MIDTERM 3 - CONCEPTS I NEED 2 KNOW

The Virtue of Humility

• The Endorser: Whitcomb, Battaly, Baehr, and Howard-Snyder define the virtue of humility in their 2021 work "The Puzzle of Humility and Disparity."

• The Definition: They define it as the habit of properly recognizing and accepting your own limits.

• The Requirements

  • The Anchor (Attending and Owning): There are two parts to it. Your flaws need to actually come to mind regularly (that's attending, the opposite of being oblivious), and you need to own them, which means you accept the flaw without hiding it, denying it, or getting all defensive about it.

  • The Anchor (Phronesis): For it to count as a real virtue and not just a personality trait, you need phronesis (practical wisdom). That means knowing exactly when, how, and with whom to own up to your flaws, and doing it for the right reasons.

• The Function: It is the perfect middle ground between being a total pushover and being full of yourself; in situations with huge power imbalances, humility helps people who are in the right to balance their goals and emotions.

• The Example: For example, humility keeps someone from setting an impossible goal, like trying to convince a Klan member to quit the Klan right there on the spot.

The Vice of Servility

• The Endorser: Whitcomb, Battaly, Baehr, and Howard-Snyder define the vice of servility in their 2021 work "The Puzzle of Humility and Disparity."

• The Definition: Servility is the habit of focusing way too much on your own flaws.

• The Psychology: A servile person is constantly in their head about their weaknesses, hyper-focusing on them until they feel completely overwhelmed.

• The Anchor (Vice of Excess): It's a vice of excess, meaning the trait of humility has gone too far. You're so locked in on your own flaws that you start giving in to people you have no business giving in to. In contexts of disparity, that's dangerous, because it can push marginalized people into submission instead of resistance.

• The Example: For example, a person exhibiting this vice might inappropriately back down or give in to a neo-Nazi when they really shouldn't.

Self-respecting Arrogance

• The Endorser: Robin Dillon argues this in her paper "Self-respect, Arrogance, and Power: A Feminist Analysis."

• The Definition: Arrogance can actually be a virtue for marginalized people when it's used as a way to claim the self-respect that society is trying to take away from them.

• The Anchor (Unwarranted Claims): Focuses on unwarranted claims of arrogance, in which a person asserts rights or status that those in power say they haven't earned.

• The Key Insight: In an unequal society, when a marginalized person demands to be treated as an equal, those on top call it "arrogant" just to keep them subordinate. So that so-called arrogance is really just self-respect.

• The Example: For example, the King Creon calls Antigone arrogant for breaking his rules to bury her brother, but Dillon says she is just respecting herself and doing what is right.

Daryl Davis: Virtuously Humble or Viciously Servile?

• The Endorser: Director of film, Matthew Ornstein

• The Concept: Daryl Davis is a Black musician who spent years hanging out with KKK members, and the whole philosophical question is whether that's the virtue of humility or the vice of servility.
  

• The Context: This happens in a scenario with a massive power imbalance, where one side is clearly right, and the other is totally wrong.
  

• The Humble Case: Davis owns the limitation that he can't flip a racist's worldview overnight. He literally compares it to losing weight: "I didn't put this on overnight. I'm not going to lose it by tomorrow." So he tempers his ambition, sets a long-term goal, and draws on charity and curiosity to have real conversations. He's actually gotten several members to leave the Klan.
  

• The Servile Case: The other side of it is that Davis is choosing to sit down and be friendly with people who don't even see him as human. You could argue that's him selling himself short, focusing so much on what he can't do that he ends up giving respect to people who don't deserve any. That's over-owning your limitations, which is the vice of servility.

The Theory of the Asshole (The Vice of Arrogance)

• The Endorser: Aaron James in Assholes: A Theory, Chapter 1.

• The Definition: An asshole is someone who "systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people."
  

• Component 1 (Special Advantages): They systematically allow themselves special advantages, meaning they repeatedly do things like cut in line or interrupt people.
  

• Component 2 (Sense of Entitlement): They have this deeply rooted false belief that they're special and the rules just don't apply to them. James calls this a moral motivation because the asshole genuinely thinks he deserves these advantages. And the entitlement is entrenched, so when you challenge him, it's your challenge that crumbles, not his ego. He might even get mad at you for questioning him.
  

• Component 3 (Immunization): When someone complains, the asshole doesn't even try to hear them out. He just walls them out completely. James says the real damage isn't the small stuff like waiting longer in line. It's that your very status as a person goes unrecognized. You're basically invisible to him.
  

• The Classification: James calls this a motive-vice, specifically arrogance (Kant's word is "arrogantia"). The asshole doesn't see other people as "ends in themselves" with equal moral standing. He's not a psychopath, though. A psychopath doesn't engage with morality at all. The asshole does engage with it, he just thinks the rules hit differently for him.
  

• The Contrast: You literally cannot tell an asshole and a jerk apart just by watching what they do. Same actions. The difference is why. The jerk is just clueless and might even apologize before doing it again next week. The asshole never apologizes because in his head, he's right.