Abstract
Philosophers often claim that humility is a dependent virtue: a virtue that depends on another virtue for its value. I consider three views about this relation: Specific Dependence, Unspecific Dependence, and Fittingness. I argue that, since humility cannot uniquely depend on another virtue, and since this uniqueness is desirable, we should reject Specific and Unspecific Dependence. I defend a Fittingness view, according to which the humble person possesses some objectively good quality fitting for humility. I show beyond Slote’s original characterization of the dependence relation that, even if humility’s value depends on having objectively good qualities, humility itself can be one such quality. So, humility can depend on itself. I call this view Bootstrapped Fittingness.
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Notes
I will treat modesty and humility as identical in this article, because Dependence has been attributed to both traits, and there is little agreement about a distinction between the two. See, for instance, Bommarito (2018).
Emphasis in original.
Slote describes metaphysical dependence as the idea that a virtue requires another inherently valuable trait or quality to exist. So, metaphysically dependent traits are defined in part by the same feature that makes them morally valuable. Slote offers saintliness as an example of a metaphysically dependent virtue. According to Slote (1983, 64), saintliness depends on decency for its existence because there is no such thing as indecent saintliness. Additionally, Slote (1983, 64n3) does not rule out the possibility that decency depends on another virtue.
At least, this is Slote’s understanding of conscientiousness. If conscientiousness does not seem neutral enough, readers can substitute it for introversion or openness to experience. Additionally, as Callahan’s formulation of Uniqueness shows, the question is how to distinguish humility from other virtues as opposed to other traits, implying that humility already has virtue status. For Slote, Dependence is significant because it imparts full virtue status to morally neutral traits or, at best, non-virtuous goods. I return to this point in Section 4.
Relatedly, many philosophers think that humility is paradoxical, since utterances of the sort, “I am humble” seem contradictory in a way that utterances like “I am generous” do not. See, Driver (1989), Statman (1992), Hare (1996), Brennan (2007), Robinson (2020). Hughes (2022) recently offers a criticism of these views.
Ben-Ze’ev (1993, 235) for instance, says that “like modesty, sincerity is a fundamental virtue, and that such two virtues could be contradictory by definition is not plausible.”
More specifically, Driver (1989, 384) says that “modesty implicitly involves comparison.” Kant’s view is noncomparative.
Statman (1992, 438) writes, “either […] the virtue of modesty altogether; or to keep it in our list of virtues through the kind of interpretation I have proposed in this last part of the essay.” Compare with Ben-Ze’ev’s (1993) egalitarian view. To reiterate, such dilemmas arise because philosophers assume that humility’s individuating properties make it valuable. Driver (1989, 384) too, writes that “The person who wants to retain [… knowledge and practical wisdom] as necessary for an account of moral virtue is now faced with the necessity of jettisoning a whole class of character traits which seem to be virtues.” Driver thinks that we are either forced to accept are modesty as sincere ignorance account, or completely reject modesty as a virtue. This is surely a false dilemma.
Similarly, Toner (2014, 226) roughly defines a cardinal virtue as, “one to which other virtues are subordinate, but which is subordinate to no other virtue.” Plato’s classic list of cardinal virtues, for instance, includes courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice; Aristotle embraced a more radically inclusive list of cardinal virtues which lacks a clear structure, and loosely contains virtues such as magnificence, pride, friendliness, truthfulness, among several others. Aristotle (2009, 1107a20) thought that some character traits are defined in part by their evaluative properties—that having courage and temperance, for instance, implies that one is virtuous, since there is no excess or deficiency with respect to them.
For a survey and critique of these views, though about intellectual virtue, see Wilson (2021).
I write in terms of a “proper disposition” for the following reason: even if Dependence succeeds, it would give us an account of local humility only. A person might have various good qualities and be humble about one of them but not about another. But virtues are traditionally supposed to be global, so the framing here in terms of proper dispositions helps carve out a framework for an account of humility as a global character trait.
Emphasis in original.
I draw largely on Wolf (2010, 36–40) to develop the objective worth condition and also share her worry that such a condition may be elitist.
I adapt this example from Driver (2001, 76–7).
Um would argue, rightfully I think, that the modest person’s characteristic attitudes are different from the goods they promote. For illustration, Um (2019, 307) compares modesty to courage, arguing that failures of courage stem from failures to appropriately control one’s fear as opposed to failures of behaving benevolently or honestly. Hence, courage is constituted by a willingness to overcome obstacles as opposed to some characteristic target end of promoting benevolence. Likewise, modesty is constituted by what Um calls a moderate evaluative attitude, as opposed to that attitude’s tendency to promote benevolence by helping agents refrain from bragging or from hurting other people’s feelings, for instance. Modesty, like courage, is taken to serve this executive function of helping promote benevolence while not depending on benevolence. However, this would not successfully reject the specific and unspecific varieties of Dependence, because if modesty were an executive virtue, it would lack value on its own for the reasons I articulated in Section 2.
For a discussion of proper pride (again, of the intellectual variety) see Tanesini (2018).
One might argue that introducing a competitive aspect would make these activities possible objects fitting for humility. However, introducing competition also changes the nature of the activity.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for Philosophia for this example.
This thought roughly forms the basis for doxastic views of humility (e.g., Driver, 1989, Flanagan, 1990, Brennan, 2007, McMullin, 2010). Notice that I am just claiming that the virtuously humble person is permitted to make mistakes about their own good qualities, not that making such mistakes would make them either more or less humble. So, I am not suggesting that accuracy or beliefs about one’s worth matter for how humility is constituted.
I am assuming that the prizes track merit in these examples, since it is the quality itself that would be objectively good, not just winning the prize. However, we could describe Mary as making the same mistake. For instance, if the prize was merely tracking popularity, and Mary believes this, then Mary would be mistaken about what is good, since prizes are not objectively good by themselves. If Mary mistakenly believes that the prize is tracking merit when it is tracking popularity, she would be making an innocent mistake much like the one I described initially. It would be quite a different story if, to take an extreme case, Mary believes that she has won (or even, is deserving of) the Nobel prize in literature. In such a case, we would rightly worry that Mary misunderstands what makes writing an objectively valuable activity, or we might have reason to think that it is not the writing that Mary is being humble about, but something else, such as the value that her writing might impart to readers. However, these issues ultimately turn on what makes the activity under consideration objectively valuable.
For a recent defense of this claim, see Callahan (2021).
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the many helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper I received from Iskra Fileva, Christian B. Miller, and two anonymous referees for Philosophia.
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Hughes, D. Humility’s Independence. Philosophia 51, 2395–2415 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00682-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00682-5