The purpose of this paper is to examine the new alcohol debate and put it into historical perspective, before outlining the meaning and nature of the new temperance challenge.
A moral perspective on the patterns of alcohol consumption from the point of view of character virtue is offered in order to address this deep‐seated cultural problem.
Facts and figures on the nature and extent of Britain's alcohol problem are used to illustrate the strength of present day concerns.
The acquisition of temperance in today's society is very difficult in the face of affluence and a consumer culture, which encourages impulsiveness and infantilisation especially when it comes to drinking alcohol. The particular problems of the UK are exacerbated by cultural factors and patterns of family structure, which also undermine the acquiring of the virtue of temperance.
Today's drink problem is a problem of character that has to be tackled by all the institutions of civil society, the family, religious groups, and communities. The drinks industry in its widest sense can also play its part in developing a culture of temperance.
The contention of the paper is that unless the cultivation of some notion of temperance is reverted as a shared virtue of character, today's alcohol problem will not successfully be tackled.
