Recent accounts of humility, such as Norvin Richards', emphatically set aside any “Catholic metaphysics” that might ground the state, finding its view of human nature – one which asks us to consider ourselves as “contemptible” and “foul” – to be deeply problematic. Richards turns instead to an empirical and behavioral analysis of humility, focusing upon an individual agent's awareness of the flaws, failings, and limits specific to her to ground humility. For example, when he asks what it would mean to be “humble” about having a scholarly article accepted for publication in a prestigious journal, he says the following:

In order to put his accomplishments in perspective, and thus attain a proper humility, the person in this example needs to compare them against the accomplishments of others and, presumably, find his own lacking in the comparison.