Abstract

This paper is an exploration of smugness, understood through a Kantian lens. Smugness, as I interpret it, consists of an inappropriate partiality towards one’s own judgments, choices, situation, or preferences. What makes the partiality inappropriate is that it expresses a kind of self-satisfaction that has its roots in self-conceit. The smug person believes in the objective superiority of their choices (taste, judgment, etc.) in comparison to the choices of others. Even when the belief is true, the smug person’s pleasure in having made the objectively superior choice reflects a kind of favoritism characterized by self-conceit. In particular, the smug person claims undue superiority as an excellent setter of ends. This suggests that smugness should be understood as a Kantian vice. In the paper, I distinguish smugness from the nearby Kantian vice of arrogance, as well as from a virtuous form of partiality to oneself as a setter of ends.