The common image of the fully virtuous person is of someone with perfect self‐command and self‐perception, who always makes correct evaluations. However, modesty appears to be a real virtue, and it seems contradictory for someone to believe that she is modest. Accordingly, traditional defenders of phronesis (the view that virtue involves practical wisdom) deny that modesty is a virtue, while defenders of modesty such as Julia Driver deny that phronesis is required for virtue. I offer a new theory of modesty—the (...) two standards account—under which phronesis and modesty are reconciled. Additionally, since the two standards account involves reflection on moral ideals, I provide an account of the proper nature of moral ideals. (shrink)

This paper examines the virtue of modesty and provides an account of what it means to be modest. A good account should not only delimit the proper application of the concept, but should also capture why it is that we think that modesty is a virtue. Recent work has yielded several interesting, but flawed, accounts of modesty. Julia Driver has argued that it consists in underestimating one’s self-worth, while Owen Flanagan has argued that modesty must entail an accurate—as opposed to (...) underestimated or inflated—conception of one’s self worth. Neither of these accounts provides a satisfactory characterization of modesty as a virtue. Driver leaves us wondering why modesty, understood, at least in part, as misunderstanding one’s merits, should earn the status of virtue, whereas Flanagan’s characterization does not adequately and uniquely pick out the concept of modesty. These criticisms have been presented by G. F. Schueler who goes on to defend the doctrine that modesty is, roughly, the lack of one’s desire for other people to be impressed by one’s accomplishments. My goal is to provide an account of modesty that improves upon those currently before us. My own positive account will draw off of Schueler’s account as well as work done by Jean-Paul Sartre and Gabriele Taylor on the moral emotion of shame. (shrink)

The trait of modesty has received significant philosophical attention in recent years. This is due, in part, to Julia Driver's claim that modesty is able to act as a counter-example to intellectualist accounts of the nature of virtue. In this paper I engage with the debate about the nature of modesty by proposing a new account. ‘Modesty as kindness’ states that the trait of modesty ought to be considered as intimately connected with the more fundamental virtue of kindness. I set (...) out the account, explain its benefits and defend it against possible objections. I then ask whether or not the intense focus on the trait of modesty has actually furthered our understanding of the nature of virtue more generally, and suggest that alternative approaches ought to be considered. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made in the recent literature to provide a viable definition of the virtue of modesty. The most prominent of these comes from Julia Driver, who claims that modesty is the virtue of being disposed to persistently underestimate one’s self-worth despite available evidence to the contrary. In this paper, I argue that none of the recently presented definitions of modesty manage to capture its elusive nature. I argue that Driver and her critics fail to accurately define modesty (...) because they do not adequately account for the virtue’s social dimensions. Modesty is a valuable disposition for human agents to possess because it alleviates the jealousy, bitterness and other caustic emotions that arise in social contexts where our comparative merits are publicly acknowledged. This social function of modesty is often recognized, but it is consistently set aside when definitions of the virtue are presented. To correct this oversight, I propose a definition of modesty that faithfully captures our intuitions about the motives and behaviour of modest agents without failing to do justice to the social dimensions of the virtue. (shrink)

Recent attempts to explain why modesty should be considered a virtue have failed. A more adequate account is that modesty involves understanding how far one's accomplishments ought to be taken as definitive of one's value. Modest people communicate this self-understanding through behaviour motivated by the desire to ensure that their accomplishments do not cause pain to others. This virtuous mode of self-awareness involves recognizing that one is both defined by social standards of success and irreducible to these assessments. Modest agents (...) do not think themselves ‘better’ than others, but recognize that they rank higher on the particular social standard in question. They thus both avoid causing pain and serve as exemplars of virtuous self-responsibility. (shrink)

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)

It is commonly claimed that fully virtuous individuals cannot be ignorant and that everyday intuitions support this fact. Others maintain that there are virtues of ignorance and most people recognize them. Both views cannot be correct. We report evidence from three experiments suggesting that ignorance does not rule out folk attributions of virtue. Additionally, results show that many of these judgments can be predicted by one’s emotional stability—a heritable personality trait. We argue that these results are philosophically important for the (...) study of virtue and we discuss some of the ways individual differences may inform and facilitate current debates in ethics. We close with a cautionary argument detailing the risks of discounting some intuitions simply because they are associated with seemingly less desirable personality traits. (shrink)

In The Virtues of Ignorance the author demonstrates that classical theories of virtue are flawed and developes a consequentialist theory of virtue. ;Virtues are excellences of character. They are traits which are considered to be valuable in some way. A person who is virtuous is one who has a tendency to act well. Classical philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, believed that virtues, as human excellences, could not involve ignorance in any way. On their view, the virtuous agent, when acting (...) well, knows what she is doing under the description which makes the action conform to virtue. For example, the generous person must know that she is, in fact, helping others in need. Yet, there is a class of virtues, the "virtues of ignorance," which essentially involve ignorance. For example, modesty requires that the agent underestimate self worth. In the first portion of the dissertation, this class of virtues is discussed, and problems raised for the traditional theories of virtue. ;In the latter portion of the dissertation, the author outlines a consequentialist theory of virtue. It is argued that the only hope of developing a unified theory of virtue is along consequentialist lines, because attempts at identifying the psychological state which is necessary for virtue have failed. On a consequentialist theory, a virtue is defined in terms of its consequences. Thus, the moral quality of the character trait is determined by how much good it brings about . The virtues of ignorance can easily be accommodated in such a theory because these traits do bring about good, even if the agent possessing the trait acts out of ignorance. (shrink)