THE CONTOURS OF IGNORANCE

HUMILITY HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN AMONG the popular virtues. While open-mindedness, curiosity, honesty, integrity, and perseverance are widely regarded as scientific virtues, humility is frequently left out. Nor has it enjoyed much success as a political virtue. Hume notoriously dismissed humility as a “monkish virtue,” arguing that it is neither useful nor agreeable to the self or to others. By contrast, Sheila Jasanoff aims not only to revive humility as a scientific and political virtue, but to make it central to society’s approach to dealing with disasters involving science and technology. An ethos of humility, she argues, is the key to dealing better with the next crisis that is sure to come.

The COVID-19 pandemic—like climate change, financial crises, hurricanes, and nuclear accidents—exposed the limits of scientific prediction and control. It was defined from the start by uncertainty, complexity, and the absence of adequate knowledge. Perhaps the one foreseeable thing was that there would be unforeseen events at every turn. Jasanoff grounds her plea for humility in the uncertainty and unpredictability that characterize such crises. The defining feature of humility, after all, is awareness of limitations—of one’s knowledge and ability to gain knowledge. Humility demands that we acknowledge the likelihood of mistakes and accept the possibility of defeat rather than being confident in our predictions and capacity for control.