Humility as a virtue of low self-focus

The folk concept of the humble person is, plausibly, that of someone who does not think of herself and of her interests as especially important. This understanding might seem more cen­tral to the concept of humility than the idea, explored above, of a person who has an accurate appraisal of her limitations.These two conceptions of humility are related but they are different.

The thought that humility requires, that one is not focused on the self, its importance, needs, and successes, is appealing. It has inspired philosophical accounts of humility as a virtue that consists in a disposition not to dwell on, or take delight in, one’s achievements (Garcia, 2006). Along similar lines, Bommarito (2013) has defined modesty as the virtue of not attending too much to one’s good qualities, or not focusing too much on their value, or alternatively as the virtue of carefully attending to the role that others’ help and good luck have played in one’s development of these good qualities.

These accounts of humility are different from Driver’s (1989, 1999), but ultimately face simi­lar problems.The person who does not pay attention to her good qualities or the role played by her efforts in developing them is likely to underestimate these qualities and the extent to which they are a credit to her. Humility so understood might be a corrective for arrogance but it is an impediment to the development of proper pride and self-respect in those people who are at risk of self-deprecation and self-abasement (Dillon, this volume, Chapter 5).To the extent that humility is not incompatible with proper pride, it would seem that these accounts fail to capture what is at the core of humility.

More promising in my opinion is an account of humility as the disposition to understand oneself from a viewpoint that does not put that self at its centre. Such a point of view would not focus exclusively on the interests of the self, but would instead take on others' interests into account within one's perspective. It is possible to interpret along these lines the view, defended by Nadelhoffer and Wright (2017), that humility has two dimensions: low self-focus and high other-focus. Low self-focus indicates that one does not invest the self with supreme importance; one does not think of the self as ‘number one' whose interests trump all other considerations. High other-focus suggests that, within one's perspective, one invests others' interest with impor­tance and gives due weight to their reasons within one's thinking.

So interpreted, the low self-focus account of humility does not imply that one is inatten­tive to the self or that one does not take pleasure in one's achievements. On the contrary, low self-focus might well require that one pays attention, and properly appreciates, one's qualities. However, one must do so from a changed perspective. Instead of evaluating oneself from a point of view that has oneself at its centre, one comes to know the worth of one's own qualities by measuring them from the viewpoint of the whole of humanity or even the whole universe. That is, this approach proposes that the humble person is the person who knows herself but whose appraisal of her own worth seeks to appreciate her significance from the viewpoint of humanity and the universe as a whole. In other words, in this view, humility is not a matter of inattention to oneself, rather it involves measuring one's worth by a meter that is not distorted by an egocentric bias.

I think of the high other-focus dimension of humility as the other face of the coin from low self-focus.The downward revision of one's own importance brings a more accurate apprecia­tion of other people's worth in its trail. I thus disagree with the tendency to think that humility should, because of this dimension, be thought of as an interpersonal virtue.This is an idea that has recently been promoted by Wilson (2016) and by Priest (2017).

I agree with Priest that the intellectually humble person does not show disrespect to other epistemic agents. She does not steal others' credit, she is open-minded, and a good team player. That is, she engages in the range of behaviours identified by Priest.Yet, in my view, these are comportments that are likely to flow from intellectual humility but do not constitute it. Imagine a strong-minded scientist who has both a reputation for humility and bluntness. She is humble because she does not aggrandise or brag. Instead, she is a very severe critic of her own achieve­ments. She recognises them but always expects better and more from herself. She also expects the same of others. For this reason, she can be unkind and demanding.Whilst perhaps not dis­respectful or unjust toward others, she does not show a special interest in their well-being or success. She claims that her loyalty is to the truth and only the truth.

I am inclined to think that such characters can exist. They are intellectually humble, but do not demonstrate the sort of interpersonal virtue discussed by Priest. I am not suggesting here that one can be both humble and disrespectful toward others. Rather I am claiming that humil­ity can be exemplified by some who are not especially supportive of others' endeavours. If this is right, Priest's account individuates qualities that are associated with humility but do not lie at its core.

If we think of humility as the knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses as meas­ured by their significance in the context of the whole of humanity and of the universe, we can see why the humble person is likely to be sensitive to other people's reasons, needs, and interests.

I have argued so far that humility is not a virtue of self-ignorance or simply a virtue of espe­cially accurate self-knowledge.A person might be humble and be mistaken about her self-worth if, for example, she has been innocently swayed by misleading evidence. Rather, humility is the virtue of evaluating one's strengths and weaknesses in a manner that is not self-centred. These appraisals are not egocentric in at least two ways. First, the standard by which one measures the worth of one's qualities and thus sorts them as strengths and weaknesses makes no reference to self-advantage.Thus, for example, the fact that a feature makes one feel good about oneself does not count as a reason to classify it as a strength. Second, one's evaluation of one's qualities by reference to non-egocentric standards is also not biased by egocentric motivations such as that to self-enhance. In short, the humble person does not measure her worth using biased weights or biased processes. Instead, she evaluates herself for her worth as it might appear from the point of view of her place within humanity as a whole.

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