Traditional humility and liberatory humility

Still, humility is not justice. One might argue that even if some traits will be both liberatory and traditional virtues, the prospects for humility falling in this intersection seem bleak—humility is unlikely to be a liberatory virtue.To explore this, we first need an analysis of humility.

15.2.1 Traditional humility

Let's begin with the trait of humility. The trait of humility consists in an attentiveness to and owning of one's limitations (Whitcomb et al. 2017;Whitcomb et al. 2020). Intellectual humility is one kind of humility, whereby one is attentive to and owns one's intellectual limitations— one's cognitive mistakes, deficits in cognitive skills, etc. Humility-in-general is broader in scope, and applies to limitations of all kinds, including one's moral mistakes (e.g., breaking a prom­ise), deficits in general skills (e.g., being a terrible cook), flaws in moral character (e.g., being dishonest), and affective shortcomings (e.g., being irascible). It consists partly in an attentiveness to one's limitations—a disposition to be aware of them, rather than oblivious to them—and partly in owning one's limitations rather than denying them. Roughly, owning one's limitations characteristically involves dispositions to: (i) believe and accept that one has them; (ii) admit and acknowledge them; (iii) care about them and take them seriously; and (iv) feel regret or dismay about them. Owning limitations does not entail having control over them or being responsible (blameworthy) for their acquisition.

The trait of humility is not always a virtue. For the trait to be a virtue, one must own one's limitations for the right reasons (one's motivations must be good rather than bad).

Pride is related to, but distinct from, humility (Whitcomb et al. 2017). The trait of pride consists in being attentive to and owning one's strengths.To be a virtue, this trait likewise requires good motives and, pertinently, good judgment. Excessive pride causes one to be overly atten­tive to, and to over-own, one's strengths. Thus, the person who over emphasizes her strengths, or cares too much about them does not have the virtue of pride. She has an excess of the trait of pride.This excess is a second way to have the vice of arrogance, this time with respect to one's strengths.The virtue of pride lies in a mean between this vice of arrogance and a corresponding version of the vice of servility, which involves deficient attentiveness to, and under-owning of, one's strengths. In short, to have the virtue of pride, one must be appropriately attentive to, and appropriately own, one's strengths—one must have good judgment which enables one to avoid both arrogance and servility—and one must do so with the right motives.

Putting all of this together, humility as a trait is a disposition to be attentive to and own one's limitations. One can have the trait of humility to excess, in which case one does not have the vir­tue of humility, but instead has the vice of servility.The virtue of humility consists in appropriate attentiveness to and owning of one's limitations; it requires good judgment and right motives.

Pride as a trait is a disposition to be attentive to and own one's strengths. One can have the trait of pride to excess, in which case one does not have the virtue of pride, but instead has the vice of arrogance. The virtue of pride consists in appropriate attentiveness to and owning of one's strengths; it too requires good judgment and right motives.

Servility is both a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency. It is a vice of excess with respect to humility—it is a vicious way of having the trait of humility. As such, it is a disposition to be overly attentive to or over-own one's limitations. Servility is also a vice of deficiency with respect to pride. It is a lack of the trait of pride—it is a general unwillingness or inability to be attentive to or own one's strengths. It is likewise a lack of the virtue of pride; it includes the disposition to be insufficiently attentive to one's strengths and to under-own them.

Arrogance is also a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. It is a vice of deficiency with respect to humility. It is a lack of the trait of humility—it is a general unwillingness or inabil­ity to be attentive to or own one's limitations. It is likewise a lack of the virtue of humility; it includes the disposition to be insufficiently attentive to one's limitations and to under-own them.Arrogance is a vice of excess with respect to pride—it is a vicious way of having the trait of pride.As such, it is a disposition to be overly attentive to or over-own one's strengths.

15.2.2 Liberatory humility

Liberatory virtues are traits that contribute to resisting social oppression, achieving liberation, and making flourishing more possible for all persons.

Recall from 1.2 that we left the definition of ‘contribute’ open. ‘Contributing’ to liberatory ends might mean: producing liberatory effects, or having liberatory motives, or both. Now, some of the arguments in Whitcomb et al. 2020 suggest that the traditional virtue of humility, as appropriate limitations-owning, can help produce liberatory effects. For instance, it can help produce liberatory effects by countering servile over-owning—by bolstering goals, beliefs, and emotions that are crucial for acts of resistance. But, notice two things about those arguments. First, we assume (with few exceptions) that the virtue of humility only helps to produce libera­tory effects when some other virtue (like justice) is on the scene supplying liberatory motives. Humility, as appropriate limitations-owning, does not itself supply liberatory motives, nor is it constituted by any specifically liberatory content. By itself (with few exceptions), the virtue of humility won’t help to produce liberatory effects—it needs some other virtue to point it in that direction. Second, we assume that even when some other virtue is on the scene supplying liberatory motives, the virtue of humility (usually) only helps to produce liberatory effects—it plays a supporting role. Appropriate limitations-owning enables one to identify and own one’s shortcomings in resisting oppression, but it doesn’t (typically) produce acts of resistance all by itself. Other virtues (like justice) typically take the lead in producing acts of resistance. Thus, it would be a stretch to claim that appropriate limitations-owning, traditionally conceived, is a liberatory virtue. It isn’t a liberatory virtue yet.

Can we adapt our analysis of appropriate limitations-owning so as to convert it into a lib­eratory virtue? If so, what needs to change in our analysis of appropriate limitations-owning? It will need some additional and revised features.⁸ Here, we can follow Nancy Daukas (2019), who recommends building liberatory content into our analyses of the individual liberatory vir­tues.

Here is a sketch.We can think of the virtue of liberatory humility as consisting in a moti­vation to pursue liberatory ends, and a disposition to be appropriately attentive to and own one’s liberatory limitations.

To explicate, the virtue of liberatory humility will involve several motivations. It will involve an awareness of oppression and the motivation to resist it, as well as the motivations to make progress toward liberation and future flourishing for all.The aforementioned motivations will be shared by all liberatory virtues (liberatory humility, liberatory autonomy, liberatory pride, etc.). They will also generate a motivation that is distinctive of liberatory humility, namely, the moti­vation to be attentive to and own the limitations that prevent one from resisting and from mak­ing progress toward liberation and future flourishing. They will generate this humility-specific motivation when combined with the belief that owning such limitations will get one closer to achieving one’s liberatory goals.⁹

The virtue of liberatory humility will also involve a disposition to be appropriately attentive to and own one’s liberatory limitations.These limitations prevent one from resisting oppression, and from making progress toward liberation and future flourishing. They include, for instance, particular types of ignorance (e.g., of one’s privilege and accompanying unjust benefits), affective shortcomings (e.g., not being angry enough to resist), cognitive shortcomings (e.g., assigning credibility deficits to persons of color and credibility excesses to white people), and character flaws (e.g., apathy).Arguably, these limitations must belong to the agent—they must be hers and not merely in her environment—in order for her attentiveness to them and owning of them to qualify as virtuous liberatory humility.

That said, we need further analysis of exactly when a liberatory limitation belongs to an agent and when it instead belongs to her environment. Oppressive conditions highlight the need for such analysis.To drive home the point, what should we say of the limitation of being a woman in an environment that is rife with gender prejudice? Or the limitation of being gay in a society where homosexuality is criminalized? Do these limitations belong to the agent, or to the environment, or to the-agent-in-the-environment? Must an agent's limitations be indexed to her effectiveness in an environment? If so, what would that mean for oppressed agents? Would being attentive to and owning the aforementioned limitations manifest the virtue of liberatory humility, or the vice of liberatory servility, or some other quality?¹¹ What might owning the aforementioned limitations look like, and would all such owning be over-owning? I flag these as questions that a complete analysis of liberatory humility will need to answer.

Whatever account we give of limitations, the above analysis of liberatory humility acknowl­edges that differently situated people may be prone to different limitations—privileged persons may be at greater risk for some limitations, while oppressed persons are at greater risk for others.¹² Appropriate attentiveness to and owning of one's liberatory limitations will likewise involve good judgment that steers clear of the liberatory vices of arrogance and servility. Note the use of‘contribute' on my analysis: liberatory humility contributes to liberatory ends through its motives. Whether it also contributes by producing liberatory effects is left unanswered. For now, we can say that liberatory humility contributes through its motives even if it ends up playing a merely supporting role in producing liberatory effects.

This analysis builds an awareness of sociopolitical realities and liberatory motives into the virtue of liberatory humility. It adds liberatory features to the traditional conception of appro­priate limitations-owning, and thus revises its backdrop of near-ideal conditions. It adapts the traditional conception of humility to our sociopolitical reality, which includes oppression. But, nothing I have said entails binning the traditional conception altogether—relegating it to the philosophical scrap-heap;¹³ and for that reason, some critics of ideal theory may think my analy­sis hasn't gone far enough. Still, I have argued that the traditional conception of humility, as appropriate limitations-owning, is not a liberatory virtue. Accordingly, we can now answer one of the questions of section 1.4 in the negative: the traditional virtue of humility does not fall in the intersection of traditional and liberatory virtues because it is not liberatory. Likewise, the vir­tue of liberatory humility does not fall in this intersection because it is not traditional. It revises the backdrop of near-ideal conditions. Liberatory humility is a kind of appropriate limitations- owning, but it is a specifically liberatory kind.

15.3