Definition of temperance. Temperance activists and their allies believed that alcohol, especially hard liquor, was an obstacle to economic success; to social cohesion; and to moral and religious purity. While this is true, self-control is much more than limiting ourselves. Immigrant groups including the Irish, Germans, and Italians, many of whom worked in the brewing and distilling industries, also opposed temperance. To compete in a race, one needs to train diligently. We can practice self-control in many ways. Sleeping in rather than getting up to train could mean the difference between finishing the race or dropping out and recording a new personal best time or just finishing before the cut-off time. Yet there are truly few things less virtuous than getting tanked and passing out. Temperance - Virtue Connection They believed that communal use of alcohol (through bars, taverns, etc. ) Alcohol 14. Some of the things that temperance can help us to control include our eating habits, our sexual desires, our use of drugs and alcohol, and our anger. Prudence (from the Tarocchi, series B: Cosmic Principles . Noun . Unfortunately, the search for instant gratification has become deadly as the drug trade is introducing more and more dangerous substances, including drugs so strong they have sent first responders to the hospital just from touching them. More recent work by Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman argues that there are six core human virtues: wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. b : moderation in or abstinence from the use of alcoholic beverages. Unless a person moderates alcohol consumption, it will be impossible for the Holy Spirit to direct . I always did, and that is why I never drink it. On the contrary, it helps us to recognize the value of our desires and the satisfaction of them but in balance and according to their nature, guided by our reason. Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods.