The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

humility and truth 185To put it academically and economically, humility enjoins listening toone’s colleagues for the sake of Truth’s message in them. Shut up and learnsomething. The wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible are full of such advice,as in the proverbs of Solomon:Wise men lay up knowledge, but the babbling of a fool brings ruin near (Prov.10:14).He who belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remainssilent (11:12).If one gives answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame (18:13).Or Jesus son of Sirach: “The tongue of man is his fall....But ifthou love tohear, thou shalt receive understanding” (13, 33). “Some people withoutbrains,” says the Scarecrow in the movie of The Wizard of Oz, “do an awfullot of talking.” Harry Truman, I have noted, defined an expert as “someonewho doesn’t want to learn anything new.” Such pride is the opposite ofhumility, the humility to listen and learn.The philosopher Amélie Oksenberg Rorty once described the habit ofintellectual humility, rare among academics eager to speak and reluctant tolisten. What is crucial is “our ability to engage in continuous conversation,testing one another, discovering our hidden presumptions, changing ourminds because we have listened to the voices of our fellows. Lunatics alsochange their minds, but their minds change with the tides of the moon andnot because they have listened, really listened, to their friends’ questions andobjections.” 6Humility is part of the cardinal virtue of Temperance, which in turn isthe internal balance essential for a good life. Humility, said Aquinas, answersamong the Christian virtues to the pagan virtue of great-souledness, whichAristotle the pagan teacher of aristocrats admired so much. To be humble isto temper one’s passions in pursuing, as Aquinas put it, boni ardui, goodsdifficult of achievement. To be great-souled, which in turn is part of the cardinalvirtue of Courage, is to keep working toward such goods nonetheless. 7We appear to need both. Think of the balance of hope and temperance,and in particular the balance of great-souledness and humility, that is necessaryto sustain good work in science and scholarship, or in sports or crafts, orin any difficult good. Your high-school driving instructor said, “Aim high insteering.” Words to live by, a great-souledness. But the skepticism of humilityis also needed, to listen to the hints of the highway. If we are not to end in foolishness,or in the ditch, we need to aim high but also to listen, really listen.