Mundane Humility

Abstract Christian humility was repurposed in the early modern period to suit the goals of the emerging liberal state. After sketching how Thomas Hobbes achieved this repurposing, this chapter shows how David Hume’s critique of Christian humility and Immanuel Kant’s attempt to rescue Christian humility from Hume’s critique created a new kind of “mundane” humility newly committed to the need for a counterbalancing proper pride alongside anything that could be called virtuous humility. After showing how this concern for proper pride was a modern development, the chapter then shows how it drives most contemporary theorizing about humility, including the dominant low concern account of humility. Given that early Christian sayings about humility show no regard for the proper prides, an account of Christian humility will need to confront the claim that the virtue of humility requires counterbalancing by pride.