Why Is Modesty A Virtue?

Why IS Modesty a Virtue?
Author(s): G. F. Schueler
Source: Ethics, Vol. 109, No. 4 (July 1999), pp. 835-841
Published by: University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/233948
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G. F. Schueler
Talking of successful rackets
modesty deserves a mention.
Exclamation points in brackets
never fail to draw attention. [Piet Hein] 1
An account of modesty should explain both what modesty really is, that
is what character trait the term modesty actually refers to, and why this
trait is (or is thought to be) a good thing, a virtue. Julia Drivers account
stumbles over the first issue, mine over the second.
Drivers revised underestimation account of modesty, which she
calls CM, is this: An agent is modest if he is disposed to underestimate
self-worth to some limited extent, even in spite of the available evidence 2 (p. 830). This trait is valuable, she writes, because a person who
is modest stops problems from arising in social situations (p. 828). A
modest person seems less likely to provoke an envy response in others
(p. 828) for instance.
But CM cant be correct, since someone could be disposed to underestimate her own worth, due to some systematic, minor miscalculation,
say, and yet still be a full-blown, loud-mouthed, braggart, that is, a paradigm of someone who is definitely not modest. Driver herself suggests a
perfectly good example of this. Albert, the worlds third best physicist,
believes he is the worlds fifth best physicist and brags about this ranking.
Drivers account entails that Albert is modest, though it seems quite clear
that he is not.3
Part of what leads Driver into this problem becomes clear if we ask
why she holds that someone who underestimates her own worth should,
just by that fact, be thought to stop social problems such as envy from
arising. Intuitively there is no connection between these two things, as
1. Piet Hein, Grooks (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966), p. 47.
2. Julia Driver, Modesty and Ignorance, in this issue, pp. 82734. References to
this article appear in the text in parentheses.
3. Michael Ridge, in an unpublished paper which he was kind enough to show me,
suggests that it is a necessary condition for modesty that one be disposed to de-emphasize
ones accomplishments, at least in the minimal sense of doing nothing to emphasize them.
Drivers underestimation account doesnt seem to meet this condition. Michael Ridge,
Modesty as a Virtue (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, unpublished manuscript, 1998), p. 7.
Ethics 109 ( July 1999): 835 841
q 1999 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704/99/0904-0006$02.00
836
Ethics
July 1999
the case of Albert shows. Someone could underestimate her own worth
and still think very highly indeed of herself, brag about her accomplishments, and so on. When discussing why she thinks there is a connection
here Driver says, The modest person is one who does not spend a lot of
time ranking, who does not feel the need to do so, and thus remains
ignorant to the full extent of self-worth (p. 828). And a bit later she
refers to the modest person as a person who tends to avoid ranking
(p. 829).
But this is quite a different thought, arguably not even compatible
with the idea that modesty is essentially underestimating ones own
worth. It is one thing to rank oneself a bit lower than one deserves; it is
another thing entirely not to do any ranking at all. Someone who does
not do any ranking will not be someone who ranks herself lower than she
deserves. She will not rank herself at all. And, for the same reason, someone who ranks herself a bit lower than she deserves is not someone who
avoids ranking herself.
So if it is failure to do any ranking (especially of oneself, presumably), or failure even to feel any need to do any ranking, that leads to the
lessening of envy, jealousy, and the like, then it is not at all clear that
Driver has given us any reason to think that someone who ranks herself
lower than she deserves will produce these sorts of socially beneficial results. Ranking oneself lower than one deserves is not the same as not
ranking oneself at all and is perfectly compatible with ranking oneself
pretty high, and hence compatible with the sort of boasting and the like
that exacerbates, rather than lessens, feelings of envy and jealousy.
In contrast (I modestly point out), failure to rank oneself or ones
accomplishments, or even to want to do so, is quite a natural outcome of
the trait I claimed was referred to by the term modesty, namely, not
caring whether people are impressed with one for ones accomplishments. So if Driver is right in thinking that what is good about modesty
is that it leads to the lessening of various unhappy social emotions such
as envy and jealousy, and that it does this because the modest person
tends not to rank herself or even not to want to rank herself, then the
account of modesty I gave earlier is actually much better positioned to
make use of this fact than is Drivers underestimation account.
And a lucky thing, too, because I think Driver is right in the central
criticism she makes of my explanation of why modesty (as I describe it)
is a good thing. I claimed that what is good about not caring whether
one is given credit for ones accomplishments is that a desire to be
given this sort of credit would be illegitimate. And it would be illegitimate, I claimed, because whatever accomplishment we pick there will
always be numerous genetic, social, cultural, and other factors for which
one is in no way responsible that explain this accomplishment, that is,
explain it in such a way that one really deserves no credit for it. Driver
rightly points out that this is a controversial thesis and, even worse, that
Schueler
837
it would be very surprising if the value of modesty, what makes it a virtue,

depended on the truth of a thesis that held that no one ever really deserves credit for any of her accomplishments.4 So, some rethinking seems
in order.
One possible tack would be simply to accept, in the way described
above, Drivers suggestion that the value of modesty is in the positive
social consequences it has, that is, in lessening envy and the like among
people who know about the modest persons accomplishments. I suppose
that modesty does indeed have such consequences, typically at least, and
perhaps it should even be regarded as a condition of a successful account
of modesty that it should make clear sense of why this should be so. But
that would still leave a bit of a puzzle. There seem to be lots of other
positive character traits, charm, for instance, or a sprightly wit, that have
very much the sorts of positive social consequences Driver claims for
modesty but which we do not regard as virtues. And by the same token
there seem to be virtues, genuine, undoubted virtues such as honesty,
whose value doesnt seem to reside in their positive social consequences.
So it seems at best unclear that adopting the positive social consequences story of what is good about modesty really does show it to be a
virtue. (Of course one might in the end decide that it was just a mistake
to think that modesty is a virtue as opposed to merely a positive character
trait, analogous to charm or wit.)
Much the same point can be made in a slightly different way. False
modesty, or at least undetected false modesty, should have exactly the
same positive social consequences as genuine modesty. The lessening of
envy and so on that Driver mentions depend not on the actual modesty
of the agent in question but on the perception or belief that the agent is
modest by those around her. But then why is false modesty, at least in a
very clever person in whom it is never detected, not thought to be just as
much a virtue as genuine modesty? It would seem that it should be if
what is good about modesty is just the positive social consequences it has.
One would think that false modesty should be at least a reasonable second best for those not blessed with the real thing if it were only the
positive social consequences of modesty that made it a good thing. Yet
we do not find authors of biographies, for instance, praising the subjects
of their works for managing all their lives to maintain an undetected
facade of false modesty.5
Intuitively, at least, the reason for this seems to be that there is something about the modest person that is intrinsically virtuous, that is, some4. Ridge makes a similar point. Ridge, p. 9. This is not really a sort of determinism
though, as Driver calls it, since one could hold that causal explanations of the sort mentioned always undermine claims of credit for any accomplishment without holding that
such explanations were deterministic. But this is a quibble.
5. Supposing, for instance, that the biographer herself detects the facade by reading
her subjects private diary after his death.
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Ethics
July 1999
thing that does not depend on the social consequences of this character
trait, indeed does not depend on anyone even being aware of its existence. If that is right, then whatever that trait is, it will have to be something that falsely modest people, and, in general, immodest people lack.
This suggests a way of approaching the issue of why exactly modesty is a
virtue. The question to ask, I suggest, is this: what is it that one finds out
about an immodest person, in noticing that she is bragging or the like,
that makes one think less well of this person? What weakness or flaw in
this persons character is revealed by the action or actions that convinced
one that she lacked modesty?
I have argued that someone who is genuinely modest is someone
who does not care whether people are impressed with her for her accomplishments (where accomplishments should be read very broadly so as
to include possessions, abilities, etc., anything about which one might be
or fail to be modest). If that is on the right track, then someone who is
not modest will be someone who does indeed care about whether people
are impressed with her for her accomplishments. And I suppose someone who is actually immodest (and not merely not modest) will be someone who cares a lot about whether people are impressed with her for her
accomplishments. So, the question is, what is wrong with that?
Notice that immodest behavior, such as bragging and the like, does
not automatically involve lying or dissimulation. This might be common
for someone who is immodest, and would be explained by the account
I want to give, since a strong desire to impress people will presumably
tempt one to exaggerate ones accomplishments. But still, someone who
frequently reminds others of her accomplishments and the like might
never speak anything but the literal truth and still be quite immodest. So
it would be a mistake to think that immodest people are necessarily liars,
for instance. So then what is wrong with immodesty?
The answer, I (now) think, is this. On my account, not being modest
means caring about whether people are impressed with one for ones
accomplishments. Of course there is a continuum (or actually more than
one) here. There may be a few, or some, or many sorts of accomplishments where one cares whether people are impressed. And the amount
one cares in any particular case can range from only a little to quite a lot.
But, and this is the point, to have desires of this sort is to have a certain
kind of character flaw. This is quite clear in the paradigm case of immodesty where the desire to impress others with ones accomplishments is
strong and, so to speak, pervasive (i.e., it applies to virtually everything
one does). The fact that such a person cares about whether others are
impressed with her for her accomplishments reveals, as one might say, a
certain hollowness of self.
Someone who cares a lot about what others think of her in this way
is the sort of person whose direction in life, whose goals and purposes
and so on, are generated not from herself but from those around her. In
Schueler
839
the most extreme case, at least, the whole structure of purposes that
make up such a persons life will be built on whatever it is that impresses
those around her. She will, one might say, care about her own accomplishments, whatever they are, only to the extent that others are impressed with her for having achieved them.
So, on this view the immodest person, or at least the paradigmatically immodest person at the very far end of the continua mentioned
above, will be someone who has no goals or purposes of her own at all,
someone for whom all of her direction in life comes from others. Of
course it is unlikely that there could even be anyone who fits this extreme
description. But looking at this extreme case tells us what is wrong to a
less extreme degree with immodesty generally, that is, what sort of character flaw is revealed by more garden-variety cases of bragging and the
like. To the extent that someone cares about whether people are impressed with her accomplishments, the direction of her life comes not
from within herself but from others.
If that is what is wrong with immodesty we can now see what is good
about modesty itself. On this account, modesty is not good for anything
it causes (as on Drivers account). But modesty is a virtue, according to
this view, because of what it reveals about the person who has it, namely,
that her goals and purposes come from herself, not from others. Someone who is genuinely modest is thus seen to have a kind of substance to
her character, just the sort of substance that the immodest person lacks.
Let me conclude by looking at quite a different objection Driver
raises against my account of modesty, one aimed not at my explanation
of why modesty is a virtue but at my description of the trait of character
referred to by the term modesty. Discussion of this objection will, I
hope, make clearer what my account is supposed to be. Drivers example
of the person who doesnt care whether people are impressed with his
accomplishments (which are artistic creations in the case Driver describes) but only because he has contempt for their puny capacities
for aesthetic appreciation (p. 833) seems to be intended as a straight
counterexample to my account. Such a person, Driver says, seems far
from modest, and yet my account of modesty seems to entail that he is
modest. But this is based on a misunderstanding. We need to distinguish
the question of whether this person cares at all, so to speak, from the
question of whether he cares, all things considered.6
Here is an analogy. I have been drooling for weeks over the expensive new car in the showroom. Finally a salesman, having seen my nose
pressed to the showroom window day after day, comes out and asks
whether I want to buy this car. No, I say, thinking of the fact that I
already have a perfectly serviceable car, that I would need to go far into
6. I try to sort out this distinction and some others of relevance to want and its
cognates in my book, Desire (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), esp. chap. 1.
840
Ethics
July 1999
debt to buy this new one, and so forth. Was I lying? Of course not, but
there is another question to which the true answer was yes. I certainly had a strong desire to buy that car, but this was a desire I had to
balance against the many (alas) better reasons I have not to buy it. It was
only all things considered that I did not want to buy it. This is quite
different from the case in which I am utterly indifferent to the car in the
first place.
In thinking about Drivers example of the person who does not care
whether people are impressed with his artistic creations because he has
contempt for their puny capacities for aesthetic appreciation, we need
to make a similar distinction. There will be two sorts of case.
1. Someone might think that people certainly should, if they had
any sense, be very impressed with his accomplishments, but also think
that they do not, in fact, have any sense. That sounds like the case that
Driver is describing, and though I agree it is not a case of modesty, I do
not agree that it fails to fit the account of modesty I suggested but just
the reverse. Such a person certainly does care whether people are impressed by his accomplishments, but he also has the extra, contemptuous
belief about their aesthetic abilities to explain why they in fact are not
impressed, a belief that thus lets him totally discount their actual aesthetic judgments. So it is only all things considered that he does not
care whether they are impressed, in the way it was only all things considered that I did not want to buy the car.
2. Someone might not be concerned at any level what people think
of his artistic accomplishments, that is, be completely indifferent to
whether they are impressed with these accomplishments and, as an extra
fact so to speak, be of the opinion that their aesthetic judgments were all
quite worthless. Such a person would on my account be modest, but this
sort of case does not even appear to be a counterexample to this account.
There is nothing about being modest that rules out thinking that the
judgments of others about ones accomplishments are quite bad.
The difference between these two cases is in whether or not the person fails to care, all things considered, whether people are impressed
with his accomplishments only because he has contempt for their
judgments. If the answer is yes, as in the case Driver describes, then he
will, of course, have to care in some way what people think of his accomplishments, otherwise his contempt will not figure into the explanation
of his all-things-considered view (i.e., he will not fail to care only because of his contempt for their judgments). On my view, such a person
does indeed care whether others are impressed with his accomplishments. He is not indifferent to this (as I was not indifferent to buying the
car) and so will not be modest.
However, if he fails to care, all things considered, whether people
are impressed with his artistic accomplishments because he is utterly indifferent in the first place about whether they are impressed (analogous
Schueler
841
to my being left totally cold by the new car in the showroom) then on my
account he will indeed be modest about these accomplishments. But so
far as I can see, that is perfectly consistent with his having the opinion
that the aesthetic judgments of others are totally without merit. Their
aesthetic judgments might after all really be totally without merit, and
there is nothing to prevent him from noticing this fact.
The account of modesty I am suggesting essentially includes the
claim that the modest person does not care whether people are impressed with her for her accomplishments. That does not mean that she
does not care all things considered, since that is compatible with it
being the case that she cares deeply but that this care gets outweighed or
trumped by some other view, such as contempt for the ability of others
to make reasonable judgments on the topic in question. It means that
she does not care at all, she is just indifferent to whether people are
impressed with her for her accomplishments.

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