Temperance is a term that is hardly known in psychology, sociology, or social work. It does not appear in the subject index of the Social Work Dictionary by Kreft & Mielenz, nor in the appendix of the Psychology Handbook by Wers, or in the New Handbook of Socialization Research by Hurmann & Ulich, to name just three examples. Such evidence can increasingly be found in the human sciences. So why invoke a seemingly unknown, perhaps even outdated term in a social science or social work context and dedicate a monograph to it? The answer is relatively simple, and it is: precisely because of that! For with temperance, a moral concept seems to have been lost, one that carries human wisdom from centuries, if not millennia.