In this video, we'll consider the two dominant accounts of intellectual humility in the contemporary philosophical literature. That is, if you were to search through the philosophy journals and the relevant philosophical books, these are the definitions of intellectual humility that you more than likely come across. But as we consider these dominant accounts of intellectual humility, I also want to highlight a few worries we might have against them. Now, the goal here is not to show that these accounts are necessarily wrong. It might very well be possible to intelligently and cogently disarm the worries that I'm going to raise. Nevertheless, I hope that highlighting some of the worries facing contemporary accounts of intellectual humility might first give us a snapshot of the ongoing debate about what intellectual humility could be. And secondly, that it might also incline us to consider an alternative account, specifically what I've been calling the doxastic account of intellectual humility. The two accounts of intellectual humility that I want to consider in this video are first, the low concern for status account, which has been advocated by philosophers like Bob Roberts and Jay Wood. And secondly, the limitations owning account, which has been advocated by philosophers like Dennis Whitcomb, Heather Battaly, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Jason Baehr. Now let's start with the former, the low concern for status account of intellectual humility. In their 2003 article 'Humility and Epistemic Goods', and their 2007 book, 'Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemolgy', Bob Roberts and Jay Wood give us what is now the seminal account of intellectual humility in the literature. According to their account, the low concern for status account, intellectual humility is viewed as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance or improper pride. According to Roberts and Wood, these vices are centered on the promotion of the social well-being of the possessor. And as such, intellectual humility is a striking or unusual unconcern for social importance, and thus a kind of emotional insensitivity to the issues of status. The thought here is that the intellectually humble person isn't concerned about the status that might be accrued by pursuing intellectual endeavors. Instead, they pursue intellectual goods for their own sake. Now there are quite a few things to like about this view, I think. It seems to rightly capture a social dynamic to the virtue, but I think it also has some serious problems. The first question we might have is: can't someone be too humble? I think we generally tend to think of intellectual humility as a virtue between vices like intellectual arrogance on the one hand and intellectual servility on the other. Someone, it seems, can be too humble. They can be so self-deprecating and so self-lessening that they're vicious, not virtuous. However, since the low concern for status accounts sees intellectual humility as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance, it's not clear how you can capture this idea that someone can be too humble. Consider the following example; this is called 'Botanist'. Susan is a highly acclaimed botanist with a litany of scientific achievements and an almost unmatched knowledge of orchids. However, Susan cares nothing for social status or the accolades of her peers. Frank, on the other hand, is a novice botanist at best, but is wildly obsessed with his status amongst his peers and how much they think of him. To make matters worse, Frank is unfortunately an idiot. Susan and Frank know each other and each other's accomplishments very well. And being obsessed with status and intimidated by Susan's accomplishments, Frank is regularly antagonistic towards Susan. Susan and Frank are at a botanical garden when they have a disagreement about the scientific name of a certain species of orchid. Caring nothing for her intellectual status and accolades, or Frank's negative status, Susan takes Frank's dissent seriously and treats him as an intellectual peer. Now if Susan is caring so little for status that she fails to recognize her expertise over and against Frank's ignorance, and takes his dissent seriously, treating him like a peer, then perhaps Susan's being too humble here. Perhaps we think that it's actually vicious, not virtuous, for Susan to take Frank to be a peer when it comes to botany. But since intellectual humility is seen as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance, it's not at all clear how the low concern for status account of intellectual humility could possibly account for this idea: that someone can be too intellectually humble. Now there's another worry facing the low concern for status accounts that arises when we consider scenarios where there's no social status to be had or cared about. While intellectual humility plausibly has an important social dimension, the Roberts and Wood view (the low concern for status view) seems to make a social context absolutely essential. So consider another scenario, and this is called 'Stranded'. Let's say tragedy has befallen Frank, our character from the previous case (the ignorant yet wannabe botanist), and he has been shipwrecked on a small deserted island. He is truly and entirely alone, and with no social status to care about, Frank can no longer be obsessed with his status amongst his peers and how much they think of him. According to the low concern for status account of intellectual humility, Frank, given that he is trapped on his deserted island with no social status to care about, cannot help but be intellectually humble. If there's no status to be cared about, Frank cannot help but have a low concern for his social status. And what is more, it is conceptually impossible for Frank to be intellectually arrogant according to this view. Because again, being intellectually arrogant requires a concern for social status, ad there's no social status to be concerned about on Frank's deserted deserted island. Aside from creating a strange asymmetry regarding when somebody can be humble or arrogant, such a scenario might also make the low concern for status account view seem a little bit counterintuitive. It seems like Frank, the dunce, as he sits alone on his deserted island telling himself that all his botanical judgments are right and true and good, he could be rightly described as being intellectually arrogant. But worryingly, that's not a possibility that the low concern for status view seems to allow. Okay, so now we've tried to show what the low concern for status view is, and a couple of worries you might have against it. So let's consider the limitations owning account now, and see how it fares. According to this view, intellectual humility is a proper attentiveness to, and owning of, one's intellectual limitations. As Dennis Whitcomb and others have summarized, when life calls for one to be mindful of a limitation, then and only then, will it appear on the ideally humble person's radar. And what goes for humility in general, goes for intellectual humility in particular. And thankfully, this means that intellectual humility isn't just the opposite of intellectual arrogance. It's a virtuous mean on this account. If you are completely oblivious to your limitations, then, on this view, you're going to be intellectually arrogant. Whereas, in contrast, if you're someone who's overly attentive to and owning of your intellectual limitations, then you're going to be intellectually servile on this view. You'll be too humble, so to speak. And so it doesn't fall victim to the same sort of worries that we saw with Susan, the botanist, in the low concern for status account. That said however, the limitations owning account of intellectual humility faces its own unique set of worries. Vices like intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility are sensitive to both intellectual strengths and intellectual limitations. So if you fail to recognize your limitations, or you over-own or over-attend your strengths, then you're going to be intellectually arrogant. And if you fail to recognize your strengths, or over-own or over-attend to your limitations then you're going to be intellectually servile. But importantly, according to the limitations owning account, intellectual humility is only sensitive to the attending to and ownership of intellectual limitations. Intellectual humility, on this view, is blind to intellectual strengths. And all this leads to some results that I'm not sure that we should own in a viable account of intellectual humility. Let's consider two of these worries. The first is that the limitations owning account of intellectual humility allows people to be intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant about the same thing at the exact same time. To see this, just imagine someone who's duly attentive to and owning of her intellectual limitations (so she's intellectually humble), but radically overestimates and brags about her corresponding intellectual strengths. And insofar someone is intellectually arrogant if they radically overestimate and brag about their strengths, then it looks like the limitations owning account leads to this very odd conclusion: it's possible for someone to be at once intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant about the same thing at the exact same time, and that might seem a reason to reject the view. The inability to rule out someone being at once intellectually arrogant and intellectually humble is a limitation that I'm not sure we want to own in our accounts of intellectual humility. Of course, a defender of the limitations owning view, might argue, and indeed some do indeed argue that such a result is just metaphysically impossible for an agent who is "fully internally rational". In other words, someone might argue that if I'm appropriately attending to my intellectual limitations, then, if I'm "fully internally rational", I simply can't overestimate my intellectual strengths. Conversely, if I overestimate my intellectual strengths, then if I'm going to be fully internally rational, then I simply can't be intellectually humble. I can't appropriately attend to and own my intellectual limitations. This response might seem initially unsatisfactory because sadly, most everyone is less than fully internally rational. So such a response doesn't do anything to disarm the result that most everyone can be at once both intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant. What is more, even if we grant that it'd be metaphysically impossible for a fully internally rational agent to be both intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant, we might still worry, pre-theoretically, that intellectual humility should just be incompatible with being simultaneously intellectually arrogant. Just imagine someone said this to you: "You need to meet Christopher. He's such a kind and humble guy, but you've gotta watch out, though: he's an arrogant jerk." You'd think that whoever's just said this contradicted themselves. You wouldn't think "Well, I guess Christopher must be less than fully internally rational." You'd think that whoever said such a thing is either using "humble" and "arrogant" in an extremely unusual or unorthodox way, or they simply don't understand the words that they're using. It seems like there is something wrong, or maybe counterintuitive, with a definition of intellectual humility, that does not preclude someone (even a less than fully internally rational someone) being at once intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant. And if the limitations owning view gives us such a definition, then that seems like a serious strike against it. But there is a different, but related worry that's lurking in this conceptual neighborhood. The limitations owning account of intellectual humility not only allows for someone being at once intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant, it also allows for someone to be at once intellectually humble and intellectually servile. Remember, intellectual servility is sensitive to both intellectual limitations and intellectual strengths on this view, where someone can be intellectually servile, if they either over own and over attend to their limitations, or if they fail to attend to their strengths. And it's important to remember that intellectual humility here is completely blind to intellectual strengths. As such, someone could appropriately attend to and own their intellectual limitations and be intellectually humble while completely failing to attend to their corresponding intellectual strengths, which would make them intellectually servile on this view. And it's worth noting that appealing to a fully internally rational agent doesn't seem to do any good here; it doesn't seem to be any help whatsoever. Even if a fully internally rational person can't appropriately attend to and own their limitations while overestimating their strengths, it's not at all clear that a fully internally rational person can't appropriately attend to and own their limitations while simply failing to attend to their corresponding strengths. There's nothing irrational about not attending to the logical consequences of one's beliefs. So we've seen how the two leading theories of intellectual humility in the philosophical literature each face two worries. The low concern for status view faces 1. worries about the possibility of someone being too humble, and 2. worries about scenarios devoid of social status. And the limitations owning view, faces worries about 1. allowing for cases where someone can be, at once, intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant, and 2. allowing for cases where someone can be, at once, intellectually humble and intellectually servile. To be sure, I don't intend for these to be knockdown arguments against these views. I'm not trying to say that we just need to give up on these views. There might very well be viable ways to disarm the worries that I'm presenting here. However, I raise these worries, to help motivate us to search for other alternative accounts of intellectual humility. In the next video, I'm going to explore one such alternative: the doxastic account of intellectual humility.
