Humility and Ecological Citizenship: A Confucian Perspective

• In Event: Politics beyond the Human

Abstract

Humility has a contentious status in the history of moral and political thought. Christian humility entails self-abnegation and subordination towards the divine, which stands in contrast to individual autonomy. For Spinoza, humility is disguised pride, ambition, and the passion for domination. Hume claims that humility is “a monkish virtue,” because it cannot “advance a man’s fortune in the world.” For Nietzsche, humility produces distorted self-knowledge that constrains self-making and human freedom. On the other hand, contemporary political theorists begin to recover humility as a virtue and its political significance. Dana Villa’s Socratic citizenship centers on a form of epistemic humility, encouraging citizens to think critically. Mark Button’s “democratic humility” underscores that humility prepares liberal democratic citizens to develop a critical attentiveness towards fellow citizens’ different conceptions of the good. He stresses that humility is the fundamental virtue that fosters other important virtues like toleration and civility in a pluralistic society. Foregrounding the limitation of human agency, Sara Rushing’s “humility-informed-relational-autonomy” allows democratic citizens to properly understand their autonomy without letting themselves retreat into demoralized agents. What, then, is humility’s value in liberal democratic politics?

Drawing upon Judith Butler’s work on corporeal vulnerability and Confucian philosophy, in this paper, I argue for an account of “corporeal vulnerability informed humility” as the virtue of ecological citizenship. I contend that many people are prevented from becoming ecological citizens because of ignorance, and improvised imagination of their civic responsibilities. I claim that corporeal vulnerability is the human condition, and it drives us to develop epistemic and ethical humility regarding one’s relations to other human beings and the non-human world. Corporeal vulnerability occurs whenever we feel vulnerable confronting vicissitudes of ecological disasters and unknown natural phenomena. Thus, humility spurs open-mindedness towards the non-human world. Humility also directs us to recognize our shared common vulnerability and dependency upon other fellow citizens. Hence, it motivates democratic citizens to attend to and even express compassion for the sufferings of others.

Meanwhile, the Confucian ambit of my account holds that humility inspires citizens to be willing to learn from exemplars and to correct one’s errors. More importantly, both activities are considered as pleasurable. In addition, I argue that while humility rejects pride, hubris and arrogance, it does not undercut individual agency. Nor does it prevent individuals from pursuing excellence or entails demoralized agency. Rather, Confucian humility points to humble yet spirited agency in light of its recognition of historical limitations of human agency.

Finally, construing humility as a moral virtue along the virtue ethics of happiness approach, my account suggests that democratic citizens would be motivated to cultivate humility as it is good for themselves. My account of humility sheds light on the making of ecological citizens.

Author

• Wenyang Gao, Brown University