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Modesty and Humility (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Picture someone who constantly boasts about their accomplishments, thinks they know it all, and, even when they’re not talking, exudes an off-putting smug self-satisfaction. Such a person seems to have an ethical shortcoming; what they’re missing, you might think to yourself, is a bit of modesty or humility. Modesty and humility are ways that we relate to ourselves, to our own goodness and limitations. It involves placing ourselves among others and in the world at large. Immodest people have, among other things, an inflated sense of themselves, their accomplishments, and their place in the world. Philosophers have been particularly drawn to the seemingly paradoxical aspects of modesty and humility. Saying “I’m modest” sounds like a self-undermining joke in a way that saying “I’m compassionate” does not. If it is a virtue, it seems like realizing that you have it somehow spoils it. This raises a range of questions about whether there are special requirements governing how we relate to o

1. Modesty and Humility The feature of modesty and humility that has most captivated philosophers is its elusive nature. It seems as though knowing that you’re modest somehow spoils it; the modest person, it seems, must be unaware of their own modesty. Modesty can seem to be, as Sorensen (1988) puts it, a kind of ethical blindspot: If you have it you won’t know it (and if you seem to know you have it, you probably don’t really!) The fact that knowing about your own modesty seems to spoil it suggests what seems, to some at least, to be a troubling tension between epistemic and moral goods.…

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