The pursuit of temperance shows us that we need something outside ourselves to bring us into harmony or peace with ourselves, each other, and even God.

We struggle with constant distractions. Our phones demand attention, notifications pull us away from important tasks, and our goals often remain unrealized despite our best intentions.

But distraction is not destiny. Self-control is possible. We can overcome our appetites.

In this article, I will share four words that name what it means to be self-controlled and temperate so that you can take the first steps of taking back control.

While I cannot promise perfection, I can offer you a time-tested approach to self-control. This approach is grounded in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Bks 3 and 7) and provides the grammar of virtue to help us know what self-control is and how to attain it.

Word 1: Temperance (Sophrosyne)

Temperance, or sophrosyne in Greek, is a cardinal virtue that represents the ability to have only what you need in life. Whether it’s food, drink, or any kind of regular pleasure, to be temperate is to desire and take things in moderation, avoiding both excess and deficiency (not partaking in what you need).

The key distinction is that temperance isn’t the fight itself. It’s what you call someone who has gained the ability to not desire strongly or have appetite strongly for things that are unnecessary.

We become temperate largely because we become the kind of person who naturally doesn’t seek excess or deficiency—deficiency being not getting enough of what you need, such as eating too little food and becoming sick.

Temperance primarily concerns our bodily pleasures and appetites, especially those related to food, drink, and sex. It speaks to the proper and ordered enjoyment of pleasure. It aligns with reason naturally, and so we might say it comes to us naturally.

Word 2: Self-Control (Enkrateia)

By contrast, self-control (in Greek: enkrateia) names a fight. For Aristotle, self-control describes someone who has not yet gained the virtue of temperance. The reason is because they have an overwhelming desire or appetite to do something that they should not do.

A self-controlled person overcomes these desires, which is a good thing, but the fact that they have these overwhelming desires in the first place is already a problem. They face strong desires and appetites that are HARD to stop. Hence, it takes self-control.

Word 3: Lack of Self-Control (Akrasia)

Lack of self-control, or akrasia, occurs when a person knows what is right but fails to act accordingly because of strong appetites or emotions. The akratic person experiences the same internal conflict as the enkratic (self-controlled) person but gives in to their appetites.

Word 4: Intemperance (Akolosia)

In Book 7, Chapter 8 of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that an intemperate person is not the sort of person to have regrets, since they choose wickedness by rational choice and stand by it. In contrast, the person who lacks self-control is curable of their wickedness because they struggle against what they do not want to do and give in, but they still don’t want to do evil.

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