Abstract
This paper pursues a value-based evaluation of a variety of character traits which philosophers have identified with humility, and it proposes a novel account of a character trait not implausibly identified with humility which has a unique kind of value. I begin by explaining why a value-based evaluation of various traits identified with virtues is preferable to the more common contemporary counterexample-based evaluation of these traits. I then undertake a value-based evaluation of various traits which have been identified with humility, showing that thus far none of these traits have a particular kind of value that humility might reasonably be thought to have—a nonameliorative value not based in epistemic, affective, or behavioral accuracy. I conclude by developing an account of a character trait not implausibly identified with humility which does have this kind of value. The trait in question is a disposition to prefer promoting the good of others to one’s own good when these goods are equal or incommensurable.
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Notes
An excellent example of this approach in the particular case of humility is (Garcia 2006).
For discussion of such a role for virtue ethics, see (Annas 2011).
E.g., Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics 1094a.
E.g., Kant Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals 1–3.
E.g., (Mill 1863).
Cf. also (Hursthouse 1999).
Korsgaard (1983) suggests using this terminology.
See (Mill 1863).
See (Moore 1903).
I don’t mean to suggest that those who employ the counterexample-based method do not employ any other criteria for evaluating accounts of virtuous traits besides intuitive counterexamples. As an anonymous referee correctly pointed out, such theorists may also employ such criteria as fit into an overall theory of virtue. Of course, those who employ the value-based method will also appeal to such criteria. The reason why I focus in the text on the particular way in which counterexamples are used by practitioners of the counterexample-based method, then, is that this is the point which distinguishes the counterexample-based method from the value-based method.
I personally have found it very helpful to compare this value pluralism with Alston’s (2005) pluralism about epistemic justification.
One might think that, while the counterexample-based method as defined in the text cannot accommodate such value pluralism, a slightly modified counterexample-based method could. This modified method would proceed by first identifying how many versions of a particular virtue there are, and then by taking accounts of a virtue one-by-one and discerning whether each account faces counterexamples as an account of each version of the virtue. While I grant that this modified approach would do better at accommodating value pluralism, it still faces significant problems. For, the value pluralist may very well think that in many cases we are not in a position to tell up front how many versions of a virtue there are. She may take the fact that an account of a trait faces a counterexample as an account of each version of the trait we have thus far identified to indicate not that the account fails as an account of the trait, but that the account has identified an as-of-yet unidentified version of the trait. The value-based method discussed in the text better accommodates this possibility than this modified counterexample-based method.
I won’t argue here that each of these proposals plausibly accounts for at least some of our humility ascriptions, because I take this to have been demonstrates sufficiently by those who have argued that their proposed account of humility was the only version of humility.
See (Driver 1999). Cf. (Swanton 2001).
For a helpful overview of the value of true belief, see chapter one of (Kvanvig 2003).
Spiegel also considers that the humble person may believe-as-if she is unworthy—i.e., she may underestimate her valuable features. I overlook this aspect of his account here because it overlaps with the first proposal above.
See again (Garcia 2006).
There is in fact some psychological research supporting this point. See (Exline and Geyer 2004).
(Ridge 2000) offers a similar account which involves de-emphasizing one’s valuable features; but, for him, the disposition to de-emphasize these is grounded in a lack of concern for the opinions of others.
Nonetheless, she is skeptical of non-instrumental value. See (Garcia 2006: 432–3).
For an account of emotions which accommodates their being accurate or inaccurate, see (Roberts 1988).
Cf. the account in (Scheuler 1997).
A very similar account of preferences is put to use in certain contemporary accounts of divine creation in the face of incommensurate and/or equally valuable creative possibilities. See, e.g., (Leftow 2012).
See, e.g., (Scheler 1981).
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