Answering some worries

In keeping with the worries from Du Bois and Snow above (page 75), Robin Dillon argues that “to laud humility for its usefulness to others borders on sinister, given the long history of casting it as a virtue of subordinated peoples—how much easier to dominate those who believe that submissiveness makes them good” (2015, 45).

Humility, understood like this, is no doubt inappropriate in contexts of disparity. However, the expressions of humility sketched above are not like this. For instance, someone who owns their moral and intellectual limitations, and who thereby makes way for charity to prevent them from unduly vilifying flat-earthers and neo-Nazis, does not manifest lowliness, submis­siveness, degradation, or abasement. On our theory, lowliness is an excess of the trait of humility and not a manifestation of the virtue; it is a kind of servility, of over-owning one's limitations, and it is often vicious. It causes inappropriate actions and emotions in contexts of disparity. Far from exemplifying the virtue of humility for those in the right in contexts of disparity, lowliness, submissiveness, degradation, and abasement are incompatible with the virtue of humility for those people in those cases. Thus we agree with Hannah Gadsby, who in her remarkable standup routine Nanette (2018) says

I built a career out of self-deprecating humor....And I don't want to do that anymore. Because do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from some­body who already exists in the margins? It's not humility, it's humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak, and I simply will not do that anymore. If that means that my comedy career is over, then, so be it.

Hear hear.

Another worry is that humility is inappropriate in contexts of disparity because it involves deference and deferring, e.g., to a flat-earther or a neo-Nazi, is inappropriate; or because it involves low concern for status, which is “implausible with respect to members of oppressed groups” who “must be very concerned. about how others perceive them (especially the powerful)” (Daukas 2019, 381).We agree that deferring to a flat-earther or a neo-Nazi is inappropriate, and that it is appropriate for the oppressed to be concerned with status. On our theory, deferring and low concern for status are characteristic manifestations of the virtue of humility in some contexts, e.g., in contexts of privilege. But in contexts of disparity, deferring and low concern for status are characteristic manifestations of the vice of servility instead of the virtue of humility.

Let's unpack this a bit. On our theory, people with the trait of humility characteristically defer to others and even have a low concern for status. Indeed, on our theory, these are also character­istic of the virtue of humility in privileged contexts, contexts in which people do not differ dramati­cally along some normative dimension like social power or moral status or epistemic credentials, with some in the right and others in the wrong.To illustrate, imagine an academic giving a talk at a department colloquium, and now add that this is not a context of disparity. Relative to this context, audience members with the virtue of humility who lack knowledge about the speaker's topic will be aware of this gap in their knowledge, own it, and so likely defer to the speaker on a range of points. They will also be relatively unconcerned with their professional status, and thus won't grandstand or play games of “one-up-man-ship” in the Q&A.

However, on our theory, in contexts of disparity, it is not appropriate to defer to in-the-wrong parties; moreover, in such contexts, concern for status is appropriate for in-the-right parties. Deferring and lack of concern manifest the vice of servility in such contexts. Consider severe cases of oppression in which one needs to be concerned with one's status in order to survive. This is not, of course, a concern for one's professional status (as above); it is a concern for one's status as a person. Now, consider what it would be like to be in this context and to limitations- own in such a way that one comes to have a low concern for one's status as a person—one no longer cares about one's entitlements as a person or about being seen and treated as property. Relative to this context, low concern for status is characteristic of the vice of servility, rather than the virtue of humility. Next, consider someone who limitation-owns in such a way that they come to defer to the neo-Nazi or the flat-earther. Imagine a person who is so focused on their own limitations that they don't trust their own views, or don't trust their ability to figure out what is wrong with the views of the flat-earther or the neo-Nazi, and so they defer. This, too, is characteristic of the vice of servility, rather than the virtue of humility.

6.4