ETICA Philosophy Café 1
27.10.2025
Academy Café
Topic: Hope
Some questions:
What is hope?
What functions does hope have in our personal and socio-political lives?
Is hope always good?
What are your hopes for the country and the world? Should they be realistic or aspirational?
Other questions?
Some definition of “hope”
- Standard definition (propositional)
A person hopes that p if and only if she desires that p and believes that p is possible, but not certain (Day 1969).
Historically Aquinas and, later, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume proposed similar definitions.
I hope that people here will enjoy and benefit from the Philosophy Café.
We cannot hope for what we take to be impossible, or very unlikely, and also for what is definite.
Concerns
The above definition makes hope seem like a belief with a propositional content
Is hope more like a feeling than a belief?
In English, I feel hopeful.
What about in other languages?
Other concerns?
- Basal hope
Basal hope is a stance and not a propositional attitude. It is the sense that the world is open to your intervention. You feel hopeful -full of hope- without hoping for something specific.
e.g. Jonathn Lear developed the idea of radical hope in his 2006 book: Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Radical hope, a basal form of hope, has a political function because, for instance, it makes it possible to retain a sense of cultural identity.
Concern: Is this not just optimism rather than hope? Is it utopianism?
- Interpersonal hope
Putting our hope in other people. “I had placed so much hope on X and now I am disappointed, feel letdown”
Concern: Are we not saying I had hope that X will do a, b, c? So, is this not propositional hope in disguise?
The scope of hope
Hope can range from the most fundamental, to the mundane, to the life changing.
Foundational role: Hope is a presupposition for rational action, since we cannot rationally act without believing that our goal is realisable (O’Neill, 1996).
Mundane: I hope it does not rain
Life-Changing: His hope to be rescued helped him to keep swimming in the freezing water.
The Focus Today: The socio-political dimensions of hope
How do you define or understand hope? What is it like to experience hope?
The moral dimensions of hope
Is it ok to:
- hope for outcomes that are morally unacceptable?
- lie in order to give hope or to give false hope?
Is hope good for politics?
Yes, it is!
Hope motivates us to act, so it is a positive stance/feeling. It may even be seen as a political virtue because it allows citizens to pursue democratic goods that are difficult but possible to attain.
No, it is not!
Hope inflates our ideas of what politics can deliver in a way that is bound to lead to disappointment or even more destructive sentiments such as disaffection.
Hope is a “malevolent force in politics” (Sleat, 2013, p. 131) because it distracts us from what is to be done ‘here and now’.
Greta Thunberg thinks it’s dangerous to be hopeful about climate change. Many young philosophers are praising despair over hope as a moral tool when it comes to climate change.
Hoping alone versus hoping together
Kant thought that we need hope for historical progress, in order to contribute to it as individuals.
This highlights the group nature of social/political hope. We need to co-hope to make social change possible. How do we achieve this?
What are your hopes for the country and the world?
- Are they realistic or just aspirations?
- Can we/should we distinguish between rational an irrational hope?
Other questions?
