Some Varieties of Humility Worth Wanting

Humility is a virtue with a rich and varied past. Its benefits and pitfalls -indeed, its status as a virtue -have been debated by philosophers and theologians. Recently, psychologists have entered into the dialectic, with a small but growing body of empirical research at their disposal. We will discuss this research on humility, including our own recent contributions. Our goal is to shed light on the following three important questions: First, what is humility? Second, why we should care about being humble? Finally, are there constructive steps we can take to induce people to adopt more humble at titudes towards themselves and others? In the process of answering these questions, we will consider the major empirical accounts of humility in the literature, highlight their primary difficulties, and then introduce a new account that cuts through the confusion, getting to the core of what we take humility to be.

Self and Identity

What does it mean to be humble? We argue that humility is an epistemically and ethically aligned state of awareness-the experience of ourselves as a small part of a larger universe and as one among a host of other morally relevant beings. So conceived, humility can be operationalized and measured along the dual dimensions of low self-focus and high other-focus and is distinct from other related constructs (e.g., modesty and open-mindedness). We discuss our newly developed scale (Study 1 and 2), and provide preliminary validation using self-report (Study 3) and behavioral measures (Study 4), showing that humility is related to people's general ethical orientation (e.g., empathy, universalism/benevolence, and civic responsibility), their well-being (e.g., sense of autonomy, lifepurpose, and secure attachment), mature religious beliefs/practices, and reactions to disagreement-specifically, people high in humility sat closer and less angled away from their conversation partner with whom they disagreed. Together, this provides support for our new Dual-Dimension Humility Scale. What is humility? While nearly all of the accounts of humility appear to reference a "shrinking" of the self-or, more specifically, the value, esteem, care, and prioritization given to it-there are also a number of striking differences. According to perhaps the most historically prominent and influential view of humility, to be humble involves what Aquinas calls "self-abasement to the lowest place" (II

Faith and Philosophy, 2001

Self and Identity,, 2018

What does it mean to be humble? We argue that humility is an epistemically and ethically aligned state of awareness – the experience of ourselves as a small part of a larger universe and as one among a host of other morally relevant beings. So conceived, humility can be operationalized and measured along the dual dimensions of low self-focus and high other-focus and is distinct from other related constructs (e.g., modesty and open-mindedness). We discuss our newly developed scale (Study 1 and 2), and provide preliminary validation using self-report (Study 3) and behavioral measures (Study 4), showing that humility is related to people’s general ethical orientation (e.g., empathy, universalism/benevolence, and civic responsibility), their well-being (e.g., sense of autonomy, life purpose, and secure attachment), mature religious beliefs/practices, and reactions to disagreement – specifically, people high in humility sat closer and less angled away from their conversation partner with whom they disagreed. Together, this provides support for our new Dual-Dimension Humility Scale.

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion

In this paper I explore humility as a paradigm, with reference to recent debates over the morality and rationality of emotions, and to the relation between religion and emotion. In Ancient Greek ethics, humility did not yet play a role; with the rise of Christianity, however, it becomes one of the cardinal virtues – only to disappear again with the onset of modernity. Against a culture-pessimistic interpretation of this development, this article begins by characterising the relation between virtue and emotion, before reconstructing the inner rationality of humility and showing how it can be traced through several transformations to a modern ethics of responsibility. Against this background, possible manifestations of the humble attitude in the present are made plausible.

2018) Be it ever so humble: Proposing a dual-dimension account and measurement of humility, Self and Identity, 17:1, 92-125, ABSTRACT What does it mean to be humble? We argue that humility is an epistemically and ethically aligned state of awareness -the experience of ourselves as a small part of a larger universe and as one among a host of other morally relevant beings. So conceived, humility can be operationalized and measured along the dual dimensions of low self-focus and high other-focus and is distinct from other related constructs (e.g., modesty and open-mindedness). We discuss our newly developed scale (Study 1 and 2), and provide preliminary validation using self-report (Study 3) and behavioral measures (Study 4), showing that humility is related to people's general ethical orientation (e.g., empathy, universalism/benevolence, and civic responsibility), their well-being (e.g., sense of autonomy, lifepurpose, and secure attachment), mature religious beliefs/practices, and reactions to disagreement -specifically, people high in humility sat closer and less angled away from their conversation partner with whom they disagreed. Together, this provides support for our new Dual-Dimension Humility Scale.

We each stand, phenomenologically speaking, at the center of the universe. This inherent "centered-ness" biases our experience of our own needs, desires, interests, beliefs, goals, and values as being more immediate and urgent than those of others', manifesting in a natural self-orientation that-if left unchecked-can lead us to problematically privilege, prioritize, and favor ourselves. The central thesis presented here is that the interfering and distorting influences that arise from this centeredness are most effectively combated, and ultimately quieted, through the cultivation of humility. And further, that humility (as defined by Nadelhoffer & Wright, 2017) should be considered a foundational virtue, necessary for the full development and exercise of other virtues, and maturely virtuous character.

Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility

The literature on humility, almost without exception, simply assumes that it is a virtue and goes on to analyze it from there. Here, two theses are defended, one negative and one positive. The negative thesis, that humility is not a virtue, is supported by a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that humility is a virtue. The positive thesis is that humility is rightly understood on the model of continence, which is not a virtue. Rather, continence and humility are "correctives", in that continence corrects for incontinence and humility corrects for arrogance. And as continence is a subordinate of temperance, humility is a subordinate of justice.

2016