This seemed like an appropriate place to start. . .
When I first
encountered the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, I remember being puzzled as
to why Pride made it onto the list. If pride is a sin, I thought, is it wrong
to pat oneself on the back for a job well done, or to feel happy on being recognised
for performing a good deed? This seemed to me at the time to be a rather harsh
and unnecessary stance, but I assumed it was not meant to be interpreted so
strictly. No one would admonish a student for triumphantly displaying a
hard-earned A+, or withhold a well-deserved word of praise for fear of inflating the recipient’s ego. Everyone knows that a little bit of pride is no bad thing.
Some measure of pride in our achievements is surely acceptable, and can
motivate us to tackle even more ambitious tasks. We can feel pride in the
actions of others – who could blame a parent for swelling with pride at their
child’s success? And taking pride in one’s work is surely something to be
desired and cultivated. But even if putting Pride on the list of Cardinal Sins
is overdoing it somewhat, I would have no problem with putting Humility high on
the list of virtues.
This is
because I’m not thinking of humility as simply the opposite of pride. Rather, I
want to consider humility in a broader definition. It goes without saying that being
humble about ones achievements, no matter how much pride they may legitimately
warrant, is never a bad thing. Of course, the distinction between displaying
humility and having problems with self esteem is not always obvious, but genuine
humility in ones actions or achievements is a morally unassailable position. Despite
this, there is another kind of humility that is not often thought of when the
word is used, and that I think is in much shorter supply. Furthermore, I think
its relative lack is at least a contributing factor to a great many of the
world’s problems. I am speaking here of intellectual humility.
Intellectual
humility is a simple concept, but it has enormous applicability and therefore
also significant consequences. Put simply, intellectual humility is recognising
that since we are not in possession of perfect knowledge, our opinions or
beliefs are never free from the possibility of being wrong to some degree (and
the corollary of this, that dissenting opinions or beliefs may always have some
degree of truth in them). As with humility about achievements, this does not
require that we attribute no worth to our opinions whatsoever (this would be
the intellectual equivalent of having low self esteem), merely that we accept
the possibility that they could be wrong, and think and act in a manner
appropriate to this acceptance. Of course, we all implicitly make this
recognition all the time, but we so often fail to think and act accordingly. We
pay lip-service to the idea that our opinions may not be correct, that we are
open to new and better perspectives, but we continue to act as if they were in
fact incontrovertibly true.
There are
obvious cases where this is not a problem. Most of us would be happy to accept
on philosophical grounds that we cannot actually prove many of things that
appear to us to be obviously true, but remain unconcerned about this. The
classic example is that we cannot prove the external world exists at all, and
is not simply the creation of a misleading demon playing tricks on our mind and
senses. Still, we all live our lives as if the external world does exist, and
are not berated for doing so. It depends on context. What I am calling here intellectual
humility is not applicable to the belief that the external world is a figment
of your imagination except when debating epistemology with a philosopher.
But I
believe it is applicable in so many cases that we encounter every day, and I
would like to provide some examples that I think demonstrate this. Why do people fight? Because they
have opinions that they hold to be correct, and cannot accept disagreement. Why
do politicians lie and obfuscate? Because they feel compelled to pretend that
they possess the “correct” opinion at all times (correct either morally or
factually). Why do moral crusaders intrude into the personal and private
affairs of others? Because they believe that there is only one way to live a
good life and anything that deviates from this way is harmful. Why are we so
often given information, presented as gospel truth, sometimes by people for
whom education is actually their job, only to find out (or even worse, not find
out) that it is in fact false? Because people are too often afraid to just say “I
don’t know”. In all these cases, we see an inability to respect alternative
opinions, or a willingness to express what might well be incorrect rather than
express nothing at all – in both cases, a lack of intellectual humility.
I hope the mundane nature of some of these examples
will illustrate just how widespread and insidious I consider this problem. Of
course we could get more specific with many of these examples, and identify the
problem as something other than a lack of intellectual humility. It is going
too far to say that intellectual hubris is the root cause of all arguments; they need to be considered case-by-case, and specifics taken into account.
Nevertheless, I do want to paint with a broad brush in this case, in order to reveal
what I see as the unifying feature of all of these examples. I would say
that for all of them, a proper lack of intellectual humility is a necessary, if
not necessarily sufficient, cause of their negative outcomes. That is, it may
take more than just intellectual humility to resolve all these problems, but displaying
some intellectual humility must be the starting point to thinking clearly about
them and starting to look for real solutions.
The problem with being opinionated is not that your
opinions may be illogical or unsupported by evidence, it is that even if they
are highly logical and well supported there may still be many other opinions
that are just as valid. In fact, the better supported an opinion is, the more
likely it is that its owner will disregard alternative views. But this tendency
should be fought. Even if we have found something that seems to be unarguably
true, we must remember that apparently contradictory truths can both be parts
of a larger picture.
And sometimes evidence is not even relevant, because
there are no right or wrong opinions to be had. It is neither right or wrong,
for example, to feel jealousy on discovering that one’s partner has spent all
day with his or her ex, but doing so can still lead to bitter disputes. I
propose that even examples like this can be thought of as, at least in some
regard, failures of intellectual humility. They represent a failure to see
things from an alternative point of view and thus really grasp that a competing
viewpoint can be equally valid. We needn’t agree with it, but nor should we act
as if it is in any sense the “wrong” viewpoint.
There are very few definitive answers in this world,
and often we are incapable of finding the definitive answer even when it
exists. Sometimes we can find solutions to problems that suit us perfectly, as
individuals, while they remain hopelessly inadequate to almost everyone else. Definitive
answers are comforting, but in so many walks of life, we have to learn to be
content with a plurality of voices.
This is not to say that we should never be
opinionated, or that some opinions should not be strenuously repudiated. I am
not calling for complete relativism here. I am simply calling for intellectual
humility to be accorded the same high status as any other kind of humility, so
that opinions could be offered with a little more respect for rival views, and
so that the words “I don’t know” could be uttered with no sense of
embarrassment.
We seem not
to worry about intellectual humility nearly as much as other supposed virtues.
We take it for granted that people will have strong opinions about many topics
and be completely averse to any debate or disagreement. We enjoy having
opinions about contentious issues, and hold to them closely. We are
uncomfortable with having no opinion if it will make us seem disinterested or
uninformed. We fear to reveal our ignorance by saying honestly “I don’t know”.
But we need not take this state of affairs for granted. Being wrong is not a
sin, being right is not always important (and you are almost never as right as
you think you are), and being unsure is sometimes the best state to be in,
because it means there is still more to be learnt.
But that’s
just my opinion.
