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The Virtue of Hope in a Turbulent World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2022

Cathy Mason
Cathy Mason*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

I argue that hope is an ethical virtue. Hope, I suggest, is necessary for engaging in a broad kind of project which is essential for living a meaningful human life, and this gives us reason to think that it is non-instrumentally valuable in our lives. Specifically, I claim that hope is well understood as a ‘structural virtue’ without which we are prone to slip into despair, fantasy and cynicism. Moreover, I argue that this virtue will be particularly significant in turbulent times, when we may not be in a position to have outright (positive) expectations about the future.

Type
Paper
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 92: Values and Virtues for a Challenging World , October 2022 , pp. 293 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2022

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