Comparative Humilities: Christian, Contemporary, and Confucian Conceptions of a Political Virtue

This essay examines contemporary Western thinking on humility. Compared to other virtues, little has been written about humility in the past century. This has led scholars to dub it a forgotten virtue. Recently, a renewed interest in humility can be found among scholars working in various academic disciplines. These scholars disagree, however, about the meaning and implications of humility for contemporary life. I seek to intervene in this disagreement through a comparative approach and bring the ancient Eastern tradition of Confucianism to bear on the current Western resurgence of interest in humility as a civic value. I argue that humility is a crucial political virtue that fortifies us and helps us resist disillusionment. Humility, therefore, should neither be reduced to a vestige of traditional Christianity nor viewed as a watered down notion of modesty.