  Julia Driver’s account of modesty kicked off a modern revival in work on the virtue. For Driver (1989 and 2001), the modest person is someone who is ignorant of their own good qualities in certain ways. This was hinted at, but not developed, by Henry Sidgwick: “humility prescribes a low opinion of our merits: but if our merits are comparably high, it seems strange to direct us to have a low opinion of them” (1907/1981, 334). He later denies that there is anything virtuous about having a low self-opinion, but Driver develops this idea and discusses a range of moral virtues that require ignorance: blind charity (seeing the good in others while remaining ignorant of the bad), impulsive courage, certain refusals to hold grudges, some types of innocence, and of course, modesty.