Kent Dunnington
Biola University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- I teach philosophy to undergraduate students at Biola University. Most of my interests are in ethics, focusing especially on virtue ethics.edit
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This essay demonstrates that disagreement about how to characterize intellectual humility masks deeper disagreement about the ends the intellectual virtues are meant to serve. This has been largely unacknowledged in discussions of... more
This essay demonstrates that disagreement about how to characterize intellectual humility masks deeper disagreement about the ends the intellectual virtues are meant to serve. This has been largely unacknowledged in discussions of intellectual humility, and of the intellectual virtues generally. Despite disclaimers, contestants often proceed as though there is an available unified account of the virtue that, with enough persuasion, all could be brought to accept. This essay contends a shared account is unlikely and therefore such persuasive efforts miss the point. What is needed, rather, is more attention to the kinds of desiderata that are being privileged in the various accounts: what are the conceptions of human nature and human flourishing driving different accounts? I use a simple method to make my case. I begin with the two best contemporary efforts to characterize intellectual humility. I show why each side's attempts to persuade the other are likely to fail. I then show that even if some unified account of intellectual humility could be cobbled together from these two proposals, it could not capture at least one historically influential account of intellectual humility, one found in the writings of Augustine. In a concluding section, I offer an interpretation of why the project of finding a shared account of intellectual humility seems sure to fail. I argue that liberal political commitments drive much of the contemporary discussion of the intellectual virtues, and the extent to which agreement seems attainable is correlative to the extent we are willing to allow liberalism to determine the desiderata for an account of the virtues.
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Despite disagreement about what is fundamental or necessary to intellectual humility, there is broad agreement that intellectual humility will bear on the higher-order epistemic attitudes one takes towards one’s beliefs (and other... more
Despite disagreement about what is fundamental or necessary to intellectual humility, there is broad agreement that intellectual humility will bear on the higher-order epistemic attitudes one takes towards one’s beliefs (and other doxastic attitudes). Intellectually humble people tend not to under- or overstate the epistemic strength of their doxastic attitudes. This article shows how incentivized beliefs—beliefs that are held partly for pragmatic reasons—present a test case for intellectual humility. Intellectually humble persons will adopt ambivalent higher-order epistemic attitudes towards their incentivized beliefs. This is important for institutions that incentivize belief with material or social rewards, such as religious institutions that require orthodoxy for membership. The article argues that such institutions cannot simultaneously incentivize orthodox belief and enjoin conviction about such beliefs, unless they are willing to reject intellectual humility as a virtue.
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This article advances a non-doxastic account of saving faith that nevertheless emphasizes the connection between faith and belief. I argue that saving faith epistemically justifies some religious beliefs. I offer an account that is meant... more
This article advances a non-doxastic account of saving faith that nevertheless emphasizes the connection between faith and belief. I argue that saving faith epistemically justifies some religious beliefs. I offer an account that is meant to show how faith can play a variety of significant roles it is often purported to play, that is, how a specific virtue of faith can secure salvation, epistemically justify theistic belief, practically justify religious ways of life, and belong to practitioners of different religions. The account also provides an alternative to evidentialist, fideist, and Reformed Epistemology approaches to faith and reason.
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Given that curiosity, the desire for knowledge, is thought by many virtue theorists to play a controlling role over the other intellectual virtues, Christian concerns about proper and improper formations of curiosity should interest... more
Given that curiosity, the desire for knowledge, is thought by many virtue theorists to play a controlling role over the other intellectual virtues, Christian concerns about proper and improper formations of curiosity should interest virtue theorists. Combine the fact that curiosity gets a different treatment in Christian thought with the claim that curiosity has a controlling function over the other intellectual virtues, and it follows there is a meaningful distinction between Christian and non-Christian virtue epistemologies. Differences include distinct understandings of individual intellectual virtues as well as a strong objection to the view that one could be intellectually virtuous without being morally virtuous. In this essay I first isolate the peculiarly Christian distinction between proper and improper curiosity, showing how humility is at the heart of the distinction. I then show how this distinction points to a virtue epistemology that differs in significant ways from prevalent contemporary virtue epistemologies
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Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to digital@library.tamu.edu, referencing... more
Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to digital@library.tamu.edu, referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-99).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.William James' "The Will to Believe" essay has been the subject of much philosophical and religious discourse in the over one hundred years since its publication. Interpretations of the essay have been varied and numerous. In this thesis, I critique several of the prominent interpretations of "The Will to Believe." I find that each interpretation is lacking in some important way. Most of the interpretations fail to read James' text carefully and faithfully. The interpretations that succeed in reading the text carefully and faithfully fail because they do not provide a useful or helpful strategy to persons who find themselves with questions of belief like those James intended to address. I offer an interpretation of "The Will to Believe" that fails in neither of these ways. I do this by drawing on James' larger philosophical and psychological corpus, using the major struts of his mature thought to develop and clarify several important passages of "The Will to Believe." I conclude that "The Will to Believe," properly interpreted, offers a coherent and powerful strategy to persons confronted with certain types of questions of belief
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The positive psychology movement has increased and deepened our understanding of gratitude and its contribution to human well-being. Most of the literature to date has focused on gratitude to human benefactors, and the same has been true... more
The positive psychology movement has increased and deepened our understanding of gratitude and its contribution to human well-being. Most of the literature to date has focused on gratitude to human benefactors, and the same has been true of philosophical analyses of gratitude. More recently, scholars of gratitude have turned their attention to gratitude to God, but relatively little work has been done on the relationship between particular theologies and spiritualities on the one hand and the phenomenology and structure of gratitude on the other. This essay makes a contribution to that strand of investigation by surveying the work of six Christian theologians, each of whom make bold, sometimes cryptic, claims about the distinctiveness of Christian gratitude and gratitude to God. The essay challenges universalist assumptions about the structure and phenomenology of gratitude, including gratitude to God.
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In a letter to a young student named Dioscorus, Augustine writes, “If you were to ask me, however often you might repeat the question, what are the instructions of the Christian religion, I would be disposed to answer always and only,... more
In a letter to a young student named Dioscorus, Augustine writes, “If you were to ask me, however often you might repeat the question, what are the instructions of the Christian religion, I would be disposed to answer always and only, ‘Humility,’ although, perchance, necessity might constrain me to speak also of other things” (Ep. 118.3.22).1 In this essay, I show why, for Augustine, humility is the definitive virtue of Christian life. I also show that Augustine’s account of humility differs significantly from what contemporary philosophers “remember” Christian humility to be. The essay unfolds in four parts. First, I isolate what I call the “standard account” of Christian humility among contemporary philosophers. Second, I argue that the standard account of Christian humility does not capture Augustine’s understanding of humility. Third, I develop what I take to be Augustine’s account of humility, namely a disposition of the will to embrace radical dependence, particularly with respect to one’s identity or self-understanding. Fourth, I show why Augustine’s account of humility is inseparable from specifically Christian commitments.
Research Interests: Philosophy and Humility
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In contemporary discussions of natural evil, one classically important theodicy—variously called warfare theodicy, fallen angel theodicy, or the Satan hypothesis—is rarely mentioned, let alone defended. This is the view that so-called... more
In contemporary discussions of natural evil, one classically important theodicy—variously called warfare theodicy, fallen angel theodicy, or the Satan hypothesis—is rarely mentioned, let alone defended. This is the view that so-called natural evil, the evil suffered by sentient beings that is not caused by human agency, is caused by angelic agency, specifically that of Satan and other fallen angels. Although the Satan hypothesis has received scant attention in contemporary philosophy of religion, Richard Swinburne, Michael Martin, Robert Adams, and David O’Connor have each brought separate objections against it, but their objections fail. The real problem with the Satan hypothesis lies elsewhere. This paper begins by stating the Satan hypothesis and briefly sketching its scriptural and theological warrants in the Christian tradition. Second, it canvasses the objections that have been brought against the hypothesis and shows how each objection fails. Third, it isolates the real problem for the Satan hypothesis, namely the lack of any satisfactory account of how malevolent angelic agency could conceivably be the cause of natural evil. Finally, the paper offers three speculative proposals for such an account, highlighting problems with each. The upshot is that although the Satan hypothesis is a prominent theodicy in the history of Christian thought and in popular Christianity, it confronts philosophical challenges not yet met by its proponents.
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After clarifying how central proper pride is to a low concern account of humility, this chapter elucidates the sense in which pride and humility are “concerned” with the self. “Self”-language is sprawling and imprecise, so a significant... more
After clarifying how central proper pride is to a low concern account of humility, this chapter elucidates the sense in which pride and humility are “concerned” with the self. “Self”-language is sprawling and imprecise, so a significant portion of the chapter is spent clarifying different senses of “self” that are relevant to the question of whether or not humility requires “unselfing.” The chapter argues that pride and humility are specifically about an orientation toward an ego ideal, which is a self-representation focused specifically on one’s distinctive importance over and against others. The chapter then offers an account of radical Christian humility that proscribes proper pride, including any concern one might have with one’s own distinctive importance. The chapter concludes by showing that the account, which is dubbed a no concern account, need not bring with it any of the so-called vices of humility.
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The most powerful critique of a radical Christian view of humility is the Humean critique, according to which proper pride is an essential aspect of moral formation and consistent moral action over time. The critique has been taken up... more
The most powerful critique of a radical Christian view of humility is the Humean critique, according to which proper pride is an essential aspect of moral formation and consistent moral action over time. The critique has been taken up with particular force by contemporary feminist and womanist theologians who implicate Christian humility in the history of patriarchal subjugation of women. This chapter addresses the feminist critique. It accepts much of the critique, but shows how the rejection of radical Christian humility does not follow from the critique. What follows, instead, is that radical Christian humility cannot be mandated as normative for members of subjected groups, or for anyone for that matter. Hume is right that proper pride is essential to moral formation, but he is wrong that proper pride is essential for consistent moral action over time. Thus radical Christian humility may be sought voluntarily by one who would like to conform more perfectly to the holiness of Jesus.
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This book proposes an account of humility that relies on the most radical Christian sayings about humility, especially those found in Augustine and the early monastic tradition. It argues that this was the view of humility that put... more
This book proposes an account of humility that relies on the most radical Christian sayings about humility, especially those found in Augustine and the early monastic tradition. It argues that this was the view of humility that put Christian moral thought into decisive conflict with the best Greco-Roman moral thought. This radical Christian account of humility has been forgotten amid contemporary efforts to clarify and retrieve the virtue of humility for secular life. The book shows how humility was repurposed during the early modern era—particularly in the thought of Hobbes, Hume, and Kant—better to serve the economic and social needs of the emerging modern state. This repurposed humility insisted on a role for proper pride alongside humility, as a necessary constituent of self-esteem and a necessary motive of consistent moral action over time. Contemporary philosophical accounts of humility continue this emphasis on proper pride as a counterbalance to humility. By contrast, radica...
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Augustine’s Confessions is a locus classicus for early Christian privileging of the virtue of humility. This chapter shows that the contemporary “memory” of Christian humility fails to capture what Augustine took humility to be in the... more
Augustine’s Confessions is a locus classicus for early Christian privileging of the virtue of humility. This chapter shows that the contemporary “memory” of Christian humility fails to capture what Augustine took humility to be in the Confessions. Augustine had all the marks of the contemporary memory of “Christian humility,” yet still took himself to lack the humility of Jesus. The chapter then tries to supply an account of Augustinian humility. Augustinian humility is best understood as the virtue opposed to the Roman valorization of self-sufficiency and immortality. The chapter concludes by trying to relate Augustinian humility to the most prevalent contemporary accounts of humility, low concern and limitations-owning. Neither of those accounts can be assimilated to an Augustinian account of humility.
If Christian humility sets as a regulative ideal complete unconcern for one’s own distinctive importance, the challenge is to say why anyone would consider Christian humility a disposition of human flourishing. The experience of one’s... more
If Christian humility sets as a regulative ideal complete unconcern for one’s own distinctive importance, the challenge is to say why anyone would consider Christian humility a disposition of human flourishing. The experience of one’s distinctive importance is often felt to be an important, if not essential, aspect of the good life. This chapter shows how Christian humility requires for its intelligibility a different account of what an excellent self is like, and a different account of what human flourishing is like. The Christian themes of crucifixion, Trinity, and beatitude are shown seriously to revise customary assumptions about human selfhood and human flourishing. The chapter shows how a distinctively Christian eschatology and anthropology grounds a distinctively Christian view of humility.
Recent scholarship on humility can be grouped into five major accounts of humility. This chapter canvasses those accounts before suggesting that two accounts—“low concern” and “limitations-owning”—have become the dominant contemporary... more
Recent scholarship on humility can be grouped into five major accounts of humility. This chapter canvasses those accounts before suggesting that two accounts—“low concern” and “limitations-owning”—have become the dominant contemporary views. A recurring feature of the current discussion is the need to distance contemporary accounts of humility from their Christian antecedents, since those antecedents are typically thought to be grounded by unacceptable metaphysical commitments. But the contemporary “memory” of the major contours of Christian humility is mistaken. The chapter isolates a recurring story told by contemporary theorists about what Christian humility once was, and then shows why that story is almost certainly false.
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UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Addiction and action: Aristotle and Aquinas in dialogue with Addiction Studies. by Dunnington... more
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Addiction and action: Aristotle and Aquinas in dialogue with Addiction Studies. by Dunnington ...
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Because it is so clearly indexed to Christian theological convictions, the account of humility developed in this book may appear irrelevant to the field of virtue theory broadly conceived. The Conclusion argues that this way of thinking... more
Because it is so clearly indexed to Christian theological convictions, the account of humility developed in this book may appear irrelevant to the field of virtue theory broadly conceived. The Conclusion argues that this way of thinking fails to recognize that the rediscovery of the virtue tradition was originally animated—especially in the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre—by the realization that the moral life is more deeply tradition-dependent than reigning normative theories allow. This book should then be thought of as an exercise in general virtue theory insofar as it attempts carefully to display how one particular virtue, humility, is tradition-dependent all the way down. The Conclusion argues that attempts to specify the virtues in less tradition-dependent ways actually conceal ideological commitments to a liberal political agenda.
Monastic directives to humility have been dismissed by most contemporary theorists as remnants of a lamentable past. But, if radical Christian humility as envisioned by the early monastic tradition is a legitimate view of humility, there... more
Monastic directives to humility have been dismissed by most contemporary theorists as remnants of a lamentable past. But, if radical Christian humility as envisioned by the early monastic tradition is a legitimate view of humility, there should be something to learn from their many directives. This chapter interprets monastic wisdom about the pursuit of humility, showing how ascetic practices are consistent with the claim that humility is a gift of grace. It argues that the monastics were right to think that genuine Christian humility is unattainable apart from experiences of humiliation. Ascetic regimes can promote humility by training practitioners to go on loving in the midst of humiliations that sabotage their quests for personal importance. Such practices “position” devotees to be recipients of supernatural love, which enables persons to go on without falling back on proper pride as a source of moral energy.
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Despite disagreement about what is fundamental or necessary to intellectual humility, there is broad agreement that intellectual humility will bear on the higher-order epistemic attitudes one takes towards one's beliefs (and other... more
Despite disagreement about what is fundamental or necessary to intellectual humility, there is broad agreement that intellectual humility will bear on the higher-order epistemic attitudes one takes towards one's beliefs (and other doxastic attitudes). Intellectually humble people tend not to under- or overstate the epistemic strength of their doxastic attitudes. This article shows how incentivized beliefs--beliefs that are held partly for pragmatic reasons--present a test case for intellectual humility. Intellectually humble persons will adopt ambivalent higher-order epistemic attitudes towards their incentivized beliefs. This is important for institutions that incentivize belief with material or social rewards, such as religious institutions that require orthodoxy for membership. The article argues that such institutions cannot simultaneously incentivize orthodox belief and enjoin conviction about such beliefs, unless they are willing to reject intellectual humility as a virtue.
This article advances a non-doxastic account of saving faith that nevertheless emphasizes the connection between faith and belief. I argue that saving faith epistemically justifies some religious beliefs. I offer an account that is meant... more
This article advances a non-doxastic account of saving faith that nevertheless emphasizes the connection between faith and belief. I argue that saving faith epistemically justifies some religious beliefs. I offer an account that is meant to show how faith can play a variety of significant roles it is often purported to play, that is, how a specific virtue of faith can secure salvation, epistemically justify theistic belief, practically justify religious ways of life, and belong to practitioners of different religions. The account also provides an alternative to evidentialist, fideist, and Reformed Epistemology approaches to faith and reason.
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There is evidence supporting the claim that Twelve-Step Programs offer the best hope of recovery for addicted persons. This paper offers an explanation for the success of Twelve-Step Programs. It argues that Twelve-Step Programs are the... more
There is evidence supporting the claim that Twelve-Step Programs offer the best hope of recovery for addicted persons. This paper offers an explanation for the success of Twelve-Step Programs. It argues that Twelve-Step Programs are the best recovery regimen because they aim at a humble reconstitution of the self, and a humble reconstitution of the self directly addresses two of the most besetting challenges of the addict: (1) the challenge of identifying with the self over time, and (2) the challenge of incorporating personal pain, guilt, shame, failure, and trauma into one’s self-understanding. After explaining these two challenges, the paper examines the role of pride in typical instances of self-constitution before showing how Twelve-Step Programs self-consciously pursue a different, humility-based, path of self-constitution. The paper concludes by considering the scientific and theological merits of its central hypothesis.
In contemporary discussions of natural evil, one classically important theodicy--variously called warfare theodicy, fallen angel theodicy, or the Satan hypothesis--is rarely mentioned, let alone defended. This is the view that so-called... more
In contemporary discussions of natural evil, one classically important theodicy--variously called warfare theodicy, fallen angel theodicy, or the Satan hypothesis--is rarely mentioned, let alone defended. This is the view that so-called natural evil, the evil suffered by sentient beings that is not caused by human agency, is caused by angelic agency, specifically that of Satan and other fallen angels. Although the Satan hypothesis has received scant attention in contemporary philosophy of religion, Richard Swinburne, Michael Martin, Robert Adams, and David O'Connor have each brought separate objections against it, but their objections fail. The real problem with the Satan hypothesis lies elsewhere. This paper begins by stating the Satan hypothesis and briefly sketching its scriptural and theological warrants in the Christian tradition. Second, it canvasses the objections that have been brought against the hypothesis and shows how each objection fails. Third, it isolates the real problem for the Satan hypothesis, namely the lack of any satisfactory account of how malevolent angelic agency could conceivably be the cause of natural evil. Finally, the paper offers three speculative proposals for such an account, highlighting problems with each. The upshot is that although the Satan hypothesis is a prominent theodicy in the history of Christian thought and in popular Christianity, it confronts philosophical challenges not yet met by its proponents.
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This essay demonstrates that disagreement about how to characterize intellec- tual humility masks deeper disagreement about the ends the intellectual virtues are meant to serve. This has been largely unacknowledged in discus- sions of... more
This essay demonstrates that disagreement about how to characterize intellec- tual humility masks deeper disagreement about the ends the intellectual virtues are meant to serve. This has been largely unacknowledged in discus- sions of intellectual humility, and of the intellectual virtues generally. Despite disclaimers, contestants often proceed as though there is an available unified account of the virtue that, with enough persuasion, all could be brought to accept. This essay contends a shared account is unlikely and there- fore such persuasive efforts miss the point. What is needed, rather, is more attention to the kinds of desiderata that are being privileged in the various accounts: what are the conceptions of human nature and human flourishing driving different accounts? I use a simple method to make my case. I begin with the two best contemporary efforts to characterize intellectual humility. I show why each side’s attempts to persuade the other are likely to fail. I then show that even if some unified account of intellectual humility could be cobbled together from these two proposals, it could not capture at least one historically influential account of intellectual humility, one found in the writings of Augustine. In a concluding section, I offer an interpretation of why the project of finding a shared account of intellectual humility seems sure to fail. I argue that liberal political commitments drive much of the contemporary discussion of the intellectual virtues, and the extent to which agreement seems attainable is correlative to the extent we are willing to allow liberalism to deter- mine the desiderata for an account of the virtues.
Given that curiosity, the desire for knowledge, is thought by many virtue theorists to play a controlling role over the other intellectual virtues, Christian concerns about proper and improper formations of curiosity should interest... more
Given that curiosity, the desire for knowledge, is thought by many virtue theorists to play a controlling role over the other intellectual virtues, Christian concerns about proper and improper formations of curiosity should interest virtue theorists. Combine the fact that curiosity gets a different treatment in Christian thought with the claim that curiosity has a controlling function over the other intellectual virtues, and it follows there is a meaningful distinction between Christian and non-Christian virtue epistemologies. Differences include distinct understandings of individual intellectual virtues as well as a strong objection to the view that one could be intellectually virtuous without being morally virtuous. In this essay I first isolate the peculiarly Christian distinction between proper and improper curiosity, showing how humility is at the heart of the distinction. I then show how this distinction points to a virtue epistemology that differs in significant ways from prevalent contemporary virtue epistemologies.
In this essay, I show why, for Augustine, humility is the definitive virtue of Christian life. I also show that Augustine's account of humility differs significantly from what contemporary philosophers "remember" Christian humility to be.... more
In this essay, I show why, for Augustine, humility is the definitive virtue of Christian life. I also show that Augustine's account of humility differs significantly from what contemporary philosophers "remember" Christian humility to be. The essay unfolds in four parts. First, I isolate what I call the "standard account" of Christian humility among contemporary philosophers. Second , I argue that the standard account of Christian humility does not capture Augustine's understanding of humility. Third, I develop what I take to be Augustine's account of humility, namely a disposition of the will to embrace radical dependence, particularly with respect to one's identity or self-understanding. Fourth, I show why Augustine's account of humility is inseparable from specifically Christian commitments.
David Boonin's 2008 book, The Problem of Punishment, argues that punishment by the state is immoral and should be abolished. This article contends that Boonin's position is dependent upon questionable presuppositions about the authority... more
David Boonin's 2008 book, The Problem of Punishment, argues that punishment by the state is immoral and should be abolished. This article contends that Boonin's position is dependent upon questionable presuppositions about the authority of the state. The article uses Boonin's work to show that any defense of state punishment must move beyond "theories of punishment" to address questions of political philosophy. It argues that the view of state authority envisioned by St. Paul undercuts Boonin's argument. At the same time, this Pauline view of the state's role may undercut specific aspects of the contemporary exercise of criminal justice in America.