A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People

What we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

(quoted)

This seems like Chesterton to me. Good writer, but I take exception to his world view. We should simply doubt that which is warranted to doubt and be confident in that which warrants confidence. If modern people doubt truths more than people used to, perhaps its because those so-called truths aren't so obvious as some people would have you believe.

"But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether."

This just fundamentally misunderstands what aims are. They can neither be doubted or correct. I can doubt empirically, or epistemologically, but I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or that I want to be healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in it. It's a waste of time and energy to doubt these things, although I can try to line up all my desires and figure out how they stack up with one another when I try to make plans, the efficacy of which is in the realm of the believable. I can look at other people's actions, try to determine their desires, and decide whether to assist them or interfere with them or fight them, but when I do this its not a cosmic battle about truths. Its just two people acting out on their desires in a shared world.

> I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or that I want to be healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in it.

The common case of the smoker (or someone around them) doubting whether they "really" want to quit cigarettes or not, after claiming they do want to quit and will quit, and then failing to do so, shows this is coherent though. It's just not applicable to the two examples you gave, because that's not what is meant.