 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'd 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. For the less, 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 Baddley, Daniel Howard Snyder, and Jason Baer. 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 Epistemology, 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 status, isn't concerned about the status that might be accrued by it 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 civility 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 account sees intellectual humility as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance, then it's not clear how it 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 descent 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 descent seriously, treating him like a peer, then perhaps Susan is 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 account 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 Robertson-Woodview, 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 that 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, and there's no social status to be concerned about on Frank's deserted island. Aside from creating a strange asymmetry regarding when someone can be humbled or arrogant, such a scenario might also make the low concern for status 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, that 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 in a couple of worries we 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 an 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 is overly attentive to an owning of your intellectual limitations, then you're gonna 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 gonna be intellectually arrogant. And if you fail to recognize your strengths or over-owned or over-attend to your limitations, then you're gonna be intellectually servile. But, importantly, according to the limitations owning account, intellectual humility is only sensitive to the attending to an ownership of intellectual limitations. Intellectual humility on this view is blind to intellectual strengths. And all this leads to some results that are not, 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, shows she's intellectually humble, but radically overestimates and brags about her corresponding intellectual strengths. And insofar as 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 like 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, quote, 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 intend 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. But 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 got to watch out, though. He's an arrogant jerk. You'd think that whippers 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. He 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 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, doesn't seem to be any help whatsoever. Even if a fully internally rational person can't appropriately attend to and own the limitations while over-estimating 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, one, worries about the possibility of someone being too humble, and two, worries about scenarios devoid of social status. And the limitations owning view faces worries about one, allowing for cases where someone can be at once intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant, and two, 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 knocked down arguments against these views. I'm not trying to say that we should 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.