Whether Sobriety Is by Itself a Special Virtue?
Objection 1: It would seem that sobriety is not by itself a special
virtue. For abstinence is concerned with both meat and drink. Now
there is no special virtue about meat. Therefore neither is sobriety,
which is about drink, a special virtue.
Obj. 2: Further, abstinence and gluttony are about pleasures of touch
as sensitive to food. Now meat and drink combine together to make
food, since an animal needs a combination of wet and dry nourishment.
Therefore sobriety, which is about drink, is not a. special virtue.
Obj. 3: Further, just as in things pertaining to nourishment, drink
is distinguished from meat, so are there various kinds of meats and
of drinks. Therefore if sobriety is by itself a special virtue,
seemingly there will be a special virtue corresponding to each
different kind of meat or drink, which is unreasonable. Therefore it
would seem that sobriety is not a special virtue.
_On the contrary,_ Macrobius [*In Somno Scip. i, 8] reckons sobriety
to be a special part of temperance.
_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 146, A. 2), it belongs to moral
virtue to safeguard the good of reason against those things which may
hinder it. Hence wherever we find a special hindrance to reason,
there must needs be a special virtue to remove it. Now intoxicating
drink is a special kind of hindrance to the use of reason, inasmuch
as it disturbs the brain by its fumes. Wherefore in order to remove
this hindrance to reason a special virtue, which is sobriety, is
requisite.
Reply Obj. 1: Meat and drink are alike capable of hindering the good
of reason, by embroiling the reason with immoderate pleasure: and in
this respect abstinence is about both meat and drink alike. But
intoxicating drink is a special kind of hindrance, as stated above,
wherefore it requires a special virtue.
Reply Obj. 2: The virtue of abstinence is about meat and drink,
considered, not as food but as a hindrance to reason. Hence it does
not follow that special kinds of virtue correspond to different kinds
of food.
Reply Obj. 3: In all intoxicating drinks there is one kind of
hindrance to the use of reason: so that the difference of drinks
bears an accidental relation to virtue. Hence this difference does
not call for a difference of virtue. The same applies to the
difference of meats.
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