Secular Humility

If there is no God, should we be humble? If so, what form should our humility take? Here I describe a character trait that (a) merits the title secular humility, (b) is a virtue, (c) has some important similarities with humility as understood in the Christian tradition, and (d) requires neither belief in anything like the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam nor the existence of such a deity. After describing secular humility and making the case that it is a virtue, I explain how a person can possess secular humility while at the same time possessing a high degree of self-confidence and achievement. I then address two worries about secular humility: first, a Nietzsche-inspired worry that secular humility is in tension with creativity, and second, the worry that secular humility is an obstacle to overcoming oppression and exploitation.

Introduction

This volume is part of a multidisciplinary series, The Virtues, edited by Nancy E. Snow. The aim of the series is to showcase scholarly work on specific virtues or clusters of virtues from a variety of disciplines. Humility, the topic of this volume, is explored from a variety of philosophical and psychological perspectives, as well as in specific contexts such as hospice care, business management, competitive contexts, and political history....

Self-Trust and Epistemic Humility

Some cognitive domains, like the moral, aesthetic, and religious, seem to demand a special kind of intellectual autonomy. We should, it is thought, think for ourselves and not trust others. This call for autonomy seems to support a radical intellectual self-sufficiency. In particular, the fact that our peers disagree with us can be disregarded by the fully intellectually self-sufficient person. I argue against radical intellectual self-sufficiency. I argue, instead, that our basis for self-trust in these domains should also extend to trusting others. So long as we do not have a good account of our own reliability in these domains, our general cognitive similarity to others ought to lead us to weight their testimony, and so weight their disagreement. We should be epistemically humble in the face of disagreement. Furthermore, epistemic humility here is a form of intellectual autonomy, for we discover the evidence of disagreement and think through its consequences for ourselves.

Humility and Helplessness in the Realization of Limitations within Hospice

The historical and founding basis of the religiosity and spiritual focus of the hospice movement has congruency with the concept of humility; hospice culture retains much of the Christian foundations and a religious presence within which the implications of humility are found. The hospice culture and ideology support positing a model of hospice as a liminal space that includes dying as a journey, crossing thresholds, a waiting room for the dying, hospice as family, hospice nurses as ritual specialists who control the passage of dying in various ways, and hospice as a symbolically protected environment. Being in the presence of the overwhelming weakness of the dying humbled hospice staff and took them into a space and experience of complete powerlessness and helplessness that was momentary and transient, where they focused on care instead of cure through excellence in terms of humility and sensibility as opposed to power and mastery.

Self-Other Concept in Humble Love

After a period in l’Arche communities, members’ self-other concept often changes from what is typical for modern secular societies to that of receiving “life” from and giving “life” to others. The two kinds of construal are mutually contrary. Following Jean Vanier, we call the ethos guiding the first construal the Normal. Its leading concepts are success, competence, competition, advancement, achievement, power, superior-inferior, and rival as criteria for evaluating persons. Here the relations of self and other are distancing, alienating, ones of differential competence, superior or inferior achievement, competition for power, being winner and loser, etc. Contrastingly, the concepts governing self-other construals characterizing long-term living in l’Arche are mutuality, vulnerability, forgiveness, compassion, reconciliation, belonging, and friendship. Humble love combines two complementary virtues: humility and agapê. The tyranny of the Normal erects walls that impede the symmetrical construals of self-other characteristic of humble love. Humility dissipates or undermines the distancing, alienating self-other construals, bringing down these walls.

A Relational Humility Framework

In this chapter, we describe a relational humility model that examines how perceptions of humility impact relationships, and we review research that supports the model. First, we describe the development of a relational humility framework in the field of psychology that addressed many conceptual and methodological issues in studying humility. Second, we describe two key hypotheses that have organized research on relational humility: (a) the social bonds hypothesis and (b) the social oil hypothesis. Third, we review research on relational humility in three key relational contexts: (a) social and romantic relationships, (b) cultural differences, and (c) business contexts. Finally, we discuss limitations in our proposed relational humility model, present areas for future research, and discuss practical applications of relational humility.

A Critical Examination and Reconceptualization of Humility

This chapter critically examines psychological conceptualizations of humility and offers a novel integrative perspective that identifies the central psychological feature of humility. The gist of this approach is that, at its core, humility involves the recognition that, however great one’s personal accomplishments or positive characteristics may be, one is not fundamentally a more special person because of them and, thus, should not be viewed or treated as special outside the domain of one’s accomplishments or characteristics (and sometimes even within it). Our review of the literature demonstrates that research findings are largely consistent with the notion that the features of both state and trait humility are either antecedents of the recognition that one’s accomplishments and positive characteristics do not entitle one to be treated as a special person or are psychological or behavioral manifestations of that recognition.

Occupying Your Rightful Space

When Moses is described (Numbers 12:3) as being more humble than any other person on the face of the earth, and when God is described as being humble, we are forced to dissociate Jewish notions of humility from any connotations of meekness or diffidence. Biblical and rabbinic texts reveal that the essential consideration in assessing a person’s humility is not that person’s relative assertiveness or timidity but rather with how much he or she subjugates personal self-interest to higher purposes. As articulated within the Jewish tradition of self-development called Mussar, humility inheres in directing one’s will toward sensitive service of the needs and wants of others within one’s social sphere as well as in line with one’s allegiance to the divine. Virtuous humility expresses itself in everyday contexts in the measure of the “space” (be that in the physical, emotional, verbal, financial, or another realm) that a person occupies. The ideal is to take up just as much space as is necessary to fulfill one’s mission of service in his or her life, neither more nor less. Moses fits (as well as defines) this paradigm.

Understanding Humility as Intellectual Virtue and Measuring It as Psychological Trait

While the actions and behaviors associated with humility have been lauded as exemplary by many and condemned as detrimental by others, this chapter will explore the intellectual experience of humility and how it is measured as a personality trait in psychology. This chapter will examine humility through the lens of Aristotle’s virtuous golden mean, where intellectual humility lies between intellectual arrogance (deficiency) and intellectual servility (excess). In support of this, research shows that intellectually humble people demonstrate more careful and open-minded thinking styles, which can create a more thoughtful and open intellectual environment around them. The chapter will conclude with implications of intellectual humility in various domains, including business, leadership, and medical contexts.

Humility

This chapter looks at humility as an approach to one’s self, others, and life in general that is most conducive to enduring happiness. After reviewing the existing empirical literature on how humility is associated with various well-being outcomes, the chapter provides a theoretical framework explaining this positive association. Specifically, it elaborates how humility enables people to relate to themselves, to reality, and to others in optimal ways, which is where enduring happiness lies. It is emphasized that a secure, non-fragile ego is a main ingredient of humility and underlies many of its happiness-related benefits. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how humility can be cultivated.