A distinctive humility

Avoiding this kind of arrogance involves a distinctively Buddhist type of humility.As we've seen, Buddhist thought acknowledges types of humility that involve a lower evaluation of yourself in the face of other sources of value in the world.

Some of the most humbling experiences are those that put your own scale in perspective.¹⁹ Seeing the Grand Canyon or arriving in a big city can make you feel small. But for Buddhists, even thinking you're very small is still taking yourself too seriously. What's really humbling is seeing that what you thought of as yourself was largely a mistake.

This kind of humility operates in a very wide range of situations. Arrogantly over-valuing yourself, your importance, or your own good qualities are ways of experiencing life through the lens of a self, but they aren't the only ones.You give a presentation and everyone applauds and tells you how great it was.You feel a warm sense of satisfaction, validated and on top of the world. Maybe it really was good and you deserved all that praise. Even still, Buddhists will point out that this feeling is dangerous because it deepens your investment in a sense of your­self as a separate independent thing. It might feel nice now, but it is fundamentally misleading and this sense of self will appear later in ugly and destructive ways: jealousy, insecurity, and anxiety.

Think back to Santideva's advice to be like a log when experiencing the desire for fame, praise, or admiration. He doesn't give this advice simply because comparative evaluations of superiority are bad but because indulging in these feelings is dangerously deceptive — they rein­force not just a sense of superiority but the sense that you are a separate self to begin with.

This sense of self can also appear in a depressive way, when someone continually undervalues themselves. Eeyore spends his days stewing on how his friends are so much better, more suc­cessful, and more talented than he is.Any time one of them does something well, he thinks “Of course, they're so much better than me."This is also a self-centered way to relate to the world. For Eeyore, everything that happens and everyone's talents have relevance only comparatively to him and his abilities.Though it takes on a depressive hue, it is an outlook that assumes the self is the more important thing and other things have relevance only when related to it.

Buddhist humility, at least this type, means giving up this way of relating to others and to life in general. Giving up a persisting self means, among other things, giving up the habit of filtering your experiences through that self.This makes humility less life-denying than it can often seem. Being humble in this Buddhist sense doesn't mean you can't think applause is nice, but you don't think that it says anything about you or your ultimate worth. This has the benefit of open­ing you up to fully appreciate the values around you without spoiling that benefit by getting in your own way.The restaurant customer can relate to his waiter and enjoy his food without tak­ing things personally. Eeyore can actually appreciate the talents and good fortune of his friends without feeling like it has to say something about him.

Of course, this notion of humility exists within the practical, philosophical, and soteriological context of Buddhism.Those endorsing this idea also accept other ideas like rebirth, emptiness, and impermanence.²⁰ It's important to keep in mind that classical Buddhist writers are not consciously engaged in ethical theorizing; they're not primarily interested in articulating the fundamental principles that explain our ethical judgments. They're giving advice, in particular advice that assumes a particular goal and practical context.

So, as we've seen, Santideva does think there's a place for certain kinds of pride. This need not be contradictory if you understand that he is writing a manual with practical advice.A book about how to quit smoking might say that nicotine is bad and that some people should use nicotine patches. Similarly, some thoughts and feelings can be useful at certain stages of progress even if not part of the final goal.²¹

One of the most important ways to check someone’s arrogance is telling them “Get over yourself”. Buddhists take this advice in the most serious way possible: a supremely humble per­son is someone who doesn’t experience life through the lens of a self at all.They’re free from nga-gyal, no longer ruled by a sense of ‘I’. It’s a de-personalized humility that’s not simply about letting others win or thinking you’re a worse player than you really are, but giving up the game entirely (or at least giving up any personal investment in winning or losing).

One need not accept Buddhist claims about metaphysics to see this as an interesting and novel conception of humility. It’s not about how you rank yourself in relation to others or what place you think you have in the world, but instead about the assumptions that underlie the impulse to rank or situate yourself at all. It’s a humility that’s not about changing how we com­pare ourselves with others, but one that challenges the assumptions about the nature of the self that underpin such comparisons. It’s a humility that challenges not just our place among others, but our fundamental feeling about our own nature.

Notes

1 See, for example, Foot (1978/2002, 9), Slote (1983), and Sidgwick (1907/1981,335).

2 See Sorensen (1988) and Driver (1989, 2001) for this claim in the context of modesty. Ben-Ze’ev (1993, 240) and Nuyen (1998, 101) take humility to involve underrating oneself.

3 Flanagan (1990) defends this for modesty and Richards (1988) for humility. See also views that associ­ate humility with accepting one’s own limitations as in Whitcomb et al.

4 See Raterman (2006) for a reluctance account, Ridge (2000) for a de-emphasis account, and Bommarito (2013, 2018) for an attention-based account.

5 See Foley (2004) for this reading of Aquinas. Kant’s comments on humility can be found in his Doctrine of Virtue (6:462).

6 See Milligan (2007) for more on Murdoch’s understanding of humility.

7 See the Tibetan classic The Life of Milarepa for a famous example of this.

8 BodhicaryavataraV49-51 This is the Padmakara Translation Group translation.

9 For another cross-cultural take in the context of intellectual humility, see Robinson and Alfano (2016) who draw on the classical Chinese concept of wu-wei to argue that intellectual humility is anti-individ­ualistic in certain ways.

10 This approach is also taken by Roberts and Wood (2003) when discussing intellectual humility. See also Tanesini (2018) who contrasts intellectual humility with intellectual servility.

11 These are known in Sanskrit as the malaklesa; the other five are often translated as ignorance, desire, anger, doubt, and wrong views.

12 BodhicaryavataraVII.55-59.Again, the Padmakara Translation Group translation.

13 Tibetan terms are written using the Wylie transliteration system.

14 This division is standard in Tibetan presentations of nga-rgyal; see, for example Jamgon Kongtrul (2013, 808). For a classical Indian source see the 4th-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Asanga, particu­larly his Compendium of Abhidharma (Sanskrit: Abhidharma-samuccaya) and Bodhisattva Stages (Sanskrit: Bodhisattva-bhumi).

15 In Sanskrit asmi-mana and in Tibetan nga’o-snyam-pa’i-nga-rgyal.

16 Siderits, Thompson, and Zahavi (2011) is a good place to start of the analytically minded philosopher interested in non-self.

17 This kind of argument can be found in a text called The Questions of King Millinda (Sanskrit: Milinda- panha), a dialogue between a Greek king and a Buddhist monk named Nagasena.

18 The Sanskrit title is Ratnavalt or in Tibetan, Rin-chen phreng-ba.This is verse 410 (chapter V verse 10).

19 See Bommarito (2014) for another way perspective is relevant to Buddhist ethics.

20 See Cowherds (2015) for various contemporary philosophical takes on the relationship between Buddhist metaphysical ideas about emptiness and ethics.

21 The idea of stages on the Buddhist path is a very important one. Classic Buddhist texts like the Tibetan philosopher Tsongkhapas Great Stages of the Path (Tibetan: Lam-rim Chen-mo) and the Indian philoso­pher Asangas Bodhisattva Stages (Sanskrit: Bodhisattva-bhumi). See also Harvey (2000, 51).

References

Classic Sources

Asanga, Abhidharma-samuccaya.

----------, Bodhisattva-bhumi.

Milinda-pafiha.

Nagarjuna, Ratnavalt.

Santideva, Bodhicaryavatara.

Tsangnyon Heruka, Mi-la-ras-pa’i rnam-thar

Tsongkhapa, Lam-rim Chen-mo.

Modern Sources

Ben-Ze'ev,Aaron, 1993,“The Virtue of Modesty”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 30(3): 235—246. Bommarito, Nicolas, 2018, Inner Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press.

----------, 2014,“Patience and Perspective”, Philosophy East and West, 64(2): 269—286.

----------, 2013,“Modesty as aVirtue of Attention”, Philosophical Review, 122(1): 93—117.

Cowherds, 2015, Moonpaths, New York: Oxford University Press.

Driver, Julia, 2001, Uneasy Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

----------, 1989,“TheVirtues of Ignorance”, The Journal of Philosophy, 86(7): 373—384.

Flanagan, Owen, 1990,“Virtue and Ignorance”, The Journal of Philosophy, 87(8): 420—428.

Foley, Michael P., 2004,“Thomas Aquinas' Novel Modesty”, History of Political Thought, 25(3): 402—423. Foot, Philippa, 1978/2002, Virtues and Vices, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Harvey, Peter, 2000, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, Immanuel, 1797/1996,“The Metaphysics of Morals”, In: Practical Philosophy,Mary Gregor (trans. and ed.), New York: Cambridge University Press.

Milligan,Tony, 2007,“Murdochian Humility”, Religious Studies, 43(2): 217—228.

Nuyen,A.T., 1998,“Just Modesty”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 35: 101—109.

Raterman, Ty, 2006, “On Modesty: Being Good and Knowing It without Flaunting It”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 43(3): 221—234.

Richards, Norvin, 1988,“Is Humility aVirtue?” American Philosophical Quarterly, 25: 253—260.

Ridge, Michael, 2000,“Modesty as aVirtue”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 37: 269—283.

Roberts, Robert and Jay Wood, 2003,“Humility and Epistemic Goods”. In: Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 257—279.

Robinson, Brian and Mark Alfano, 2016, “I Know You Are, but What Am I?: Anti-Individualism in the Development of Intellectual Humility and Wu-Wei”, Logos and Episteme, 7(4): 435—459.

Rushing, Sara, 2013, “What is Confucian Humility?” In: Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, S. Angle and M. Slote (eds.), New York: Routledge, 173-181.

Siderits, M., E.Thompson and D. Zahavi eds. 2011. Self, No Self?: Perspectives From Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions, New York: Oxford University Press.

Sidgwick, Henry, 1907/1981, The Methods of Ethics, Indianapolis: Hackett.

Slote, Michael, 1983, Goods and Virtues, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sorensen, Roy, 1988, Blindspots, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Tanesini, Alessandra, 2018, “Intellectual Servility and Timidity”, Journal of Philosophical Research, 43: 21-41. Taye, Jamgon Kongtrul, 2013, The Treasury of Knowledge, Book Six, Parts One and Two: Indo-Tibetan Classical Learning and Buddhist Phenomenology, Gyurme Dorje (trans. and ed.), Boulder: Snow Lion Press.

Whitcomb, Dennis, Heather Battaly, Jason Baehr and Daniel Howard-Snyder, 2015, “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91(1): 1-31.