Modesty is a surprisingly complicated character trait. Most of us feel that we intuitively understand what modesty is, and we feel confident that we can recognize modesty when it is exhibited in others. However, it is difficult to provide a detailed account of modesty without discovering that it is not nearly as simple as one initially presumes it to be. For example, in her recent book Uneasy Virtue, Julia Driver proposes a definition of modesty that seems uncomplicated until further reflection reveals it to be more intricate and contentious than it appears. Driver claims that modesty is the virtue of being disposed to persistently underestimate one's self-worth despite available evidence suggesting that this estimation is incorrect. There is something compelling about such a concise definition of modesty, but Driver's view implies that a modest agent is truly ignorant of her natural talents, accomplishments or other attributes that contribute to assessments of her self-worth. It is this feature of Driver's definition that has generated debate since she first presented her view of modesty in an influential article that preceded her book.

I'll begin this paper with an autobiographical example — an instance of a common enough kind of case involving agents who are faced with making a choice they strongly care about, but who have tendencies that incline them towards choosing an option they prefer not to choose. Later in the paper, I apply some of the general lessons learned from this case to a philosophically more familiar example of a hard-to-make choice, and to the well-known problem the example generates for the idea of rational agency: Gregory Kavka's toxin puzzle (Kavka 1983).

Some time ago I did a bungy jump. Nothing remarkable in that (nor in the fact that I have, or had, a great fear of heights; the desire to overcome a fear of heights is common among bungy jumpers).

In the criminal law, the law of attempts is of comparatively recent vintage. It is part of an important contemporary legal trend towards early intervention in the criminal process. There are now a substantial number of crimes on the books that, like the crime of attempt, only require that the perpetrator start down the road to carrying out his criminal intentions and do not require him actually to have harmed (or, in some cases, even identified) his victim. Besides the law of attempts, these new crimes include conspiracy and solicitation, forgery and counterfeiting, the possession offences (drugs, burglary tools, counterfeit money, automobile master keys, etc.), even corruption of youth (children). In all these cases, the law is stepping in to forestall harm, rather than waiting until a harm has already happened.

In most of our communicative transactions we are confident of success. We read the newspaper and are normally pretty sure that we have understood the text. We usually think we understand what is said in the TV broadcast and in casual conversation, and only rarely do subsequent events make us revise our judgment that we did. But that we are confident of success, even if we are right, and even if we are both right and justified, does not mean that we have a clear idea of what success consists in.

Ideas about successful communication have had a prominent place in the philosophy of language in recent decades, mostly as a step on the way to meaning theoretical claims. This has been the case with philosophers like Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Dummett, and Evans. Mostly, the discussion of communicative success has been of limited extent, serving as a subordinate part of some longer argument.

I will here present a number of problems concerning the idea that there is ontological vagueness, and the related claim that appeal to this idea can help solve some vagueness-related problems. A theme underlying the discussion will be the distinction between vagueness specifically and indeterminacy more generally (and, relatedly, the distinction between ontological vagueness and ontological indeterminacy). Even if the world is somehow ontologically indeterminate it by no means follows that it is, properly speaking, ontologically vague.