November 12, 2025
Aspects of Arrogance
Thomas Kelly
Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University
Aspects of Arrogance
Thomas Kelly
Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University
Stephen Schreiber, introducer, and Thomas Kelly
Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the 84th Year
George Bustin, President of the Old Guard of Princeton, called the meeting to order and presided. Cynthia Woolston-Maltenfort led the invocation. The attendance at the Jewish Center was 144.There were 6 guests: Arati Johnston (George Bustin), Hella McVay (Scott McVay), Mark Holmes (John Cotton), Madelaine Shellaby and Helene Buckwald (Howard B. Buckwald), and Peter Farrell (Stephen Schreiber). Jim Hockenberry read abbreviated minutes of the previous week’s meeting. Stephen Schreiber introduced the speaker, Professor Thomas Kelly.
Professor Kelly opened his entertaining, complex, and thought-provoking talk by asking what the hallmarks of arrogance are. The platitude is that an arrogant person has a high opinion of himself. But, for instance, that does not hold true in the case of Michael Phelps, arguably the greatest swimmer of all time, who is modest despite his achievements. This presents a contrast with arrogant politicians such as Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo. So, arrogance isn’t a matter of having a high opinion of yourself, but rather an overly high opinion.
A person can have an overly high opinion of himself without having a high opinion of himself. For example, a Princeton student might pride himself on being in the bottom 20th of his class rather than the 10th. This is not arrogance.
Suppose that a person satisfies both conditions. Does this make him arrogant? No: I may think I am the best Tiddlywinks player in the world, but I know Tiddlywinks isn’t important. So - an arrogant person has a high opinion of himself with respect to some feature or characteristic that he takes to warrant attitudes of high regard. His subjective attitude is important: Does he regard the relevant dimension as objectively important? For example, a Nazi might think he is the best Nazi because he is more compassionate, and he feels that this is important. But he is not arrogant, because Nazis regard compassion as a weakness.
Not every dimension worth caring about is equally eligible to serve as a possible basis for arrogance. Consider Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech (1939), in which he proclaimed, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” despite the fact that he and his audience knew that he would soon die from ALS. Luck IS important, but it is something that just happens to you; it is independent of your merits. Arrogance involves overestimating yourself in a way that you take to be to your credit. The “luck dimension” is not one that satisfies this condition, so Gehrig was not arrogant.
To return to the initial platitude (an arrogant person has a high opinion of himself), we can infer a plausible structural condition. An arrogant person’s opinion of himself will be sufficiently high to make him regard actually scoring as well as he thinks he will score to make admiration (and other attitudes of high regard) fitting responses. It is characteristic of the arrogant person to overestimate the significance of scoring well with respect to the dimension that he takes himself to score well on. The fact that an arrogant person thinks too highly of himself is no accident.
What has been said so far privileges the inner psychological aspects of arrogance over its outer behavioral aspects. But - a person might be arrogant even if he never engages in any of the observable behaviors that we associate with arrogance, and which we use to recognize its presence. Moreover, a person might engage in all the behaviors we associate with arrogance without being genuinely arrogant.
On the other hand, in some cases a person might count as arrogant by virtue of combining certain inner psychological states with certain behaviors, even if neither would suffice for arrogance in the absence of the other. This validates the saying, “If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.!”
Professor Kelly’s last observation was that a person might be arrogant not only about himself but about some larger group or entity with which he identifies. In many cases, the arrogant person will be a member of the larger group or entity - his university, for example, but he could also be arrogant about, say, a football team.
Numerous questions followed.
Q: Are people who brag and so forth covering up insecurity?
A: This is a very interesting psychological phenomenon; there is a certain symmetry with false modesty.
Q. Is there a psychological profile of arrogance? A: yes.
Q. What is the relationship between arrogance and power?
A. The most worrisome case is when a powerful person is arrogant.
Q. Was Mohammed Ali really arrogant, or was he being humorous?
A. This depends on the psychology of the person; there could have been all kinds of things going on.
Q I have heard that 15% of men think that they were in the top 25% of the sport they played.
A. Sometimes this is an honest mistake: for example, university professors tend to think they are better than their peers.
Q. Does arrogance have to do more with how you say things, or who you say it to? E.g., “I am a member of the Old Guard.”
A. Yes, saying the same thing in different contexts makes all the difference.
Q. How do you sustain yourself as arrogant if what you say is true?
A. This is a case of wishful thinking: people think they are better than their peers - for instance, professors weigh certain things - publishing versus teaching. Also, people make comparisons that connect favorably with themselves - e.g., the abilities of young versus old drivers.
Q. In instances of sports gambling or sex scandals, what was the person thinking when he believed he would get away with it?
A. Exactly that.
Q. Can you be arrogant about being humble? In a 2016 interview Trump said he was humble in ways the interviewer wouldn’t
understand.
A. Suppose you know you are the humblest person in the world. This creates a paradox!
Q How does pride fit into arrogance?
A. Pride is more neutral: neither as bad or as good, whereas arrogance is a “thick“ term - an evaluative element.
Q. Is it necessary for arrogance to have outward signs or expression? For example, are mystics arrogant?
A. Most people learn not to make their arrogance visible.
Q. If Phelps doesn’t think he is the best swimmer but does think that he is smartest, is he arrogant?
A. Yes
Q. Do you want to get rid of arrogance?
A. The psychic props for arrogance are pretty strong. Arrogant people don’t tend to recognize that they are.
Q. How about people who expect you to read their minds?
A. There’s a difference between vanity and arrogance. The vain person really cares what you think; the arrogant person doesn’t.
Respectfully submitted,
Priscilla Roosevelt
Professor Kelly opened his entertaining, complex, and thought-provoking talk by asking what the hallmarks of arrogance are. The platitude is that an arrogant person has a high opinion of himself. But, for instance, that does not hold true in the case of Michael Phelps, arguably the greatest swimmer of all time, who is modest despite his achievements. This presents a contrast with arrogant politicians such as Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo. So, arrogance isn’t a matter of having a high opinion of yourself, but rather an overly high opinion.
A person can have an overly high opinion of himself without having a high opinion of himself. For example, a Princeton student might pride himself on being in the bottom 20th of his class rather than the 10th. This is not arrogance.
Suppose that a person satisfies both conditions. Does this make him arrogant? No: I may think I am the best Tiddlywinks player in the world, but I know Tiddlywinks isn’t important. So - an arrogant person has a high opinion of himself with respect to some feature or characteristic that he takes to warrant attitudes of high regard. His subjective attitude is important: Does he regard the relevant dimension as objectively important? For example, a Nazi might think he is the best Nazi because he is more compassionate, and he feels that this is important. But he is not arrogant, because Nazis regard compassion as a weakness.
Not every dimension worth caring about is equally eligible to serve as a possible basis for arrogance. Consider Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech (1939), in which he proclaimed, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” despite the fact that he and his audience knew that he would soon die from ALS. Luck IS important, but it is something that just happens to you; it is independent of your merits. Arrogance involves overestimating yourself in a way that you take to be to your credit. The “luck dimension” is not one that satisfies this condition, so Gehrig was not arrogant.
To return to the initial platitude (an arrogant person has a high opinion of himself), we can infer a plausible structural condition. An arrogant person’s opinion of himself will be sufficiently high to make him regard actually scoring as well as he thinks he will score to make admiration (and other attitudes of high regard) fitting responses. It is characteristic of the arrogant person to overestimate the significance of scoring well with respect to the dimension that he takes himself to score well on. The fact that an arrogant person thinks too highly of himself is no accident.
What has been said so far privileges the inner psychological aspects of arrogance over its outer behavioral aspects. But - a person might be arrogant even if he never engages in any of the observable behaviors that we associate with arrogance, and which we use to recognize its presence. Moreover, a person might engage in all the behaviors we associate with arrogance without being genuinely arrogant.
On the other hand, in some cases a person might count as arrogant by virtue of combining certain inner psychological states with certain behaviors, even if neither would suffice for arrogance in the absence of the other. This validates the saying, “If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.!”
Professor Kelly’s last observation was that a person might be arrogant not only about himself but about some larger group or entity with which he identifies. In many cases, the arrogant person will be a member of the larger group or entity - his university, for example, but he could also be arrogant about, say, a football team.
Numerous questions followed.
Q: Are people who brag and so forth covering up insecurity?
A: This is a very interesting psychological phenomenon; there is a certain symmetry with false modesty.
Q. Is there a psychological profile of arrogance? A: yes.
Q. What is the relationship between arrogance and power?
A. The most worrisome case is when a powerful person is arrogant.
Q. Was Mohammed Ali really arrogant, or was he being humorous?
A. This depends on the psychology of the person; there could have been all kinds of things going on.
Q I have heard that 15% of men think that they were in the top 25% of the sport they played.
A. Sometimes this is an honest mistake: for example, university professors tend to think they are better than their peers.
Q. Does arrogance have to do more with how you say things, or who you say it to? E.g., “I am a member of the Old Guard.”
A. Yes, saying the same thing in different contexts makes all the difference.
Q. How do you sustain yourself as arrogant if what you say is true?
A. This is a case of wishful thinking: people think they are better than their peers - for instance, professors weigh certain things - publishing versus teaching. Also, people make comparisons that connect favorably with themselves - e.g., the abilities of young versus old drivers.
Q. In instances of sports gambling or sex scandals, what was the person thinking when he believed he would get away with it?
A. Exactly that.
Q. Can you be arrogant about being humble? In a 2016 interview Trump said he was humble in ways the interviewer wouldn’t
understand.
A. Suppose you know you are the humblest person in the world. This creates a paradox!
Q How does pride fit into arrogance?
A. Pride is more neutral: neither as bad or as good, whereas arrogance is a “thick“ term - an evaluative element.
Q. Is it necessary for arrogance to have outward signs or expression? For example, are mystics arrogant?
A. Most people learn not to make their arrogance visible.
Q. If Phelps doesn’t think he is the best swimmer but does think that he is smartest, is he arrogant?
A. Yes
Q. Do you want to get rid of arrogance?
A. The psychic props for arrogance are pretty strong. Arrogant people don’t tend to recognize that they are.
Q. How about people who expect you to read their minds?
A. There’s a difference between vanity and arrogance. The vain person really cares what you think; the arrogant person doesn’t.
Respectfully submitted,
Priscilla Roosevelt