Humilitys Nature

Jonathan L. Kvanvig

1 Introduction

The task of explaining the importance of humility requires attention tothe features of humility itself, rather than just intellectual humility, andrecent discussion of humility has occurred in tandem with discussionsof modesty. The traditional account of the virtues is Aristotelian, wherevirtue requires (but is not to be identified with) knowledge, but this viewhas been opposed in recent literature, which has emphasized the impor-tance of ignorance in a proper account of both modesty and humility.1 Thedominant question in these discussions is whether these character traitsrequire a false opinion about oneself. Many have argued in favor of sucha view, but I will argue that it is mistaken. This ignorance picture of hu-mility and modesty has been championed by Julia ?. According to Driver,these character traits involve an essential kind of ignorance on the part ofthose having them. So, for example,Driver holds that modesty involvesunderestimating ones self-worth or abilities/accomplishments.2 Fritz ?extends discussions of modesty along the same dimension for humility:

Humility differs from modesty in that the former is a Chris-tian virtue that would not have been endorsed by the Ancients,whereas modesty is one that I take to be more time-honoredand less culturally emergent. Nevertheless, it is interesting toask what the relation is between modesty and humility. I thinkthey are clearly similar, but, different in an important way. Hu-mility entails having a low opinion of oneself whereas modestyentails having a moderate opinion of oneself. (Modest comes

1See, e.g., ???????????, and ?.2See ?, p. 167 for this extension of the ignorance approach to include abilities and

accomplishments.

from the Latin modestus which can be translated as moder-ate. Humility is derived from Old French humilite which inturn came from Latin humilis which translates as low.) Thus,it seems to me that the two could come apart if someone hadan excessively low opinion of oneself; in this case, he could behumble but not modest. (?, p. 184)

Allhoff claims that modesty involves have a moderate opinion of oneself,and humility involves having a low opinion of self. When combined withDrivers emphasis on ignorance, the picture would be that both charactertraits involve an incorrect, and perhaps epistemically unwarranted, un-derestimating of oneself, since both would thus require denying that ourabilities and accomplishments are sometimes extraordinary, splendid, ormagnificent.3

2 Humility: Relational or Non-relational?

A full assessment of this view requires distinguishing two issues. One is-sue is internal to the individual. In the intellectual context, for example,it is a matter of assessing ones attitude toward the possibility of havingcurrently mistaken opinions. In the more general context, it involves anassessment of ones abilities and accomplishments, not in terms of compar-ison to other individuals, but in non-relational terms. It is an accomplish-ment to be a hunter-gatherer who is successful enough to feed a family,

3There are problems with the suggestion that humility is a more exaggerated form ofsomething of which modesty is a milder form. We can see that humility and modesty donot lie on a continuum in the way claimed in the quote from Allhoff by noticing the rel-evant contrasts with each. The relevant contrast to humility is pride or arrogance, whilethe relevant contrast to modesty is vanity. Vanity can involve an excessive confidencein ones abilities but is more naturally thought of in terms of an excessive estimation ofones attractiveness to others (which is compatible, of course, with that estimation beingcorrect). Such excess may, but need not, involve a high sense of status or any particulartype of assessment of ones own personality or character, intellectual or otherwise. Someare vain concerning their looks while still thinking of their own attractiveness as the onlycard they hold. So even if there are some instances of modesty and humility that fall onpoints on a continuum from mild to worse, there is no point to be sustained in full gen-erality about these character traits. I develop this argument in Humility and Modesty,so will not pursue this issue any further here, focusing instead on the nature of humilityand leaving it an open question how humility and modesty relate to each other.

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for example, and that assessment involves no comparison with others andhow good they are at the task in question. The other issue is relational.If it is central to a proper attitudinal expression of humility to underes-timate oneself, the crucial question is the standard against which one iscomparing oneself. Here two possibilities stand out. The stronger ap-proach would counsel, in the intellectual context, for example, having anopinion that one has lots and lots of false beliefs, perhaps more than mostpeople. The weaker approach would counsel having an opinion that onehas lots of false beliefs, at least more than ones intellectual superiors.4

No matter which approach is taken, however, there are problems withthis ignorance approach. When we think about the intellectual compo-nent of these character traits, both require, first, a reasonably accuratenon-comparative, understanding of ones abilities and accomplishments.One cant be humble or modest about ones abilities when one is totallyclueless what they are or when they have been misidentified. In addition, afull understanding of any ability or accomplishment involves a normativedimensionone concerning the importance, the significance of that abilityor accomplishment. It is a tremendous accomplishment to have climbedMt. Everest, and it puts one in a truly elite group of people. But for thosewho have done so, a full understanding of their accomplishment mustacknowledge that on the scale of significant human accomplishments, itpales in comparison to saving the life of a drowning infant, for example,even though the latter takes much less strength and endurance than theformer. There may be more glory in climbing the mountain, but it is inlarge part vainglory too. The underestimating literature misses the sig-nificance of this evaluative dimension, which leads even the most highlyaccomplished to understand (if they are suitably humble, that is) that at-tention and accolades are more worthily focused on other abilities andaccomplishment than the ones toward which the fickle spotlight of fameturns. Moreover, an accurate self-assessment also contains an awarenessthat any recognition, admiration, or celebration of ones successes is, by itsvery nature, one which ignores the failures, weaknesses, and defects we allpossess. So accolades are, by their very nature, imbalancedthey do notpresent an accurate picture, and to that extent, conflict with a full under-

4I leave out in the text the probabilistss possibility of only having beliefs about thelikelihood of having false beliefs, since such beliefs under-report. It is a rarer thing thanthey imagine to have beliefs whose content involves a probability judgment, even if it iscommon to have gradeable degrees of belief in a content without a probability operator.

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standing of oneself and ones abilities and accomplishments. Finally, it isthe very nature of celebratory attention to ignore the dimensions of suc-cess that are not fully attributable to the person in question. Not only doesgood luck play a significant role, but the basic capacities involved in suc-cess are products of nature, not effort. Hence, the agent-centered focus ofcelebration, admiration, and recognition will seem distorted to one withthe accurate understanding of self that is central to modesty and humility.

So, from the completely internal components involved in an under-standing of self, the proper conclusion to draw is that correctness of un-derstanding and adequacy of self-assessment are central to both modestyand humility, rather than taking some secondary position to more impor-tant elements of ignorance and underestimation. Hence, if elements ofignorance or mis-estimation are central to these character traits, they willhave to be found in some relational component instead.

This second, relational aspect of humility requires there to be somestandard of comparison, relative to which one is underestimating onesworth or abilities or accomplishments (or attractiveness). There are rea-sons for concern here. First, note that if the standard of comparison isother people, and humility involves underestimating ones abilities andaccomplishments relative to ones contemporaries, it makes humility (andmodesty) more difficult to achieve, the greater ones disadvantages. If oneis dumb as dirt, it is hard to underestimate ones intelligence relative toones contemporaries. Such an underestimation view makes the possibilityof humility arise as splendor in a person emerges, since only the gifted canunderestimate their gifts relative to others. No such implication should betolerated. Moreover, if we give an account of the intellectual dimensionsof humility in terms of the internal dimensions noted above, no such un-toward implication arises.

Second, if humility requires mis-estimation of some sort, we have stronggrounds, not easily overridden, for concluding that it is a character traitbest avoided. First, self-awareness and self-understanding is a good thingin itself, something that a suitably reflective approach to life is prized forfostering. Socrates claimed that an unreflective life is not worth living,a claim best taken hyperbolically I expect, but the reflection needed ascorrective is surely the sober sort leading to a proper understanding ofoneself and ones place in the world, not some close relative leading to ac-curate understanding of the world but confusion about oneself. Moreover,if humility were a virtue involving mis-estimation, how exactly does one

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go about trying to acquire such a virtue? Are there 12-step programs thatmake such self-deception easy or at least more likely to occur? I think weshould prefer the Aristotelian dictum that virtues are acquired by practic-ing acts of the correct type, but self-deception is something at which onecannot aim: nobody can engage in an activity that expresses a direct andimmediate intention to self-deceive. We should find the idea implausiblethat there are developed, virtuous character-traits for which there is noadoptable plan for acquiring. Finally, about the only value one can findfor such a virtue of ignorance is a social valueit is much more fun to bearound humble and modest people than the proud, arrogant, and haughty.But, as ?, obsequiousness will work just as well for such purposes, and noone should think of it as a virtue.

We can distance our understanding of humility by noting also that thekind of ignorance posited in such accounts isnt sufficient for humilityeither. Of sinners the worst, to grace the least responsive can be both anexpression of humility but also one of pride: Oh no, good sir, you havenothing on me there: no one is worse than I! Inverse competitiveness isnot humility, but an important contrast to it.

In light of these problems, I suggest there is a good diagnosis availablefor how one comes to view underestimation as crucial for humility. Theinternal account above focuses on both a descriptive and an evaluativefeature of ones view of oneself and ones abilities and accomplishments.If we ignore the evaluative dimension here, then the descriptive featureforces us to think of humble but splendid people in terms of a correctrecognition that, e.g., they are spendid in certain ways. That descriptionis jarring, however, and doesnt explain at all how humility is present inlight of that conception of self. But adding the evaluative dimension givesthe right tone: they recognize their own true giftedness, but also recog-nize that (i) good fortune played a role, (ii) the accomplishments pale incomparison with others, and (iii) they have many other failures and weak-nesses that are ignored by the accolades. Even those robed in splendor canbe humble in a way explained by these evaluative recognitions.

Moreover, this picture also explains why humility arises in Christianand other religious contexts, for in such contexts people experience a deepsense of their own fallenness and inadequacy, and an awe and respect forsomething greater than oneself, yielding a context in which the evaluativedimensions that underlie humility are pronounced. An Aristotelian mag-nanimous soul may involve a bit too much comparison with the general

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lot of humanity, whereas religious foci bring a different set of comparisonsand evaluations to the fore, in a way that is good all-things-considered.

Note the reflective dimension involved in this account. Small childrenand animals may have many virtues, but humility is not among them.They may assume, in some sense, that they have adequate perceptual andreasoning skills for coping with life, but that assumption or presupposi-tion does not rise to the level of a reflective perspective needed for hu-mility to be present. As children develop cognitively to the point where,around ages 4 to 6, they make predictions of behavior that involve a recog-nition of the possibility of false beliefs in others, they are beginning to de-velop the capacity to see themselves in a way that makes humility possible.Descriptions of younger children in terms of humility and its contrastsmust be taken as non-literal. Some small children are more demandingof attention than others, some reveal more of a sense of entitlement thanothers, but none of this implies that some small children are more humblethan others.

3 Intellectualist Accounts

Resistance to the virtues of ignorance approach to humility and mod-esty leads to replacement views that attempt to explain these virtues interms of accurate self-assessment (see, e.g., ???? and ?). While it is impor-tant to recognize that ignorance is not essential to these virtues, it is alsoimportant to recognize that accurate self-assessment is neither necessaryfor sufficient for them, either.

Lets consider the sufficiency claim first. The sufficiency claim suffersat the thought of the greats. Michael Jordan may be the greatest basket-ball player ever, and if he recognizes this fact, it doesnt follow that he ishumble about it. He could be (though I doubt it), but more likely is thathe is not. When Muhammed Ali declared I am the greatest, it wasnt theremark of a humble man honoring the sincerity or knowledge norms ofassertion, saying merely what he thought or knew to be true. The greatestamong us might also be humble, but if so, their humility is not found intheir recognition of their greatness.

What of necessity? Here things are more difficult, but we can beginwith the general recognition that humility doesnt involve thinking less ofyourself, but is more characteristically about focus: thinking of yourself

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less.5 It is possible to generate recognition of excellence in a person forthe first time, and find out in doing so that the recognition is immediatelyaccompanied by humility with respect to that excellence. Oh, that? Ivenever thought of that as something I was good at, but its not really that biga deal. Such a person was humble all along with respect to the excellence,but never having reflected on the ability in question until prompted (Hey,you are such a natural at that!), such humility could not be a function ofaccurate self-assessment. Nick ? calls this quality inattention, and alsonotes that there is value inattention, as in when a humble person remarks,Yes, but its not really important enough to make a big deal about.

As stated, this point conflicts with the point made above that humil-ity requires reflection. Reconciling the two ideas requires a bit of refin-ing, and the way to restore coherence here is by noting the difference be-tween the general capacity for reflection and specific instances of it. Theearlier point concerning the necessity of the general capacity for reflec-tion, whereas the specific examples of such just noted can be present eventhough not reflected on in virtue of being set against a backdrop of previ-ous exercise of reflection in assessing ones capacities and evaluating vari-ous character traits. Against such a backdrop, one could be humble aboutan ability one had never reflected on, because one already has a reflectiveperspective on the kinds of abilities that are to be sought and encouraged.The humility for abilities not explicitly reflected on is thus to be thoughtof as a side-effect of this general perspective, and thus need not conflictwith the point that reflection is a prerequisite for developing humility inthe first place.

But what of errors in self-assessment? Are those compatible with hu-mility and modesty as well? Michael ? emphasizes that such virtues aredependent virtues, requiring some other good quality which the virtue isabout, but perhaps that is too strong. Couldnt one be modest about anhonor, for example, even if one didnt in fact receive it? Imagine a war vet-eran, at the end of life, being mistakenly told hed won the CongressionalMedal of Honor. His response could be humble, for sure, and perhaps thatis all we should say about the case. Perhaps he is not humble about win-ning the medal, but is nonetheless humble in the way he responds to thenews.

5Hear C.S. Lewis on this point from ?: True humility is not thinking less of yourself;it is thinking of yourself less.

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This characterization gives a general strategy for dealing with cases inwhich one mistakenly but rationally overestimates ones achievements oraccomplishments. In such cases, humility and perhaps modesty can bepresent, but only when carefully circumscribed. To retain compatibilitywith the Slote thesis that such virtues are dependent virtues, we must de-scribe the kind of humility or modesty carefully. Note as well that there isa straightforward argument for such carefulness: it is a jarring descriptionto be told, as in the war veteran case, that he is humble about his award,since he has received none!

Others see a greater possibility for mistakes, however. Here is Nico-las Bommaritos explanation of why such mistakes are compatible withhumility and modesty:

What is relevant is why a person overestimates his or her goodquality. The attention of those who . . . overestimate because ofmisleading evidence or unmotivated irrationality is differentfrom that of those who overestimate out of vanity. Vain desireswill likely result in attention to ones own role in success ratherthan attention to the role of external factors and will also tendto draw ones attention toward ones own good qualities andthe importance of such qualities. The patterns of attention as-sociated with vain overestimation put pressure on the habits ofattention that . . . overestimation associated with misleading ev-idence and superstition does not, by drawing attention to onesgood qualities and ones own role in bringing them about. (?,p. 106)

Bommaritos perspective is that mis-estimation can be motivated in apurely cognitive way (involving misleading evidence or simple irrational-ity) or can involve cognitive penetration from non-cognitive sources, suchas vain desires.6 From this perspective, the line between the kinds of over-estimation compatible with humility and the kinds not compatible with ithas to do with the source of the mis-estimation. When the source is purelycognitive, there is no conflict; when the source involves cognitive penetra-tion, there can be. In particular, if the overestimation is caused by a desireto look good to others, the overestimation undermines the attribution ofvirtue.

6The language of cognitive penetration comes from the work of Susanna Siegel. See ?.

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Here is Bommaritos example of overestimation that leaves room forhumility:

Ben can overestimate his own skill and still seem modest. Forexample, suppose he receives a very prestigious and influentialranking of world-class architects and, because of a misprint,sees his own name listed among the very best of the best. Asa result of this reliable but misleading evidence, he revises hisestimation of his own skill and takes himself to be a world-class architect. In this case, Ben overestimates his own skill notbecause he wants to puff up his own ego, but because he sim-ply got misleading evidence and responded to it in a rationalway. Because he still attends the way Frank and David do, Benseems like a modest person who just happens to be misled intooverestimating his own skill level. (?, p. 105)

One must be careful, however, about the ascription being made. Is theascription that Ben is modest overall, or that he is modest about his archi-tectural abilities, or that he is modest about being a world-class architect?The latter is jarring, in the same way as the war veteran example given ear-lier. There can be humility and modesty in such cases, but the descriptionneeds to move away from the error being made in order to be accurate.The war veteran is humble in the face of the news he has received, andBen is modest when hearing hes a great architect. In each case, the cogni-tive error of overestimation is distanced from the ascription of humility ormodesty, in keeping with Slotes approach that such virtues are dependentvirtues.

Bommarito also suggests that modesty is compatible with irrationaloverestimation:

One might also be modest while overestimating in an irrationalway. Suppose Sean has the superstition that European cars aremore difficult to drive. He never reflects on this belief, but eversince he was a child, he got the sense from his somewhat ill-informed father that one had to be more skilled to drive carsfrom Germany and Italy. Because he drives a German car, hetakes himself to be a better driver than he really is, though hisattention is as described abovehe rarely, if ever, reflects on hisdriving skill at all. His superstition is not self-serving but a

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case of unmotivated irrationalityfor example, he would havethe same superstition even if he happened to drive an Ameri-can car, and he also overestimates the abilities of others, evenpeople he dislikes, who happen to drive European cars. In thiscase, Sean does overestimate his own driving ability, but hedoes so because he has an unmotivated superstition that makeshim a poor evaluator of driving skill in general. He seems likea modest guy, a good driver who doesnt make a big deal ofit, whose unfortunate superstitions make him a bad judge ofdriving skill. (?, p. 106)

The attribution of irrationality here is, however, a bit conflicted. If hisbelief comes by testimony from his father, it begins to look like a ratio-nal belief, not an irrational superstition, whether or not the father wasill-informed. (One doesnt need ones testimonial sources to have rationalbeliefs in order for one to acquire rational beliefs based on their testimony;one doesnt even need ones sources to know what they tell you in orderfor one to acquire knowledge from what they say.7) But even if we grantthat the belief is simply an irrational superstition, we have the same issueas before, one concerning the object of the modesty. If we are attributingoverall modesty to Sean, there is no problem since the particular irrationalbelief doesnt require that he has an overall irrational assessment of him-self; if we are attributing modesty with respect to his driving abilities,we also encounter no difficulty since his generic assessment of his drivingabilities is again accurate and rational. But if we attribute modesty con-cerning the error being made, we encounter the same jarring experienceas before: Sean is not modest concerning his being a better driver than therest of us, because he isnt!

The point here is that accuracy of self-evaluation need not be presentacross-the-board in order for these virtues to be present, but only that in-accuracy prevents a specific instance of the virtue from being present. Ageneric attribution of such a virtue to a person is compatible with lack ofhumility over a wide range of abilities and excellences: Willy can be hum-ble and yet not humble about being from the South. In this respect, it isntsurprising to find Sean to be modest even though he isnt modest about be-ing a great driver. There is some other characteristic in the neighborhood

7See, e.g., ? and ?.

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regarding which he is modest, and the overestimation is inessential to thatmodesty, and also to the overall character assessment we make when wesay that he is a modest person.

There is thus no need that arises from these cases to investigate theissue of cognitive penetration to determine what kinds of overestimationare compatible with these virtues. Even so, the idea of an accuracy-basedaccount of humility is nowhere close to being adequate, since mere accu-racy of self-assessment is compatible with both the presence and absenceof humility. So even if accuracy is important, understanding the nature ofhumility requires determining what, beyond accuracy, is needed. On thisscore, Bommaritos approach is helpful.

4 The Virtues of Attention

This promising approach to humility treats it in terms of what a personattends to when reflecting on ones accomplishments and achievementsrather than simply in terms of the accuracy or inaccuracy of the assess-ment itself. As Bommarito notes, there are virtues of attention:

The virtues of attention are virtues that are rooted in how wedirect our attention. These virtues are sometimes moral but notalways. It is an academic virtue of attention to be able to focusones attention on a long and technical lecture. It is an aestheticvirtue of attention for one to pay attention to the relationshipbetween the narrative and shot composition in a film. Grati-tude is a moral virtue of attention because it involves directingones attention to the value of what someone else has done forus. (?, p. 100)

Bommaritos account then proceeds as follows:

[I]t is necessary to have a good quality to be modest about.Contrary to most contemporary views, it is not necessary to un-derestimate the good quality nor is it necessary to have an ac-curate assessment. Instead, what is necessary is to direct onesconscious attention in certain waysaway from the trait or itsvalue or toward the outside causes and conditions that playeda role in developing it.

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Attending in these ways, however, is not sufficient for modesty;it must happen for the right reasons. (?, p. 103)

The idea, then, is to view humility as a special kind of disposition,one which, when displayed, has a characteristic profile reflected in that towhich the person in question attends. To have this disposition, there mustbe an underlying good quality, and the account is neutral as to the kind ofaccuracy involved in cognitive estimates regarding the quality in question.Instead, what is central is how one direct[s] ones conscious attention.

Bommaritos suggestions are a good start toward an account of thissort, though some of the details will need improvement. To see how theaccount can be improved, we need some background on the notion of at-tention itself.

5 The Nature of Attention

Note also the analogy with perceptual attention, as in ?. issues: process-first or adverbialcombustion vs. haste ?. voluntary vs. involuntary attentioncounting backwards by 2s or by 7s and hearing a loud bang outside thewindow. think of automatisms. Koralus wants sensitivity to success con-ditions for a task to be central to attentiveness, but I am sensitive to typo-graphical errors in what I read without ever attentively looking for them.Moles view is cognitive unison, which I dont quite get yet, but if the ideais that attention is something involving executive control, then maybe thisaccount does better. (I think the rough idea is that attention to a task re-quires some background set of things that must be in cognitive unison forthe task to be performed attentively.)

From Wikipedia, Cocktail Party Effect This issue has developed intothe early versus late selection controversy. The basis for this controversycan be found in the Cherry dichotic listening experiments. Participantswere able to notice physical changes, like pitch or change in gender ofthe speaker, and stimuli, like their own name, in the unattended chan-nel. This brought about the question of whether the meaning, semantics,of the unattended message was processed before selection.[8] In an earlyselection attention model very little information is processed before se-lection occurs. In late selection attention models more information, likesemantics, is processed before selection occurs.[15]

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Daniel Kahneman also proposed a model of attention, but it differsfrom previous models in that he describes attention not in terms of se-lection, but in terms of capacity. For Kahneman, attention is a resourceto be distributed among various stimuli,[24] a proposition which has re-ceived some support.[3][25][26] This model describes not when attentionis focused, but how it is focused. According to Kahneman, attention isgenerally determined by arousal; a general state of physiological activity.The Yerkes-Dodson law predicts that arousal will be optimal at moder-ate levels - performance will be poor when one is over- or under-aroused.Of particular relevance, Narayan et al. discovered a sharp decline in theability to discriminate between auditory stimuli when background noiseswere too numerous and complex - this is evidence of the negative effectof overarousal on attention.[25] Thus, arousal determines our availablecapacity for attention. Then, an allocation policy acts to distribute ouravailable attention among a variety of possible activities. Those deemedmost important by the allocation policy will have the most attention givento them. The allocation policy is affected by enduring dispositions (auto-matic influences on attention) and momentary intentions (a conscious de-cision to attend to something). Momentary intentions requiring a focuseddirection of attention rely on substantially more attention resources thanenduring dispositions.[27] Additionally, there is an ongoing evaluation ofthe particular demands of certain activities on attention capacity.[24] Thatis to say, activities that are particularly taxing on attention resources willlower attention capacity and will influence the allocation policy - in thiscase, if an activity is too draining on capacity, the allocation policy willlikely cease directing resources to it and instead focus on less taxing tasks.Kahnemans model explains the cocktail party phenomenon in that mo-mentary intentions might allow one to expressly focus on a particular au-ditory stimulus, but that enduring dispositions (which can include newevents, and perhaps words of particular semantic importance) can cap-ture our attention. It is important to note that Kahnemans model doesntnecessarily contradict selection models, and thus can be used to supple-ment them.

From ?, we can say that there is a task here that is attentively performed(searching for the green triangle), and that the way in which it is doneinvolves focus marking on successive objects in the array. Is a display ofhumility more like the attentive search or the focus marking? Looks likethe latter...?

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Table 1: Find the Green Triangle

N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N

Related to the distinction between endogenous (top-down) and exoge-nous (bottom-up) attention, as described in ?.

Back to Bommarito and the virtues of attention. But the general ap-proach is on the right track: a proper expression of humility involvesputting the focus of attention elsewhere than on ones successes or abil-ities, and a humble person adopts a stance, and reinforces it, involvingsuch re-direction of focus. But the primary language Bommarito uses is torequire of humility (or modesty, as he calls it) that what is central is howone direct[s] ones conscious attention. We are now in position to seewhy this point isnt quite right.

In particular, note that exogenous attention is not best described interms of the conscious directing of attention. The latter phenomenonis clearly top-down, while the former (endogenous attention) is bottom-up. Moreover, if we are inquiring about the character trait rather thanan explicit expression of it, a more bottom-up account would seem to bepreferable. The character trait of humility leads to various expressions ofit that display attentiveness to certain features surrounding ones accom-plishments and abilities, and such displayed attentiveness will involve thekind of executive control that is distinctive of endogenous attention. Butthe explanation of this attentive display will be some underlying charactertrait, one whose characteristic profile involves a disposition toward exoge-nous attention to the very features in question, just as our visual systemis disposed toward attention-capturing by feature singletons (such as asingle red flower in a green landscape).

If we remind ourselves of the details of Bommaritos account, we cansee the confusion between the underlying cause of overt attention (thedisposition and its exogenous profile) and the features of the attentionitself (the expressions of the disposition and its endogenous features):

[I]t is necessary to have a good quality to be modest about.

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Contrary to most contemporary views, it is not necessary to un-derestimate the good quality nor is it necessary to have an ac-curate assessment. Instead, what is necessary is to direct onesconscious attention in certain waysaway from the trait or itsvalue or toward the outside causes and conditions that playeda role in developing it.

Attending in these ways, however, is not sufficient for modesty;it must happen for the right reasons. (?, p. 103)

Notice that the attention under discussion is the attention involved ina display of humility, not the attentional profile of the disposition itself.As such, it fails to be an account of humility itself as a virtue of attention,but rather an account of expressions of humility as displays of a virtue.

We can, however, develop a unified account of both the virtue andexpressions of it in terms of the distinction between exogenous and en-dogenous attention, explaining the virtue itself in terms of the former andexpressions of the virtue in terms of the latter.

6 The Connection to Openmindedness

OPENMINDEDNESSIts excesses and deficiencies.Involves an attitude(?) toward a future self of the sort that a future self

should not be indoctrinated. We thus get an analogy to the social situationinvolving pedagogy and here there are two problems with indoctrination,the problems from the side of the learner (it teaches closemindedness???)and from the side of the teacher (it fails to recognize the effects of our falli-bility and fails to distinguish between different types of warranted closureof inquiry, ones that are warranted for us and ones that others ought totreat as closed as well; plus a lack of intellectual humility is present).

So, plan: first reject the metaphysical in favor of the epistemologicalground of the importance of the virtue. Then try to discern its natureand scope, the latter falling short of pretending that closure on furtherinquiry is never legitimate, and yet not overestimating the scope of suchlegitimate closure. Here two types of warranted closure, the stronger andweaker, where the stronger is the kind involved in knowledge, and the

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weaker is the kind involved in mere justified belief. Use the distinctionhere from justified inconsistent beliefs discussion.

Openmindedness is a virtue, but one which is easily exploited for rhetor-ical purposes in the absence of a clear understanding of it. It is a com-monplace defense of whacked-out absurdities to ask that the view be ap-proached with an open mind. Such defenses can be responded to by point-ing out that virtues are means between extremes. Having no settled con-victions, no place that is closed to further inquiry, is an extreme, not amean.

How about meta-dogmatism. Following the evidence where it leads.Absence of convictions, the identification of openmindedness with non-belief, or willingness to suspend belief about anything, etc. Whats thegood here????

Think of cases where openmindedness interacts with other disposi-tions, and is defeated by them. The person isnt closeminded as a result.

7 The nature and scope of openmindedness

Standard discussions of openmindedness occur in arguments for skepti-cism, lauding it as the appropriate contrast attitude to that of dogmatism,the attitude the skeptic rejects. Here Peter Ungers discussion is a paradigmexample. He says,

I think that any reflection at all makes it pretty plain that, nomatter how certain things may seem, this attitude is alwaysdogmatic. (?, p. 48)

He holds that it is never alright to be absolutely certain of anything. Hisargument for this claim involves two premises. First, he holds that ifsomeone is certain of something, then that thing is not at all doubtful sofar as he is concerned (?, p. 47). He further holds that the absence ofdoubt is incompatible with openmindedness:

One thing which must be entirely absent, and which is, I think,implicit in the absence of all doubt, is this: any openness onthe part of the man to consider new experience or informationas seriously relevant to the truth or falsity of the thing. (?, p.47)

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Unger characterizes this lack of openness to new experience or informa-tion a dogmatic attitude. Such lack of openness, he holds, is always wrong,for it is always possible for new experience or information to arise whichdeserves serious thought, regardless of what opinion is in consideration.Such openness is surely part of what is involved in the virtue of open-mindedness, so absence of doubt is incompatible with openmindedness,on Ungers view.

Ungers opposition to dogmatism is in service of skepticism, but theargument here is suspect. We should note that the dogmatic attitude isthus: the attitude that I will not allow anything at all to count as evi-dence against my present view of the matter (?, p. 48). If this is dogmaticclosemindedness, then openmindedness is simply a willingness to con-sider anything that is relevant to the truth or falsity of ones beliefs. Ifone views ones evidence as conclusive on a certain matter, one will holdthat nothing will arise that will cast doubt on that issue. That attitude,however, is far from the attitude of refusing to consider anything at all asevidence against ones present view. It is merely the conviction that noth-ing of the sort will arise; that there is no realistic possibility of findingsuch evidence.

Ungers position raises interesting questions even for those of us whoreject his conclusions.

Openmindedness involves a certain receptivity to new evidence, whetherwith respect to what one actually accepts or how one actually behaves orin consideration of matters on which one has as yet formed no opinionor plan of action. It is a willingness to consider options which do not atpresent constitute part of ones approach to life, whether in the form ofbeliefs one might adopt or in terms of actions in which one might engage.

Yet, it is not an unconditional willingness to consider, to weigh suchoptions. One does not need to consider or weigh the option that one doesnot exist or that one is distinct from the number nine. Instead, the will-ingness to consider and weigh options is a conditional willingness. It is awillingness to consider such options when, ceteris paribus, pursuing thatoption is backed by arguments, reasons or plausibility considerations (orcould be if one devoted sufficient reflection to the issue). In this way, thecharacteristic feature of openmindedness is the contrast between free andopen debate of issues, and force or coercion. There is no hint here thatthe openminded must be free of doxastic commitments, or that skepti-cal neutrality is required on any and every subject in order for one to be

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openminded.The ceteris paribus clause is important, however. Seriously considering

the torture of innocent children is not an example of openmindedness; itis an example of a sullied mind, a tainted, contaminated intellect. If suchconsideration is motivated in any way by a concern for openmindedness,it reveals the individual to be intellectually promiscuous, an individuallike a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind, unstable in all his orher ways.

Peter Unger disagreesLet me point out quickly that I do not intend these remarks as a suffi-

cient response to Ungers argument for skepticism. His argument is muchmore subtle than would succumb this easily. All I aim to do is to make apoint about openmindedness, to wit, that lack of doubt regarding a certainsubject matter need not rule out openmindedness regarding that subjectmatter.

Openmindedness is not incompatible with treating an issue as settled,as beyond the need for further investigation. As such, it is not incompat-ible with a lack of doubt, for viewing something as beyond the need forfurther investigation involves a certain kind of closure with respect to thatissue, the kind of closure pragmatically involved in ascriptions of knowl-edge.

What is dogmatism? To dogmatize is to speak or write authoritativelyor imperiously without giving arguments or evidence, according to OED,so at the heart of dogmatism is some inattention to evidence. But whatsort of inattention? Suppose one is fully convinced of a claim and has nogood argument or evidence for it. Is that dogmatism? Not necessarily. Noris it a matter of what Well, is dogmatism found in a present attitude

My goal here is not that of a precise account of openmindedness, so Iwill not pursue the important issues that would need to be addressed toachieve that goal. What I wish to explore, instead, is why openminded-ness should be considered a virtue. In particular, I want to address thequestion, Is openmindedness unqualifiedly a virtue, a virtue regardless ofones cognitive capacities and independent of the environment in whichone happens to find oneself? I will argue that the answer to this questionis no, and this answer raises a further question whether it is somethingspecial about our cognitive capacities or our environment which explainswhy openmindedness is a virtue for us in our unique situation. Open-mindedness is a virtue primarily because of our cognitive limits and not

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because of our environment, but we shall see that the kind of environ-ment we find ourselves in does have some role to play in accounting forthe degree of importance to be attached to the virtue of openmindedness.

The most important view contrary to the one I wish to defend proposesa metaphysical account of the importance of the virtues. According to thisaccount, it is the special character of the environment we find ourselvesin that explains why openmindedness is a virtue. Our universe is one thatis characterized in large part by change. Contrary to the ancients, an ade-quate understanding of nature does not reveal to us things that fixed, im-mutable or unchanging. Much closer to the truth is the Heraclitean imageof trying cognitively to step into the same river twice, trying to elicit somesemblance of order from the blooming, buzzing confusion presented toour senses. In such an environment, and because of it, being open to newways of viewing and interacting with the world is important. It is becausethe world is ever changing that we need to be open to new ideas and modesof acting; it is because we cannot count on what worked yesterday to worktomorrow that we must not be rigid in our patterns of thought and action.

We can begin to see the truth of the thesis I maintain by coming to ap-preciate what is wrong with this metaphysical account of the importanceof openmindedness. The above account, we may grant, looks promisinginitially, but it is important to realize that this initial appearance restsheavily on assumptions about the kind of cognitive beings that interactwith various possible environments.

Some ideas: Gil Harman: you can know p and yet have no right to becertain of p.

Another idea: you can know p and be certain of it and still be open-minded toward p because you know that it is a general truth about humanbeings that they are fallible and that they are so even in the face of cer-tainty. It is these facts on which ones attitude is based, even though one isalso certain of p and certain that no further learning would change onesmind about p.

Just as one can be tempted by basing ones insecure feeling in the face ofa stimulus on general facts about human nature even though one also hasbeliefs that one is not susceptible to doing wrong in the case in question.Feelings and attitudes can respond to partial information.

Worry here is that there is a kind of doublemindedness to this situa-tion.

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Think about this idea. There is a class of virtues that are virtues be-cause we are less than ideal in certain respects. Openmindedness, humil-ity,

temperance in the sense of an ability to control oneself; and its kindsof chastity, abstinence, and modesty(because you are really not that good-looking!? Or because...), cooperation (because not self-sufficient),

We are now in a position to see what is required for modestyand what is not. Following Slote (1983, 61), it is necessary tohave a good quality to be modest about. Contrary to most con-temporary views, it is not necessary to underestimate the goodquality nor is it necessary to have an accurate assessment. In-stead, what is necessary is to direct ones conscious attentionin certain waysaway from the trait or its value or toward theoutside causes and conditions that played a role in developingit. (?, p. 103)

Now we are in a position to see how an attention-based ac-count of modesty can explain the important features of mod-esty discussed earlier. Modesty involves certain patterns ofconscious attention, which are characterized by an inattentive-ness to good qualities that reflect well on oneself, the valueof such qualities, and ones own role in bringing them about.This kind of inattention does not require a complete lack ofattention; isolated instances of attention will not spoil onesmodesty. It does, however, require that one not dwell on thesethings. Modest patterns of attention also often involve a posi-tive attentiveness to the role of external causes and conditionsin producing the good qualities. These patterns of attentionmust happen for the right reasons (though such reasons maywell be unknown to the modest person). Though a specificaccount of what the right reasons are is not essential to anattention-based account, I have suggested that the modest per-son attends in this way because of a lack of selfish desires orvalues (such as the desire to massage ones own ego) and a pos-itive concern for goods unrelated to oneself. (?, p. 111)

Modesty versus humility. Some think same or treat same (e.g., ?) whileothers take modesty to be something on the same scale as humility, but

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less exaggerated (e.g., ?). Neither point of view seems correct. Modestyin behavior is typically contrasted with ostentatiousness, and humility inbehavior to something else (?). As a character trait, humility contrasts pri-marily with pride and arrogance, whereas modesty contrasts with vanity.

8 other remarks

It seems to be true of the virtues generally (though there may be excep-tions) that there is a conformity between outward behavior and inwardstance. The benevolent person, as the etymology suggests, does not merelyconcern herself with good works: she genuinely cares about the needs andsufferings of others. Without that inner orientation, she would be merelybeneficent. If humility is a virtue, it will conform to this pattern. It mightseem that modesty stands to humility as beneficence to benevolence. Mod-esty, we might think, is like politeness we can be polite whatever our pri-vate opinions of those we meet. (Eve Garrard and David McNaughton,Humility: from sacred virtue to secular vice?)

The second framework from which vanity has been studies is moreheterogenous. It encompasses the more conventional conceptualizationsof vanity. The most broad definition of vanity would probably be in termsof excessive pride for oneself (Webster 2001). Webster 2001 also proposedthat vain individuals may often incur important personal costs dues totheir excessive concern for their public self-image. Much earlier, Grau1928 proposed that a vain person constantly uses external means to in-crease his sense of superiority. Modesty is also distinguished as the inhibi-tion of self-expression due to the fear of descreasing ones self-confidence.Later, Keller (1938) stated that vanity differs from pride in its need forrecognition and differs from ambition in its illusory satisfactions. Simi-larly, Pascal (1950) defined vanity as the desire to live an imaginary lifein the minds of others (p. 36).

needs to be separated from social anxiety and narcissism.Vanity as Netemeyer, Burton, and Lichtenstein (1995) conceptualized

it is defined as an excessive conver or view of ones own physical appear-ance and personal achievements. They constructed a 21-853m scale thatmeasures the four distinct trait components of vanity: (1) physical con-cern, (2) inflated positive physical view, (3) achievement concern, and (4)inflated positive achievement view.

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In this paper, vanity is more broadly defined as over-emphasizingones positive self-perceptions and under-emphasizing ones negative self-perceptions. These self-perceptions can be based on social comparisonsmade with others or pure gut feelings about ones competencies. Thus,an individual can be vain not only of physical and achievement-based di-mensions, but can be vain of any skills or abilities encountered in varioussituations (e.g., athleticism, cleverness, conversationalist, etc.) pp. 6-7ms

Etienne P. LeBel, A Broader Conceptualization: The Vanity ConstructRe-examined, http://publish.uwo.ca/ elebel/Papers/vanityResearchPaper.pdf

Webster, J.M. (2001) Image Concern and Personal Cost in the Experi-ence of Vanity. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sci-ences & Engineering, 62.

Grau, K. J. (1928) Vanity and the feeling of modesty. A study in socialpsychology and the psychology of character. Oxford, England: Meiner.

Keller, F. (1938) Vanity and Delusion. Oxford, England: Francke.Netemeyer, R. G., Burton, S., & Lichtenstein, D. R. (1995). Traits as-

pects of vanity: Measurement and relevance to consumer behavior. Jour-nal of Consumer Research, 12, 612626.8

8This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Tem-pleton Foundation and St. Louis University. The opinions expressed in this publicationare those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of either organization.

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References

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