise, since they are aroused due to a situation we intentionally place ourselves in. If I read racially supremacist literature and choose friends who are racist, then when I feel hatred toward another race that emotional response is not purely passive, but is rather a reflection of past willful decisions. The next time I see a member of a different race and I experience feelings of hatred, this response, while not deliberately chosen at the moment, is shaped by prior deliberate acts and is therefore rendered morally blameworthy.

Finally, in some cases even when we do not intentionally place ourselves in situations where predictable emotions will be aroused, we may still be rightly called responsible for our spontaneous emotional responses. While emotions are responses to perceived events, how we perceive things is not simply a matter of the senses. Our perception of events through the senses is shaped by our beliefs. An obvious example is the passenger afraid of flying. If both his and your senses are working properly, why does he perceive a threat and you do not? His perception of the situation reflects certain implicit beliefs he must have about the safety of airplanes, beliefs which you do not share. Thus, the final way our spontaneous emotional responses are governed by reason and will is when those responses reflect beliefs we have that give ruse to the emotional reactions, beliefs which could (and perhaps should) be revised.

Again, we would not label the belief of the frightened passenger blameworthy. But what about the racist mentioned above? A feeling of hatred or fear when seeing a person of another race reflects her belief that the person seen is inferior, or threatening. Thus, when she sees such a person, she responds with hatred or fear. If the belief is accurate, this is actually an appropriate emotional response. But in this case, the racist’s belief is not only inaccurate, but morally blameworthy. Assuming the racist is not a very young child who could not have known better, she should know that not all persons of one particular race are threats, or inferior. Therefore, to the extent that an emotional response arises due to her clinging to her beliefs, the response itself may be praised or blamed depending on the moral quality of the belief that engenders the emotional response.

The previous section explained what exactly is meant by an emotion (or passion, desire, feeling), and why people can indeed be praised or blamed for their emotional responses. This is the case because our emotions often reflect decisions or beliefs about morally important matters for which we are clearly responsible. Granting that our desires are truly moral facets of human living, how can we shape or change our emotional responses to different situations? After all, it would be cruel to claim that we can be blamed for our desires, and yet fail to offer some guidance as to how we can shape those desires to be more virtuous. How can we develop a virtue to experience, say, sexual desire at the right time, at the right place, for the right reasons, at the right persons, to the right degree, and so on? The short answer is, of course, to have our desires increasingly shaped by our reason and will, such that they are accurate responses to the world around us. While the previous section argued that this is possible, this section explores in more detail how it is possible.

At the beginning of this chapter we observed that emotional responses, and the actions toward which they prompt us, are intricately related and yet distinguishable. This point is crucial for developing good habits for our desires, or “habituating” our emotional responses to become virtuous. People are clearly more free to determine their actions than their emotional responses. Yet it turns out that our actions then have an impact on those very emotional responses. This section offers four sequential stages in which people’s actions and emotions are increasingly virtuous.

Four Stages in the Development of Virtuous Desire

We begin at a stage furthest from full virtue: intemperance. Any person or act that is not moderate with regard to pleasurable activities can be called intemperate. But in the fullest sense of the term, intemperance is a vice, a stable habit leading one to perform such immoderate acts. Not only does the intemperate person perform bad acts, but he also intends and desires to perform such acts. Consider the example of anger. You may have a habit of becoming enraged at a sibling, and spew venomous words toward him. You are always convinced you are being offended, and so you consistently feel disordered anger and act on it without hesitation. Note that your anger is disordered in this case because in reality there was no offense. But you are so convinced you are right that you fail to see it that way, and experience anger, lashing out anyway. This is a clear example of intemperance: you have bad desires, and bad actions arising from those desires.

The next stage toward the development of virtuous passion appears similar to intemperance, for it too is constituted by bad desires and bad actions ensuing from those desires. Yet in the case of incontinence, which is the second stage, though you experience disordered emotions and act on them, you are aware that your desires and actions are wrong. In fact, you often pledge not to be that way again, and regret it when you nonetheless succumb, and act out your vicious anger. In the case of your anger with your sibling, you may know you are prone to rage and vow not to get angry and act on it again. But alas, an occasion arises where you do just that, and regret it afterwards. What distinguishes this second stage of incontinence from the first stage of intemperance is knowing that your acts and desires are wrong, and having some desire to change them. You have not been able to change them as of yet, but this step is a crucial step toward doing so, since you cannot advance toward full virtue without both realizing your acts and desires are wrong, and wanting to change them.

The third stage, continence, is equally crucial for moral development. The continent person still has disordered desires, but manages to contain (hence continence) the disordered desires so as not to act on them. The continent person performs good acts (with good intentions), even though bad desires are present. In the anger example, perhaps the next time you feel yourself becoming flush with rage, you somehow manage to restrain yourself and avoid lashing out. This stage most clearly demonstrates the distinction between emotional responses and actions, since the continent person has disordered desires even while restraining them so as to act well.

Some people would say that reaching stage three constitutes moral completion, since a person is indeed acting well, even if there are still disordered desires. Yet Aquinas, following Aristotle, sees an even higher stage of virtue, which he calls temperance. Aquinas certainly praises continence. Since all people will at times experience anger, hatred, sexual desire, or desire for food and drink that is disordered, or immoderate, the ability to contain such desires and act well is crucial in order to live virtuously. But Aquinas claims that continence is not full virtue, since not all of one’s capacities are in accordance with virtue, as evidenced by the disordered desires. He argues it would be better to not only do the right thing for the right reason, but also to feel desire to do the right thing, with no conflicting disordered desires impeding one’s good actions.

This describes the fourth and final stage of temperance. We can refer to any person or act that is moderate with regard to pleasurable activities as temperate. But in the fullest sense of the term, temperance refers to the virtue, or good habit, where a person not only performs good actions for the right reasons, but also has virtuous desires to perform those actions. There are no conflicting desires as found in the continent person. To continue with the angry sibling example, if you were fully temperate, not only would you not lash out at your brother in anger, but you would never actually experience the arousal of unjust anger in the first place. Since we are assuming in this case there is no true occasion for anger (hence our calling it unjust), if you were temperate you would not ever experience a desire to right a perceived injustice. Your emotions would arise in accordance with the way things really are, and not in a warped manner perceived by you for the seeming benefit of yourself.

Though it has been mentioned above, it bears repeating here that temperance is not simply the absence of disordered desires, but also the presence of well-ordered desires and emotions. The person who experiences real sexual passion for their spouse whom they love dearly is temperate. The person who desires and enjoys a nice meal is temperate. The person whose ire is raised at injustice is temperate, as is the person who fears things that ought to be feared. Temperance is not an absence of passion or emotion, but rather well-ordered desire. So progress in the habituation of emotion can be seen both as ridding one’s self of disordered desires, and the development of virtuous desires.

How to Move from One Stage to the Next

Given this four-stage vision, how can we progress from one stage to the next? The jump from intemperance to incontinence is subtle, but crucial. We have to realize that our desires and actions are disordered, and feel some desire to be relieved of them. Even though the incontinent person still desires and acts badly, the realization that this is so is what makes any further change even possible. This is why the crucial first step in the famous Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Step Program is admitting that there is a problem. Without such recognition, change is not possible. How does it happen? It may come from a friend, parent, or mentor who points out our behavior to us. We may see the problems in some behavior exhibited in others, and realize we too are guilty of such acts and desires. The negative consequences of our own acts may finally catch up to us, so that we realize the error of our ways. We may hear a powerful sermon, read a probing book, or come to a realization in times of prayer. Whatever the source, the key features in moving from intemperance to incontinence are our realizing that our acts and desires are indeed disordered and then wanting to change.

Yet this realization is not enough, as evidenced by the incontinent person who knows her acts and desires are wrong but persists nonetheless. The movement from incontinence to continence seems simple. Just stop performing the bad action. Yet anyone who has struggled with a vice—be it greed, envy, lust, rage, or some addiction—knows that this can be most difficult. The key step in stopping the habit of smoking is simply not having another cigarette. Or for the enraged it may mean holding one’s tongue. Or for the envious it may mean resisting the urge to gossip. Whenever you resist the bad urge and thus contain your disordered desire, you have entered into the state of continence. Sometimes you can do this with raw willpower. Sometimes the support of others helps, perhaps even of those who share the bad habit. Occasionally even chemicals can help, as when drug addicts use replacement substances, or smokers try nicotine patches or pills to limit cravings. But however you do so, you become continent when you stop acting on a bad desire. Note that you do not yet have virtuous desires. But by ceasing to act on the disordered desires, you stop further ingraining those desires and make it possible to alter the desires themselves.

At the stage of continence, a person is acting well despite disordered desires. The last stage in the advance to full virtue is temperance. According to Aquinas, the temperate person not only does the right thing for the right reasons, but also desires to do it from one’s heart.See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, English Dominican trans. (New York: Benziger, 1948), I–II 24,3. The term “heart” is a reference to one’s emotions. Yet though we can control our actions so as to do the right thing despite bad desires, it seems impossible to control one’s desires. The very name for emotions in Latin, passiones, indicates that our emotions are passive responses, and thus seemingly beyond our control.

But as the previous section on the morality of the emotions made clear, this is not the case. Though our emotional desires are not under our control in the same way that deliberate decisions are, they may nonetheless be shaped or governed by our higher powers of reason and will. How can we shape our desires so that they arise in accord with what is best for us? As noted above, a crucial weapon in eliminating disordered desires is refusing to put one’s self in those situations where they tend to arise. This is the most obvious way to prevent bad desires from arising in the first place.

Though it is more difficult and takes more time, we can even exercise some responsibility over how our emotions arise spontaneously in unexpected situations. Recall that we do not respond emotionally to stimuli directly in a strict stimulus-response mechanical manner. Rather, we respond emotionally to persons, events, situations, by how we cognitively perceive those objects. The point of contrast would be the reflex. If you hit someone’s knee in the proper place, it will reflexively jerk upward. One has no control of this response without coercively holding the knee down. It does not matter how one perceives the strike of the hammer—it will achieve its desired effect.

But this is not the case with our emotions. It is quite common that two persons can be in the exact same situation and respond with different emotions. Recall the airplane example. Being on an airplane may be terrifying for one person, and yet pose no threat to another. Despite the fact that both are in the exact same situation, one responds with fear, and the other does not. This is because both perceive the situation differently, likely due to their different histories. This indicates that we can change our emotional responses to a situation if we can change how the situation is perceived. In fact, this is exactly what you do when the person in the seat next to you is afraid to fly. You tell him it is safer than any other form of transportation. You assure him of the airline’s safety record. What you are doing here is trying to change how he imagines the situation, namely, as less of a threat. If it works, he will experience no more, or at least less, fear.

This process of reimagining a situation which results in changes in one’s very emotional response is called by psychologists cognitive manipulation.Some psychologists call this “cognitive behavior therapy.” A person is reimagining, or manipulating, how one cognitively grasps a situation. Since the event, person, or situation is perceived differently, one’s emotional response also changes. Therefore, cognitive manipulation is the key to how we can habituate our emotional responses to better conform to the way things really are.

As an example of moving through all four stages, recall the example about your anger at a sibling. When your brother offers a simple instruction or observation, you too often lose your temper and lash out. Let’s say your friend sees you do this, and assures you that you are becoming angry for no good reason. You realize your friend is right, and you try to avoid lashing out in the future. For a time you are regrettably unable to control your lashing out. This is incontinence. But soon you are able to control yourself, and refrain from lashing out, even though you are still flush with anger at the most minute comment from your brother. This is continence. How can you get to the point where your vicious anger does not even arise in the first place?

What happens when unjust anger arises is that you perceive what is in reality a harmless comment to be a slight or insult. Anger is a desire for justice in response to a perceived offense or slight. In this case, the perceived insult is not truly an offense. You misperceive it. When you calm down, you realize that and regret getting angry, even as you are grateful you refrained from lashing out. You can then begin to reimagine the situation. You recall what your brother said, and realize it was not done maliciously. Perhaps you reflect on what about yourself makes you prone to hear such comments as offenses. You reflect on how your brother loves you, and how he was not trying to attack you in that case. All of this is cognitive manipulation.

Of course, all this is happening after the unjust anger has already arisen. What is done is done. But through cognitive manipulation, you can shape how you will perceive the next such comment you hear, either as an offense or a harmless comment. If you successfully reimagine the situation to get a better grasp of what really happened, the next time your unjust anger will not flare up or, more likely, it will flare up less strongly. Eventually it will not be aroused at all. And thus over time you will have habituated your anger so that eventually it is virtuous, and arises only at the proper time, in the proper place, at the right person, and in the right degree.

Through cognitive manipulation, or reimagining the different situations that arouse your emotions, you can indeed shape not only your actions but your desires themselves. This ability to shape your emotions is not direct control. You cannot command your emotional responses, such that they will obey you immediately, as for instance your arm will obey your command when you want to raise it up. Indeed, due to the responsive nature of our emotions, they will never be fully under your complete control. But that is far from saying they are wholly beyond your control. Through such means as cognitive manipulation emotional responses can be well habituated so as to support your quest for the good life.

This last section briefly explores the question, why bother? Previous chapters in this book have already expanded the scope of the moral life so as to include not only what actions we perform, but also what we intend by those actions. The moral life has already been shown to be a matter of interiority as well as external action. With this attention to interiority in place, why bother attending to another sort of interiority, that of our desires? What is gained by such attention? Or, better, what is missing if we do not understand, and in our lives attend to, the sorts of desires we have? In order to answer this question, a brief survey is offered here of three prevalent visions of the role emotions play in the moral life, held by various thinkers throughout the Western tradition. This book argues for the third approach described below.

First, recognizing that emotional attachments are responsive and therefore never fully under our control, some thinkers (such as Stoic philosophers) hold the view whereby the emotions are always seen as inordinate attachments that should be eradicated to the greatest extent possible. Emotions, simply put, only get in the way. We hear echoes of this view when people tell us, “Stop being so emotional! Think rationally!” Surely at times our emotional distress can hinder our ability to think straight. But this advice can also indicate that emotions only get in the way of our thinking straight, and thus we need to extinguish them as fully as possible. Of course, people who espouse this Stoic view know that eradicating emotions altogether is never fully possible. But the more we can be apathetic, the better. Emotions only get in the way.

A second vision of the role of the emotions in the moral life was held by Immanuel Kant, and arguably Plato. According to this view, emotions are not necessarily obstacles to virtuous living. They may be, but they might even help one act virtuously at times. However, since they are unreliable they should be reined in by one’s reason. Most important for this approach to the emotions, when they are absent from virtuous action there is nothing missing without them.

Aristotle and Aquinas represent a third vision of the role of the emotions in the moral life. They would agree that emotions can at times mislead us. They would also agree that the most important thing for virtuous living is good action and intention, even if unaccompanied by well-ordered desires. But they differ from the previous school of thought in two ways. First, they claim that our desires and emotions can indeed be transformed by our higher powers so as to participate in one’s higher powers, rather than merely being reined in by those powers. They recognize that when we have unruly desires, reining in may be the best we can do. That is why continence is virtuous, even if not fully virtuous. But they claim that having desires that are shaped by reason is even better. Why? This leads us to their second difference from the previous school of thought. Both Aristotle and Aquinas claimed that without virtuous emotions and desires something important is missing.

To understand what they say is missing, consider an example used both by Aquinas and Kant. When giving alms to the poor, is it best to feel sympathy for those in need? Kant recognizes that we are often sympathetic, but worries that if our emotions are the main drive behind our good acts, we might not do our duty and give to those in need at times when we do not feel like it. So he actually claims that since it is best to do good out of duty and not simply because of one’s feelings, the person who gives to the poor purely out of duty and without any sympathy is more praiseworthy. Aquinas, of course, agrees that it is most important to do the good act, even if one does not feel like it. But he argues that the fully virtuous person not only does the right thing for the right reasons, but also with the right emotions. In other words, almsgiving without sympathy, while still praiseworthy, is not as fully virtuous as doing so with the corresponding well-ordered emotions. Something would be missing without them.

This naturally raises the question, what would be missing? If in both cases good acts are being done for good motives, what is missing in the person without the corresponding emotions? Aquinas is never clear enough in explaining this, except to say that since we were created as embodied persons, it is more fitting that we should do good not only with our wills but also with our hearts, by which he meant our emotions. But we can speculate on a further answer that would be in accord with Aquinas’s (and Aristotle’s) thought.

Both Aquinas and Aristotle thought that the fully virtuous person acts well with “pleasure and promptness.” For them, the moral life need not be, indeed should not be, burdensome. Well-ordered emotions grant to the virtuous person a facility, an ease of action, not present in the person who acts on rational deliberation alone. The person with virtuous emotions responds nimbly to her environment such that doing good acts is not only done consistently and for the right reasons, but is also done easily, promptly, and with pleasure. The emotions serve just such a purpose for the human person. True, poorly habituated desires can do just the opposite, leading one facilely to activities that hinder the good life. But this is actually all the more reason to attend to how our desires are habituated, lest they encumber us in our desire to live most fully.

Much is at stake in attending to, or failing to attend to, our emotions. It is true that the continent person is evidence enough that one can indeed restrain one’s desires so as to act well in spite of those desires. But not only is such a life burdensome, it will likely not last. Eventually we will be worn down and succumb to those desires. Or, if we consistently resist those desires, the disordered desires themselves will likely diminish, and that should be enough reason to attend to important role our emotions play in the virtuous life.

This chapter is the first one devoted to a specific cardinal virtue: temperance. The first section offers a largely straightforward discussion of temperance, noting that temperance is not only about right actions and intentions, but also about right desires. The rest of this chapter springboarded off this fact to: (a) define emotions or desires and explore whether and why we are praiseworthy or blameworthy for those we have; (b) explore how we can develop good habits in our desires and emotions; and, (c) what difference it makes for the moral life if we do so.

After the preceding analysis, one obvious question remains. It concerns the possibility of self-deception and delusion while engaging in cognitive manipulation. A scene from the movie A Beautiful Mind illustrates this possibility well. It is the story of mathematical genius and Nobel Prize winner John Nash, who also suffers from severe psychiatric problems. In this scene, Nash’s wife is asked by a friend how she is doing throughout John’s bouts of schizophrenia and periods of institutionalization. She admits to feelings of obligation, guilt for wanting to leave him, and anger at him and God for his condition. Of course, she has not left John, and so this is a perfect example of continence. She is containing these desires and staying with her husband. She then provides a perfect example of cognitive manipulation. After admitting her feelings, she says:

I think often what I feel is obligation. Or guilt over wanting to leave. Rage, against John, against God. But then I look at him and I force myself to see the man that I married. And he becomes that man. He’s transformed into someone I love. And I’m transformed into someone who loves him. It’s not all the time—but it’s enough.Beautiful Mind, scene 15 (1:21:00 into film) (emphasis added).

Here is a classic example of how someone reimagines a situation, such that her emotions themselves are transformed. Yet students who have seen this clip, perhaps prompted by the occasion of a woman convincing herself to stay with her husband, have asked an excellent question. What if cognitive manipulation is used to deceive or delude one’s self? For instance, what if we hear these words from a victim of abuse convincing herself to stay with her violent spouse?

This question reveals that cognitive manipulation can indeed be used poorly, to delude one’s self and possibly even harm one’s self or others. Does this mean one should avoid any such reimagining? No, since it is the same sort of cognitive manipulation (in reverse) that can enables an abused spouse to overcome her emotion of fear to get help. There is a guard against such harmful cognitive manipulation. It is to ensure that one is reimagining the situation more, and not less, truthfully. How to know when that is the case? This is exactly the point of the following chapter, on the virtue of prudence.

1. Define temperance. What sorts of acts does it cover? In what different ways can one fail to be fully temperate?

2. Does temperance concern only external acts? Explain. What two types of interiority are distinguished in this chapter?

3. What are passions, or emotions? Give some examples. How are they related to external actions?

4. Can one ever be responsible for an emotional response? Explain. Give an example.

5. Explain how virtuous emotions can be developed, and be sure to use the following terms: intemperance, incontinence, continence, temperance.

6. What is essential for advancing from each step to the next in the development of virtue? Give one example for each step of advancement.

7. Give three different models for the role of the emotions in the moral life. State who holds each one, and explain what distinguishes each view.

temperance, passion, incontinence, continence, intemperance, cognitive manipulation, facility

1. Think of some occasions in your life when you possessed a disordered desire, even if you did not act on it. What did it prompt you to do? Why didn’t you do that? Could you have avoided the desire in the first place?

2. Think of some occasion in your life when you progressed through the different stages of developing virtuous emotions. Explain what helped you move from step to step.

3. Can the steps outlined here be used to develop increasing disordered passions? Try to think of an individual or communal example of such a case.

4. Can one intermittently go forward and backward with regard to the virtuousness of one’s desires?

5. Are there some areas in people’s lives where continence may be the highest possible state to achieve?

6. What ramifications on parenting are there for this chapter’s work on developing the emotion? In other words, try and answer the “why bother” question of the last section with regard to child development.

Thomas Aquinas is again the driving force behind this chapter. See in particular his “Treatise on the Passions,” I–II 22–48 in his Summa Theologiae. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a helpful and concise section on the passions, sections 1762–1775. For helpful contemporary moral theologians on the emotions, see Diana Fritz Cates’ Choosing to Feel as well as her article “Temperance” in Stephen J. Pope’s (ed.) The Ethics of Aquinas. See also G. Simon Harak’s Virtuous Passions.