Similarities between pride and humility
There are many different accounts ofpride. But what most have in common is a certain ‘appraisal structure'. Roughly, pride involves an appraisal or assessment of an object or event as (i) valuable, and (ii) as related in some way to oneself.A prominent and plausible account of pride is due to Gabriele Taylor, who writes:
[A] person who experiences pride believes that she stands in the relation of belonging to some object (person, deed, state) which she thinks desirable in some respect.
This is the general description of the explanatory beliefs. It is because (in her view) this relation holds between her and the desirable object that she believes her worth to be increased, in the relevant respect.This belief is constitutive of the feeling of pride.The gap between the explanatory and identificatory beliefs is bridged by the belief that her connection to the thing in question is itself of value, or is an achievement of hers.4On this view, there are three ‘conditions' for pride. First, pride is dependent: we feel pride as a response to some object or event that, in our eyes at least, constitutes a positive value. Second, we must regard the valuable object or event as standing in some relation to us.As Jeremy Fisher puts it,“experiencing the emotion of pride requires that we view ourselves as standing in some special relation to the object of our emotion”.5 In Taylor's terms, this relation can be a broad one, such as ‘belonging'.Taylor writes:“It is in virtue of belonging to the same family, the same country or institution that people are proud of their ancestors, countrymen, or colleagues”.6 Third — and this will be important as we go on — the proud person must regard her standing in this relation as something that is itself valuable, as a source of self-worth or esteem. It is not simply the fact that one stands in a relation of belonging to something of value that suffices for pride; I might, after all, not feel pride about my family's mansion, despite its value and my relation to it, since I regard such ostentatious displays of wealth to be immoral.The proud person must therefore regard the fact that she is in a relation with something of value as bearing positively on her worth.Together, these three beliefs — or perhaps cognitions that fall short of beliefs — make up the complex appraisal that is distinctive of pride, and without these three beliefs our feeling would fail to be an instance or episode of pride.What, then, of humility?
As with pride, there are a variety of different accounts of humility.
We'll see some recent accounts shortly.What (nearly) all accounts of humility seem to have in common is something noted by Michael Slote, namely that humility is also dependent upon some other good, and so, like pride, is a relational state.As Nicolas Bommarito puts it,“being modest requires some other good quality for us to be modest about”.7 We might capture this dependent or relational aspect of modesty by proposing that it too has a particular appraisal structure. Humility, like pride, must involve thinking or believing that one stands in a relation to some good or value.As with pride, the good or value might not be something that the person themselves has brought about. People are often humble or modest about their own qualities and achievements, but this need not be the case: I can be modest about the achievements of my children, or the prestige of my university. This means that the first two conditions for pride are mirrored for humility: we feel humility in relation to some valuable object or event or quality, and we regard the object (etc.) as standing in some relation to us. Following Taylor, we might think that this is once again a relation of ‘belonging'.To this point, then, we've not encountered any real difference between pride and modesty, at least at the level of appraisal structure. Both involve thinking about the relation between oneself and something of value in a particular way.What of the third condition? Do pride and humility differ here? Some might be tempted to think so, and maintain that whereas pride requires the thought or belief that the relation in question bears positively on one's standing, humility doesn't involve any such appraisal. Indeed, some might go further and claim that humility cannot involve thinking of the relation in this way: that it is a necessary condition on being modest or humble that one does not have this belief. This would be a version of an ‘ignorance' account of the concept. As Bommarito states, such accounts “explain modesty by appeal to states that are epistemically defective in some way; the modest person either lacks certain beliefs about their own goodness or has false beliefs that involve underrating themselves”.8 So on this view, the modest person must be ignorant of the fact that her standing in a relation to something of value speaks well of her, enhances her standing in the eyes of others.
There are a couple of problems with this line, however. First, it seems unduly restrictive: there seems little reason, other than adherence to the theory, to suppose that the modest person cannot have a belief about of how the relation in question enhances her standing. Consider: it is at least possible (indeed, reasonably likely, given how he conducts himself in interviews) that Andy Murray is a modest person. But he is surely aware of how his tennis prowess and achievements are viewed by his fellow Scots. Modesty surely cannot require Andy Murray to be puzzled when he keeps winning awards and public acclaim, for instance. Second, it is not at all obvious how lacking the belief in question makes the modest person better or more virtuous than someone who is proud of his achievements, and so who is aware of how the relation bears positively on his standing. Whatever the reason we prefer those who are modest to those who are proud, clearly lack of the relevant belief isn't it. If so, it's plausible to suppose that pride and modesty have the same kind of appraisal structure, at least to the extent that they share the three ‘conditions' explained above. How, then, might we explain the difference in the evaluative status that pride and humility have? In the next section, I'll examine some recent ways of answering this question, and argue that none of them are convincing.
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