This fourth chapter begins by exploring one of the central problems with the description of conscience outlined in Chapter Two. If conscience is really a broad concept, then there is the possibility it can be used to severely limit patient choice. Chapter Four attempts to resolve this difficulty by arguing that conscience should not be protected as a right. Instead, it is an interest, and its protection should be based on whether the person claiming conscience acts responsibly in doing so. Three responsibilities of conscience are set out – humility, universality, and reciprocal respect. Each is shown to be crucial to the protection of conscience.

Humility is neither a virtue of caring nor an enkratic virtue, but consists in an absence or dearth of concern for the pseudo-good of self-importance, the kind of personal “importance” that people seek in being envious, vain, domineering, conceited, and arrogant. Self-importance is not the same as the true importance of persons, the kind that is affirmed in people’s loving and respecting others. The vices of pride are important because they spoil or exclude the virtues of caring. Their absence purifies and liberates the personality to love the good, and that is the moral value of humility. Proper pride is a sense of one’s importance as a person where ‘importance’ refers to the real dignity and excellence of oneself as expressed in one’s concern for the good. The absence of the vices of pride that are expressed in self-display – for example, vanity and pretentiousness – is sometimes called modesty, but the more general term for this virtue is ‘humility.’

What does Heidegger mean by “curiosity” and why does he characterize it as a kind of epistemic vice, when most contemporary accounts view it as a virtue? Being and Time disparagingly notes that curiosity “concerns itself with a kind of knowing, but just in order to have known” (BT 217/172); the curious person busies herself with “entertaining ‘incidentals’” (BT 358/310). Building on previous work – wherein I argue that virtues are best understood as tendencies to cope well with existential obstacles to flourishing (McMullin 2019) – I show that curiosity as Heidegger frames it is an epistemically vicious misunderstanding of self and world arising in large part from our tendencies toward impatience, arrogance, and fear. Because Heidegger’s account of curiosity in Being and Time is not well-developed, we will look at nearby texts to get a better understanding of this sometimes-overlooked concept in Heidegger’s corpus.

This introduction extols reasons to study Augustine’s sermons for the academy and Church today. It introduces the sixteen chapters written by an international team of experts. It then lays the foundation of humility for the rest of the volume by considering this theme in the volume’s three parts: Augustine’s pastoral task of preaching sermons; sermons on the Scriptures and liturgical feasts; and preaching themes.

Although an ancient capacity, empathy is a relatively new concept in the field of psychology. Generally defined, empathy is the ability to imagine what the meanings of emotional experiences are for other beings. This chapter explores empathy as a spectrum of abilities, some responsive and others intentional through emotional and cognitive channels. Readers learn about affective and cognitive empathy and why they are critical for social and emotional intelligences. The author also explores a new concept called empathic humility, to designate a motivation to develop abilities for a lifelong critical self-assessment of cultural meanings and values, reflecting on the privileges of the self, and to explore the worlds of meaning for others in a delicate and sensitive manner.

The conclusion summarizes the book’s arguments concerning the influence of polarization and the fracturing of norms on the judicial process, and also its remedial suggestions.

Introduces the book through a discussion of two cases. The first is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and in which the dissenting justices suggested that the majority’s decision to do so was unwise. The second is Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the Court concluded that courts lack the capacity to resolve claims concerning excessive partisanship in gerrymandering. Together, the cases help illustrate the book’s themes: the inescapable role of judgment in judicial decision-making and the accumulation of ways in which changes in courts, the legal profession, and the culture more broadly have come to undermine judgment’s role.

If any book could be said to condemn the whole idea of human beings attempting to become like God, then surely it is the Bible. At the very beginning of Genesis, a serpent (later identified as Satan) tempts Eve with the promise that, if she disobeys God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then she will be “as a god.” According to the Bible, the root of all evil is pride; and pride means precisely thinking that we could become divine. Jesus himself is condemned by the Jewish priests for the blasphemous arrogance of claiming to be divine. And yet, the Bible also promises the faithful that they can become “partakers of the divine nature.” What the Bible condemns, of course, is self-deification. If we surrender to God’s love and seek intimate relation to him, God promises to transform us into creatures who possess divine sanctity and everlasting life. The biblical God is less a paradigm of perfection that we might imitate and more a divine person with whom we might have a loving relationship. According to the Bible, we are divinized not by merely imitating God but by loving and being loved by him.

This chapter broadens the focus to the Spirit’s renovation of human community through a prayerful “confessional movement” of self-dispossession, the reception of one’s identity in Christ, and responsive self-offering to God. Attention to this confessional movement both emphasizes the Augustinian tradition’s capacity for self-critique, fosters greater solidarity with the oppressed, and builds conceptual bridges toward greater dialogue with liberatory theological traditions.

Christians oriented their lives towards the expectation of a life in the hereafter and yet had to orient themselves in this world. This resulted in very different attitudes. While some were fundamentally anti-family or, rather, against sex in general, others thought about what it meant to have a Christian marriage. While some wanted to participate in the pleasures of everyday life, others rejected this. All tried to live a humble life and do good works, especially towards the poor, orphans and widows. Penance was an institution that allowed Christians to be absolved of their sins, but it also allowed bishops to gain power, albeit in varying degrees Therefore, the question of a Christian way of life was always controversial.

This chapter highlights the affinities between moderation, modesty, and humility. It uses the example of the Swedish term lagom, which connotes a certain form of humility and respect for limits.