Hope as Passion and Virtue
Charles
Pinches approvingly quotes Josef Pieper, who wrote: “It would never occur to a
philosopher, unless he were a Christian theologian, to describe hope as a
virtue. For hope is either a theological
virtue or not a virtue at all.”[1]
Now,
in one sense, this is simply false.
Jonathan Lear and Adrienne Martin, to take two examples, are
contemporary philosophers who have written insightfully about hope. They are not Christian theologians. Why would Pieper make such an obvious
mistake? Why would Pinches agree with
him?
Pinches
and Pieper are Thomistic philosophers; that’s why. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between what he
called a natural “passion” of hope and the true “virtue” of hope. Pinches and Pieper are cleaving to their
teacher’s doctrine. On this account,
real hope focuses on God and is engendered in us by God. The thing that Jonathan Lear and Adrienne
Martin write about is properly the passion of hope, not the virtue of hope.
A
central idea in Alasdair MacIntyre’s After
Virtue is his claim, which seems manifestly true, that the virtue tradition
developed over time. Some traits that
were regarded as human excellences (arête) in the Homeric literature, such as
physical strength, ceased to be regarded as virtues later on. Later stages in the virtue tradition
introduced new virtues. Crucially, from
Thomas Aquinas’s point of view, the New Testament identifies faith, hope, and
love as virtues.
Aristotle
did write about hope, but not as a virtue. On Aristotle’s account, hope is a
characteristic of young men who look forward to accomplishing great
things. Old men no longer hope; instead
their lives are marked by memory of deeds attempted and perhaps accomplished.
So
Aquinas had a problem. The great
philosopher (often Aquinas does not name Aristotle, merely saying “the philosopher”)
did not list as virtues those traits the New Testament identifies as the most
important virtues. Aquinas solved this
problem by classifying faith, hope, and love as “theological virtues.” The theological virtues are actually the
highest and most important. Aristotle,
as a pagan philosopher, was ignorant of Christ.
Aristotle’s insights into ethics were limited to natural life and the
goods of this world. Faith, hope, and
love direct us to our supernatural life and the goods of the world to
come. Aristotle’s remarks about hope
only refer to the natural passion, not the theological virtue.
Can
we learn something from this dispute about words? Perhaps there are different kinds of
hope. By comparing and contrasting
different kinds of hope we may better see how hope may function in our
lives. Pinches would agree; he points to
connections between the natural passion we call hope and the virtue of hope. One kind of hope can build on another kind of
hope.
Whether
as passion or virtue, hope exhibits certain features. Hope looks to the future, with desire for a
certain outcome. Hope judges that the desired outcome is
possible (neither certain nor impossible).
And hope sees that attaining the desired outcome is arduous. Hope, experienced
as hopefulness, can sustain us through challenges as we pursue a difficult goal. So there are similarities between hope as
passion and hope as virtue.
On
Aquinas’s view, there is also a crucial difference. The passion of hope is directed toward
something we desire, and there is no guarantee that human beings will desire
the right things. Sometimes we hope for
trivial things: I confess that I hope much for a Mariner pennant; someone else
might hope for high scores on the latest computer game. Such hopes seem innocent enough, though we
recoil from scenes of soccer fans rioting after matches. More importantly, human beings sometimes
desire objectively evil things. It is
reported that Hitler hoped for war
when he invaded Poland; victories via threat and diplomacy were no longer
enough for him. A fraudster may hope to
escape detection or conviction. Don Juan
may hope to bed his neighbor’s wife. So
there is nothing in natural hope, hope as a passion, to count it a virtue. For Aquinas, a virtue ought to “perfect” us,
that is, help make us what we truly ought to be.
The
virtue of hope cannot go wrong in these ways, thought Aquinas. The virtue of hope focuses on God, our true
end. Hope sustains pilgrims; we journey
through opposition and difficulties toward a very great good. We cannot truly hope for something that is
opposed to that goal.
Aquinas
described a movement among the theological virtues. By faith
a person comes to believe that God is and rewards those who seek God; the soul
becomes aware of the highest good. In hope a person desires that great good
and moves toward it; since our journey toward God lasts throughout this life,
hope is a virtue for all stages of life.
(In contrast to Aristotle’s observation, Christian hope makes us all
young.) Love is the culmination of faith and hope; in love we are joined to
God in friendship now and forever.
Aquinas’s
distinction between the natural passion of hope and the virtue of hope presents
a challenge to secular philosophers who see that hope is a virtue. Clearly, people can hope for evil
things. The secular philosopher’s
analysis of hope needs a codicil: at a
minimum, hope must focus on morally permissible objects. Don Juan’s hope to bed his neighbor is a
vice, not a virtue. Further, truly praiseworthy hope ought to focus on
genuinely good things. My hopes for
a Mariner pennant are innocent, but they don’t seem to link up with objective
good in the way praiseworthy hope should.
These
amendments to secular analyses of hope introduce controversy. How do we know which objects of hope are
morally permissible and/or objectively good.
But moral philosophers deal with those questions all the time. Different ethical theories will answer in different
ways.
[1] Pinches, Charles, “On Hope,” in Kevin
Timpe and Craig A. Boyd, Eds. Virtues and
Their Vices, Oxford University Press, 2014.
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