Some consider Hume’s denunciation of what he calls the “monkish virtues” an unwarranted attack, redolent of an anticlerical bias. Hume rejects these virtues as antithetical to his own conception of happiness, so the complaint goes, without considering the possibility that when judged from the monkish point of view, they are both useful and agreeable. Only prejudice could explain such blatant question-begging. We argue, to the contrary, that when one reads Hume’s critique in light of his views on natural religion, it (...) becomes apparent that the monkish, as Hume understands them, cultivate their virtues for ends other than happiness but unwisely. If Hume is right, the monkish virtues are worse than useless for monkish purposes, making them vices rather than virtues. (shrink)

Humility is a paradoxical virtue. This should come as no great surprise. It doesn’t take much explanation for one to realize that if someone is boasting about how humble he is, then he probably is not humble. In fact, as we shall see, the paradoxical nature of humility has a long history, going back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. While it may not be a novel claim that there exists an apparent paradox of humility, I will (...) argue that there is more than one humility paradox, perhaps as many as five: the epistemic paradox, the paradox of self-attribution, the inculcation paradox, the agentic paradox, and the axiological paradox. All these paradoxes are distinct, yet seemingly intertwined. Upon examining them each in turn, we will be left with a Gordian knot of humility paradoxes. (shrink)

This article discusses conceptions of modesty and humility and their key features. It gives a brief historical overview of debates about whether or not they’re really virtues at all. It also discusses theories of modesty and humility that root them in the presence or absence of particular beliefs, emotions, desires, and attention. it also discusses related phenomena in epistemology: rational limits on self-ascription of error, attitudes to disagreement, and openness to alternative views.