12. Love: Temperance and the Weak-willed as a Curse to those who love them

From Aristotle's "Third glass of Champagne", we understand that what separates an individual with temperance from one without is strength of will.

Now it is very correct to understand of strength of as an executive will, something that is needed to be executed for all humans (as we are never truly complete and fully virtuous beings).

Strength of will allows one to assume and carry ethical responsibility and to do what is right (temperance). Our strength of will is constantly tested and it is a struggle to maintain it.

When one lacks strength of will and the ability to exercise temperance, then cursed are those who love one. Why so?

For firstly, there are many distractions from doing maintaining one's strength of will and temperance. Common ones include pain and temptation.

Let's discuss pain first. One's strength of will would then here be assessed on a threshold of pain and one's ability to make the right action despite of and in the presence of pain.

When one suffers from a low threshold of pain (be it emotional, mental or physical), one would not be brave enough to endure pain. This would translate then into actions made based on escapism and not ethical responsibility.

Temptation would also skew the weak-willed individual from the path of temperance in that they would lack the moral strength to resist missing out on pleasure. Basal instincts take over ethical responsibility.

The weak-willed individual then is a curse to those who love them because they are no able to endure, engage in self-serving transactionary relationships and are unable to extend and return acts of grace (since this would require leaps of faith when one transcends oneself).

The weak-willed individual who engages in love is then the anti-thesis to the free agent that I praise and advocate. The weak-willed individual breeds and feeds cynicism and the cycle of distrust which reinforces the ego of individuals and makes the true nature of moral man more inaccessible.

But it is not hopeless. The intemperate individual may act wrongly but he/she can still remedy the action and its consequences upon reflection.