Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:25:46.486Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Finding hope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael Milona*
Affiliation:
Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

Abstract

This paper defends a theory of hope according to which hopes are composed of a desire and a belief that the object of the desire is possible. Although belief plus desire theories of hope are now widely rejected, this is due to important oversights. One is a failure to recognize the relation that hope-constituting desires and beliefs must stand in to constitute a hope. A second is an oversimplification of the explanatory power of hope-constituting desires. The final portion of the paper uses an enhanced understanding of the psychology of hope to make progress on normative questions about hoping well.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

#

Current affiliation: Philosophy Department, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA.

References

Bell, Derrick. 1992. Faces at the Bottom of the Well. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bovens, Luc. 1999. “The Value of Hope.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 59 (3): 667681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Sue. 1994. “Being Dismissed: The Politics of Emotional Expression.” Hypatia, 9 (3): 4665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arms, Justin, and Jacobson, Daniel. 2003. “The Significance of Recalcitrant Emotion (or, Anti Quasijudgmentalism).” In Philosophy and the Emotions, edited by Hatzimoysis, Anthony, 127146. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, J. P., 1969. “Hope.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 6 (2): 89102.Google Scholar
Deonna, Julien, and Teroni, Fabrice. 2012. The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downie, R. S., 1963. “Hope.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 24 (2): 248251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DuBois, W. E. B., 1994. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Markmann, Charles Lam. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. (1668) 1994. Leviathan. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 2007. “Draft of Chapter X, “Shattered Dreams”.” In The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume VI, edited by Carson, Clayborne, Carson, Susan, Englander, Susan, Jackson, Troy, and Smith, Gerald L., 514527. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, Vincent. 2017. “Afro-Pessimism and Christian Hope.” In Grace, Governance, and Globalization, edited by Poulsom, Martin, Boeve, Lieven, and van Erp, Stephan, 191205. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Martin, Adrienne. 2014. How We Hope: A Moral Psychology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McFall, Lynne. 1991. “What’s Wrong with Bitterness?” In Feminist Ethics, edited by Card, Claudia, 146160. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
McGeer, Victoria. 2004. “The Art of Good Hope.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 592: 100127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McInerney, Peter. 2004. “Strength of Desire.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 41 (1): 299310.Google Scholar
Meirav, Ariel. 2009. “The Nature of Hope.” Ratio, 22 (2): 216233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milona, Michael, and Stockdale, Katie. Forthcoming. “A Perceptual Theory of Hope.” Ergo.Google Scholar
Pettit, Philip. 2004. “Hope and Its Place in Mind.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 592: 152165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stockdale, Katie. 2017. “Losing Hope: Injustice and Moral Bitterness.” Hypatia, 32 (2): 363379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wattles, Wallace. 2011. The Wisdom of Wallace D Wattles. New York: SoHo Books.Google Scholar
Wedgwood, Ralph. 2001. “Sensing Values.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63 (1): 215223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winters, Joseph. 2015. Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar