Contemporary accounts of humility: an overview and discussion17

Three initial caveats are in order. First, my review is of secular accounts of humility, though some of these are influenced by religious theories. Second, Julia Driver's work on modesty has generated a large and focused literature, which I discuss separately in Section 1.3.Third, though I present the views in chronological order, I have tried to highlight ongoing themes and inter­locking debates where possible.

Taylor (1985) — Humility is the acceptance of one’s lowly position.Taylor's account has it that:“The man who accepts his lowly position as what is due to him is the humble man, or the man who has humility.”¹⁸ Taylor furnishes an attractive starting point for our discussion, for her view can be seen as a bridge between historical and contemporary accounts of humility. This is because she draws on Aquinas to defend her view, which is then criticized by the contemporary philoso­pher Norvin Richards. Among other criticisms, Richards notes that restricting humility only to those who accept lowliness as their due precludes humility on the part of those who have attained a high position.¹⁹ In work by other philosophers,Taylor's overly restrictive account has largely been left aside.Yet, she avoids a peril often associated with humility, that of self-abase­ment, claiming that:“The humble who occupy and accept a lowly position on some hierarchical scale may be merely poor and meek. But to be virtuously humble is not to accept meekly just any sort of inferior position.”²⁰ Quoting Aquinas, she notes that humility restrains the mind from tending immoderately to high things. It does not imply, however, that one must be satisfied with anything lowly, such as losing one's dignity and self-respect. She contends,

The humble will still “have their pride”, still think that a certain kind of treatment is due to them, and that a certain kind of behavior on their part is due to others.They will get right what kind of treatment to give and to expect.²¹

Whether it is true that the humble will always “get right” what kind of treatment to give and to expect is an interesting question here left aside.

Richards (1988, 1992a, 1992b) — Humility is the inclination to keep one’s merits in perspective, even if stimulated to exaggerate them. Richards rejects Taylor's account of humility, claiming instead that humility “involves having an accurate sense of oneself, sufficiently firm to resist pressures toward incorrect revisions."²²The revisions he has in mind are to incorrectly think too highly of oneself.

Though this precludes the problem of attributing to the humble an overly low view of them­selves, it still raises concerns about an overly high view, as Richards acknowledges.²³ One might have accomplishments, and so on, and resist stimulations to exaggerate, and yet still have a rather rosy view of themselves and enjoy basking in attention. In response, Richards contends that those who acknowledge their accomplishments yet reject attention can be humble.²⁴ What is required for humility is keeping one's accomplishments in perspective, and eschewing a variety of inflated self-regarding attitudes, such being “full of oneself,”“putting on airs,” etc. It seems to be about having a realistic view of, and attitude toward, one's strengths.

Snow (1995) — Humility is the disposition to allow the awareness of and concern about one’s limi­tations to realistically influence one’s attitudes and behavior. Unlike Richards, who focuses on the appropriate attitudes toward one's strengths, Snow is concerned with humility as having proper reactions to one's weaknesses. She develops two conceptions of humility that she calls “narrow” and “existential.”²⁵ To have humility in the narrow sense is to be appropriately pained by, or feel sorrow or dejection because of, the awareness of one's own personal deficiencies.²⁶ To feel the appropriate negative emotion is to feel it commensurately with the seriousness of the failing: it is not to feel too much pain from the awareness of minor flaws, nor too little from the cognizance of major ones.

To be a humble person is to recognize your limitations, to take them seriously, and thereby to foster a realism in attitudes and behavior regarding self and others. Humility can be defined as the disposition to allow the awareness of and concern about your limitations to have a realistic influence on your attitudes and behavior. At the heart of this realism is a perspective gained through accurate appraisal of your limitations and their implications for your circumstances, attitudes, and behavior.²⁸

Both Richards and Snow believe that having humility can foster other good qualities. Richards thinks it can lead to an inclination to forgive, good judgment of others, and reasonable expecta­tions of self.²⁹ Snow believes that, by learning through failure and being humbled yet realistic, we can develop self-confidence, self-esteem, proper pride, and autonomy.³⁰

Roberts and colleagues (2003, 2007, 2017, 2018) — Humility is intelligent lack of concern for self­importance. In a series of essays, Robert C. Roberts and colleagues develop a conception of moral humility by contrasting it with a suite of vices.³¹ These vices include an impressive list: arrogance, vanity, conceit, egotism, grandiosity, pretentiousness, snobbishness, impertinence (presumption), haughtiness, self-righteousness, domination, selfish ambition, and self-complacency.³² A full and complete account of humility can be given by investigating the opposite of these vices, though in their early work, Roberts and Wood examine humility in richly textured accounts as the lack of vanity and arrogance.³³ Though the character of humility differs in its opposition to different vices on this list, it is not always only the absence of a vice.

We think that in the cases in which humility is clearly a virtue, and not merely the absence of a vice, a certain kind of story can be told about the basis of the unconcern and attentiveness.We propose that in the best cases the concern for status is swamped or displaced or put on hold by some overriding virtuous concern.³⁴

They give the example ofJesus Christ as the paradigm of humility. As the Son of God, he had a very high status, but he ignored this status and humbled himself in human form.³⁵ In later work, Roberts and his colleagues hew to essentially the same definition of humility and the manner of arriving at it.³⁶ Like Richards and Snow, Roberts and Cleveland think that humility can have benefits for the lives of its possessors and their families, colleagues, and acquaintances.³⁷ It can improve friendships, child-rearing, workplace cultures, self-understanding, and intellectual functioning.

Wielenberg (2005; 2019) — A secular account of humility.Wielenberg develops a secular account of humility that has important similarities to religious conceptions but does not require religious beliefs.³⁸ In his earlier work, he writes:“It is the dependence of human beings and their actions on factors beyond their control — dependence that is present whether God exists or not — that makes humility in some form an appropriate attitude to have.”³⁹ In other words, we are not uniquely responsible for our accomplishments, good traits, advantages, and so on. In a theistic universe, we are dependent on God for our successes. In a naturalistic universe, we are depend­ent on luck or chance. Either way, we cannot claim full credit for ourselves, and this realization should inspire humility.

Wielenberg offers more detail in later work, claiming that:

S has secular humility to the degree that: (i) S recognizes that she shares with all humans the important limitations of helplessness, fallibility, and moral frailty; (ii) S recognizes her relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things; and (iii) in virtue of (i) and (ii), S is (a) resistant to misplaced pride in her excellences and achievements, envy, and indignation at being slighted by others and (b) disposed toward forgiveness, gratitude, open-mindedness, low self-focus, and feelings of awe.⁴⁰

Conditions (i) and (ii) are reminiscent of Snow's work, and (iii, a) of Roberts and his colleagues.

Grenberg (2005) — Kantian humility is a meta-attitude concerned with judgments valuing the self in light of moral principles. In a book developing the Kantian virtue of humility, Grenberg maintains that humility is a “meta-attitude” — a perspective or point of view — that informs every exercise of agency.⁴¹ This results from the internalization of moral judgments and a moral disposition about the self, such that concerns of self-love are made conditional upon the satisfaction of moral demands.To achieve this disposition, one must recognize that one is corrupt and depend­ent, yet possessed of autonomy and self-respect before the moral law. One also recognizes that, in possessing these attributes, one is no different from other rational persons. Seeing oneself in a perspective framed by the moral law allows one a vantage point on one's strengths and weak­nesses, which obviates the need to compare oneself with others in a competitive way that could foster arrogance, envy, or resentment on the one hand, or feelings of low self-worth on the other. The perspective of the moral law, which we, as rationally autonomous agents, give to ourselves, stands in or substitutes for the religious conceptions of humility according to which we must situate ourselves in a divinely ordained universe.

In common with Wielenberg, Schueler, and Ben Ze'ev (the latter two write about modesty, not humility),⁴² Grenberg recognizes that humans are fallible and dependent, and acknowledges that this realization should put our accomplishments in perspective.Yet, as we'll see, she is unlike Schueler in that she attributes our achievements to our agency to at least some degree.⁴³

Garcia (2006) — Humility is being unimpressed with ourselves. After a thorough review and cri­tique of several contemporary conceptions of humility, Garcia argues that someone is:

humble about (with respect to) her being F (e.g., one or more of her talents, skills, and virtues, her achievements, her possessions, her ancestors, and so on with other possible grounds of pride) if, only if, and to the extent that, she has a stable, deep- seated, and restrained disposition to play down in her own thinking, self-concept, and feelings — and therein to decenter (to place in the) background, (not to stress, focus on, make much of, relish, or delight in) — the significance of her being F and, because of that, similarly not to stress in her self-concept her liberties, options, entitlements, and privileges.⁴⁴

He goes on to argue that humility is a virtue provided that it stems from appropriate mental states, i.e., someone's commitment to personal moral self-improvement or her concern that other persons and factors get due recognition for the part they play in her having F, also from her reasonable appreciation of the magnitude and significance of her limitations, flaws, depend­encies, and so on, as well as her duties and responsibilities.

Finally, someone is humble tout court,“just when she is humble about enough of her (real or self-imputed) good features and is not very proud of any of them. We can then say that she is unimpressed with herself.”⁴⁶

Sinha (2012) — Humility is overriding ego-driven impulses. Inspired by the work of Hastings Rashdall, Sinha argues that “people plausibly display humility when, for the right reasons, they override their ego-driven impulses to feel good about themselves wherever they can reasonably expect those impulses to conflict with various duties — especially the duty of beneficence and the duty to pursue truth or self-knowledge.”⁴⁷ Thus, humility has two dimensions — one epis- temic and one agentic, giving rise to what he calls “private” and “public” humility. These two dimensions can pull apart. Privately, one might think overly well of oneself, but decline credit out of genuine concern for others' feelings. Alternatively, one could have a conservative view of one's merits, but claim credit where it is due, no matter how hurtful to others.⁴⁸ Sinha offers a key criticism of Driver: “it's likely that our use of the term ‘humility' tracks agents' attitudes towards their merits rather than their beliefs about their merits.”⁴⁹ Beliefs are not irrelevant, but one can have true beliefs about one's merits, which could be considerable, yet be humble in one's attitudes about them.

1.3