Benjamin Franklin chooses temperance as the first of his thirteen virtues of life because it is this virtue that allows one to develop the self-discipline necessary to attain the other twelve. The cultivation of temperance leads to the development of a cool, clear head, which as Franklin points out is necessary to maintain constant vigilance against bad habits and temptations to overindulge in food or drink.

Franklin believes that if you can conquer your primal urges to eat and drink then you'll have the confidence to make the necessary improvements in other areas of your life, to which the other twelve of his virtues relate. Temperance is undoubtedly the hardest of Franklin's virtues to follow, not least because it requires the sustained application of will-power. All the more reason, then, to deal with it first. That way, adhering to the remaining twelve virtues will be so much easier.

Why does Franklin list temperance first among his virtues for moral perfection?

In Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, he places the idea of temperance as the first step to achieving his conception of "moral perfection" (a glaringly ironic goal for a man who owned enslaved humans and supported the institution of slavery until very late in his life). According to Franklin, if one achieves the ability to control bodily desires, then one can continue to advance into mastering more complicated aspects of one's self and how one relates to himself and the world.

For Franklin, temperance essentially means moderation. For example, Franklin does not outright condemn the drinking of alcohol, but instead posits that temperance means that one does not drink to become drunk but to quench one's thirst.

Franklin, as a man of the Enlightenment, believes fervently in the idea that man can become a perfect and rational being by adopting certain rules by which to live his life:

It was about this time that I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.  I wished to live without committing any fault at any time. . . .

This goal, of course, no matter how admirable may seem ambitious--perhaps impossible--to us in the 21stC., but men in the middle of the 18thC. absolutely believed that becoming morally perfect was not only possible but a positive duty.

When Franklin creates his list of moral virtues, he defines temperance, which appears first, as eating only until one is no longer hungry (and no more) and drinking only to satisfy thirst, not to become drunk.  In the introduction to the list of virtues, however, Franklin comments that temperance often includes

. . . moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental. . . . 

Franklin decides, for purposes of clarity, to expand the list of virtues to create a clearer list of virtues and their accompanying rules, and therefore to limit temperance to food and drink.  This broader view of temperance, which extends to "every other passion, appetite, inclination," is consistent with the Enlightenment's view of the value of regulation in all aspects of life--physical, moral, spiritual.

For Franklin, then, temperance came first primarily because if one can control powerful bodily urges to eat and drink to excess, the control of other virtues--resolution, frugality, industry, among others--becomes more easily accomplished.  In other words, if men can exercise one virtue, they can exercise all virtues.

We debate whether Franklin took his own advice completely over the course of his life, but the importance of the list of virtues is that men in the 18thC. believe wholeheartedly that such virtues are attainable.