Abstract

My dissertation explores the nature of self-control and contends that, properly construed, self-control is a moral virtue. The virtue of self-control aims to cultivate increasingly rational desires in its bearers over time; it is a sub-virtue of integrity directed ultimately at the approximation of the comprehensive, sustained integration of a person's desires with her rational judgments. ;Continent self-control is a disposition to resist and overcome temptation in order to act on one's better judgments. Continent self-controllers are ipso facto subject to temptation. However, virtue has been widely held to be incompatible with temptation. In defending my claim that self-control is a moral virtue, then, I reject the claim that virtuous persons are immune to temptation. I advance a novel conception of self-control that explains the development of emotional control in terms of the practice of 'healthy' forms of continent self-control, which are methods of self-control conducive to the long-term reorientation of desires and emotions to the demands of reason. ;Not all strategies of self-control are 'healthy' in the sense that they contribute to an agent's long-term emotional integration. In order to distinguish healthy from unhealthy strategies, I evaluate a number of specific control strategies ranging from focusing and distraction techniques to Ulysses-type binding or precommitment. I admit that unhealthy strategies of self-control sometimes provide short-term returns; they may occasionally even be necessary and good for agents suffering from profound control issues such as alcoholism or drug addiction. Unhealthy strategies fail to contribute to long-term emotional integration, however. Thus, unlike their healthy counterparts, they fail to be expressions of moral virtue. ;Healthy self-control plays an essential role in moral development. Since the virtues are rational-emotive dispositions to action, one acquires and maintains other virtues only insofar as one has developed a capacity for healthy emotional control. Moreover, virtuous self-control is beneficial because it helps secure a person's rational ends more consistently over time. As a result, it also fosters self-respect, confidence, and pride. A life devoid of self-control would be significantly impoverished, I claim; self-control therefore deserves to be considered a substantial moral virtue.