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Acting Irrespective of Hope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2020

Fabian Freyenhagen
Fabian Freyenhagen*
Affiliation:
University of Essex
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Abstract

Must we ascribe hope for better times to those who (take themselves to) act morally? Kant and later theorists in the Frankfurt School tradition thought we must. In this article, I disclose that it is possible – and ethical – to refrain from ascribing hope in all such cases. I draw on two key examples of acting irrespective of hope: one from a recent political context and one from the life of Jean Améry. I also suggest that, once we see that it is possible to make sense of (what I call) ‘merely expressive acts’, we can also see that the early Frankfurt School was not guilty of a performative contradiction in seeking to enlighten Enlightenment about its (self-)destructive tendencies, while rejecting the (providential) idea of progress.

Keywords

AméryFrankfurt SchoolKanthopeprogressBernard Williams
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 25 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Kant and the Frankfurt School , December 2020 , pp. 605 - 630
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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