In an interview with Fox News in December 2016, Donald Trump said, “You know, I'm, like, a smart person.
I don't have to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years. It could be eight years — but eight years. I don't need that” (Nelson, 2016).
President Trump said this in order to explain why he would only attend to intelligence briefings when he “needs it”.Whatever else one might think of President Trump, his policies, or his character, this statement clearly fails to display much in the way of humility Without delving into President Trump's virtues and vices, I want to consider a similar kind of statement in a thought experiment.Imagine a leader who considered himself too smart to need briefings, a leader who considered his views and beliefs the very best, and who did not see the need to reach out to those with whom he disagreed. Imagine a leader who would not tolerate questions that suggested disapproval or disagreement, and who showed little interest in, let alone tolerance for the perspectives or positions of those not entirely aligned with him in values or vision. Now imagine a leader who said something similar to the Trump quote above.What would we expect of that leader? How would we expect him to relate to others? In particular, would we expect him to be at all empathetic? Perhaps with those with whom he identified — but what about those who are different from himself? Would we expect him to be at all curious? Why should he be curious, when he takes his own view to be the very best? When a person shows no humility, the way our imagined leader does, we expect that person to also fail to be empathetic and curious.
In this paper, I want to suggest that humility, particularly intellectual humility, facilitates the development of empathy and curiosity. Having these three traits, in turn, makes it more likely that an agent will be open to a diversity of views. To argue for this, I'll first give some detail about humility, and then I'll explore each of these attitudes in turn.The goal is to illuminate the connection between humility and tolerance by way of each of these discussions.
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