Philosophers often claim that humility is a dependent virtue: a virtue that depends on another virtue for its value. I consider three views about this relation: Specific Dependence, Unspecific Dependence, and Fittingness. I argue that, since humility cannot uniquely depend on another virtue, and since this uniqueness is desirable, we should reject Specific and Unspecific Dependence. I defend a Fittingness view, according to which the humble person possesses some objectively good quality fitting for humility. I show beyond Slote’s original characterization (...) of the dependence relation that, even if humility’s value depends on having objectively good qualities, humility itself can be one such quality. So, humility can depend on itself. I call this view Bootstrapped Fittingness. (shrink)

The utterance “I am humble” is thought to be paradoxical because a speaker implies that they know they are virtuous or reveals an aim to impress others – a decidedly non-humble aim. Such worries lead to the seemingly absurd conclusion that a humble person cannot properly assert that they are humble. In this paper, I reconstruct and evaluate three purported paradoxes of humility concerning its self-attribution, knowledge and belief about our own virtue, and humility's value. I argue that humility is (...) not genuinely paradoxical and that these puzzles do not have meaningful implications for its conceptual analyses. I instead offer error theoretical explanations of humility's apparent paradoxicality. (shrink)

I argue for an egalitarian conception of modesty. Modesty is a virtue because an apt expression of what is, and is not, morally salient in our attitudes toward persons and is important because we are prone to arrogance, self‐importance, and hero worship. To make my case, I consider 3 claims which have shaped recent discussions: first, that modesty is valuable because it obviates destructive social rankings; second, that modesty essentially involves an indifference to how others evaluate one's accomplishments; and third, (...) the wide spread but normatively fraught assumption that the modest person is deserving of credit. Although the first two features identify something significant about modesty, they fail to ground it. I argue that appeals to deserved credit bear a larger explanatory burden than has been supposed; they can smuggle in the illegitimate social hierarchies that modesty is supposed to counter. I make my case for modesty as an excellence in moral perspective by arguing that prominent, nonegalitarian, accounts of modesty allow for or promote illegitimate forms of social privilege. Modesty is valuable because it expresses a commitment to fair distribution of basic moral recognition and a skillful response to unjust social hierarchies at odds with this fair distribution. (shrink)

This thesis comprises a study of the ethical thought of Iris Murdoch with special emphasis, as evidenced by the title, on how morality is intimately connected to self-improvement aiming at perfection and how the study of fiction has an important role to play in our strive towards bettering ourselves within the framework set by Murdoch’s moral philosophy.

Numerous philosophers have tried to define modesty, but none of them succeeds in articulating the necessary and sufficient conditions for this virtue. Moreover, all existing accounts ignore the striking self-other asymmetry that is at the heart of modesty. Drawing on the analogy with the practice of giving presents, I clarify and further investigate this self-other asymmetry. In the process, I show why Bernard Williams is right in pointing out the notorious truth that a modest person does not act under the (...) title of modesty and why Alan Bennett is wrong in supposing that all modesty is false modesty. (shrink)

The utterance “I am humble” is thought to be paradoxical because a speaker implies that they know they are virtuous or reveals an aim to impress others – a decidedly non-humble aim. Such worries lead to the seemingly absurd conclusion that a humble person cannot properly assert that they are humble. In this paper, I reconstruct and evaluate three purported paradoxes of humility concerning its self-attribution, knowledge and belief about our own virtue, and humility's value. I argue that humility is (...) not genuinely paradoxical and that these puzzles do not have meaningful implications for its conceptual analyses. I instead offer error theoretical explanations of humility's apparent paradoxicality. (shrink)

How do people acquire modesty? A simple answer is: if people see that modesty is a worthy trait, they will incorporate it into their character. However, sometimes the knowledge that one is modest would undermine one’s modesty. So, Driver claims that the modest person must not know his merits. If we are to accept Driver’s claim, it would be difficult for us to conceive how learners can consciously acquire this virtue. In response, Bommarito puts forward a more moderate claim. The (...) modest person does not need to be ignorant of his good qualities; even if he knows about them, he must not pay attention to them. Bommarito’s explanation opens a space for Asian philosophers to engage in the debate. Asian philosophers generally emphasize the importance of practice and how practitioners must attend to the state of their consciousness so that they are not carried away by their desires. With regard to this, I put forward two ideas in this paper. First, I propose a third account of modesty, the knowledge account. I argue that modesty, in its worthy form, requires an agent’s understanding of his temptations and weaknesses. Second, I will explain the Confucian view of moral education in regard to this discussion. I introduce strategies regarding learners’ acquisition of virtues, including self-cultivation and cultivation through following rituals in interpersonal affairs. I believe that the Confucian view of moral education would enable agents to acquire virtues without the self-denial that troubles Driver and Bommarito. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the self-abasement account of humility is misguided and present Thomas Aquinas’s approach as a more adequate alternative. Starting out from the recent debate, I delineate and criticize three strategies to model humility. Contrasting these strategies, I argue that humility is best understood as a form of realistic self-insight. Following Aquinas’s ‘secunda secundae,’ I finally discuss why the proposed account is fragmentary, and should be supplemented by the concept of magnanimity.

What does friendship require of us cognitively? Recently, some philosophers have argued that friendship places demands on what we believe. Specifically, they argue, friendship demands that we have positive beliefs about our friends even when such beliefs go against the evidence. Call this the doxastic account of the cognitive demands of friendship. Defenders of the doxastic account are committed to making a surprising claim about epistemology: sometimes, our beliefs should be sensitive to things that don’t bear on their truth. I (...) consider both motivations and worries for the doxastic account before developing a new account: the attentional account. According to it, friendship places demands on how we direct our attention. I argue that the attentional account can accommodate the considerations that motivate the doxastic account and weather the worries that trouble it, all while avoiding its surprising epistemological commitments. Along the way, I question the assumption that the cognitive demands of friendship center on positivity, and argue that the attentional account can support a more robust picture of friendship that calls for significant amounts of impartial thinking. (shrink)

Perinatal palliative and hospice care (hereafter, perinatal hospice) is a novel approach to addressing a family’s varied needs following an adverse in utero diagnosis. Christian defenses of perinatal hospice tend to focus on its role as an ethical alternative to abortion. Although these analyses are important, they do not provide adequate grounds to characterize the wide range of goods realized through this compassionate form of care. This essay draws on an analysis of the Christian virtue of humility to highlight the (...) ways a Christian virtue-based defense of perinatal hospice can account for these goods. I argue that humility can play an important facilitating role in helping Christian physicians to meet the needs of families in profoundly difficult circumstances. (shrink)

The contemporary discussion of modesty has focused on whether or not modest people are accurate about their own good qualities. This essay argues that this way of framing the debate is unhelpful and offers examples to show that neither ignorance nor accuracy about the good qualities related to oneself is necessary for modesty. It then offers an attention-based account, claiming that what is necessary for modesty is to direct one’s attention in certain ways. By analyzing modesty in this way, we (...) can best explain the distinct features of modesty, keep much of what is intuitive in contemporary accounts, and better understand why modesty is a virtue at all. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a new insight on the virtue of modesty. It argues that modesty is best understood as an executive virtue with the moderate evaluative attitude at its center. The main goals are to describe the main features of this evaluative attitude and to distinguish it from other features that are only contingently associated with modesty. Then some distinctive features of modesty as an executive virtue are suggested and defended. Next, some of existing accounts are critically examined. (...) Finally, this paper ends with the claim that modesty as a virtue does not depend on possession of excellent qualities. (shrink)

Pride has been denounced as one of the seven deadly sins and praised as the crown of the virtues. Perhaps because of the difficulty of navigating between these appraisals, pride has not been paid very much attention by ethicists. Moreover, pride is so familiar as a feeling that the suggestion that it could be a virtue may seem misplaced.

Contemporary treatments of humility typically treat humility as a virtue that is reserved for the accomplished. I argue that paradigmatic humility can also be possessed by the deficient, and I provide an extended example of such humility. I further argue that attending to such a case helps us to appreciate the way in which the humble have released both the desire for superiority and the aversion to inferiority. Accordingly, when necessary, the humble will exhibit an extremely low concern with their (...) own status relative to that of others. (shrink)

I discuss the predicament that engineering-ethics education in Japan now faces and propose a solution to this. The predicament is professional motivation, i.e., the problem of how to motivate engineering students to maintain their professional integrity. The special professional responsibilities of engineers are often explained either as an implicit social contract between the profession and society (the “social-contract” view), or as requirements for membership in the profession (the “membership-requirement” view). However, there are empirical data that suggest that such views will (...) not do in Japan, and this is the predicament that confronts us. In this country, the profession of engineering did not exist 10 years ago and is still quite underdeveloped. Engineers in this country do not have privileges, high income, or high social status. Under such conditions, neither the social-contract view nor the membership-requirement view is convincing. As an alternative approach that might work in Japan, I propose a pride-based view. The notion of pride has been analyzed in the virtue-ethics literature, but the full potential of this notion has not been explored. Unlike other kinds of pride, professional pride can directly benefit the general public by motivating engineers to do excellent work even without social rewards, since being proud of themselves is already a reward. My proposal is to foster a particular kind of professional pride associated with the importance of professional services in society, as the motivational basis for professional integrity. There is evidence to suggest that this model works. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 3, Page 623-638, May 2022.

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.

This paper articulates an egalitarian conception of judicial humility and justifies its value on the grounds that it importantly advances the legal and political ideal of fraternity. This account of the content and value of the virtue of humility stands in sharp contrast with the dominant view of judicial humility as deference or judicial restraint. The paper concludes by discussing some ways in which the account of humility and of its value provided in the paper furthers our understanding of the (...) judicial virtues and of the political implications of giving virtue a role in adjudication. (shrink)