First, for Bovens, the issue of hope is very important. But for Bovens, hope receives little attention in scholarly discourses outside the ambit of philosophy of religion. Hence, in his seminal work titled “The Value of Hope”, Bovens attempts to address this gap, this philosophical lacuna. In fact, the paper aims to explore the nature and dynamics of hope, including its importance to our existence.
Two Puzzles of Hope
Bovens begins his attempt to address the problem of hope with an engagement with the core concepts of the film Shawshank Redemption, and then proceeds with the articulation of the two puzzles of hope.
Bovens then briefly sketches the story of Andy, the protagonist of the movie, through Red, a friend appears to skeptical about the value of hope.
According to Bovens, the story presents us with two puzzles of hope, namely: first, there is the practical question of how much one should hope in a particular situation, and second, there is a puzzle concerning the nature of inner strength in relation to hope.
The story shows that Andy was very much hopeful, in fact, hope provides Andy with inner strength. Indeed, Bovens shows that there is connection between Andy’s sense of self-worth and hope. This explains why Andy did not adopt the “prison” mentality”.
Then Bovens asks the connection between hope and self-wort. Bovens then addresses the connection through his engagement with the skeptical attitude towards hope.
Skepticism about Hope
Obviously, there are always rooms for skepticism in almost everything, and in this case, a skepticism about hope.
The point that Bovens would like to show here can be captured in two questions:
- What if what one hopes for does not come about?
- Or, if it comes about but it is not what one hopes for, what’s the point of hoping?
Hence, we may conclude that it’s better not to hope, or hoping is irrational. And then Bovens illustrated this position, but at the end of the day, Bovens shows through the story of Andy and Red that it is always better to hope.
The Instrumental Value of Hope
After engaging the issue of skepticism about hope, Bovens then proceeds the discussion the instrumental value of hope. The point that Bovens would like to show here is that despite the skeptical attack on hope, it is always better to hope because there is an instrumental value in hoping. Indeed, for Bovens, a hopeful attitude is better than a defeatist attitude. As we can see, despite his seemingly hopeless situation in the prison walls, Andy did not succumb to defeat. As already mentioned, Andy remains hopeful, and it gives him inner strength and self-worth.
Bovens then enumerated the instrumental values of hope, namely:
- Hope has enabling function.
- Hope counteracts risk aversion.
- Hope engenders new constitutive hope.
Hope and Intrinsic Value
Again, for Bovens, the skeptics (including the negative people) always argue that there is no point of hoping because maybe we just get frustrated at the end of the day. But Bovens argues that there is always an “intrinsic” value of hope, and hence, to hope is the best available alternative.
And then Bovens discusses what it is like to hope for. In doing so, Bovens discusses:
- The Nature of Hope. Here, Bovens shows that to hope for something means one is convinced that it will come about. When one is hoping, then s/he is expecting that it will come about.
- The Pleasure of Anticipation and the Epistemic Value of Hope. Needless to say, for Bovens, once someone is convinced that what she is hoping for will come about, then it will provide some kind of pleasure on the part of the person hoping despite the difficult situation. Bovens brings here the idea of “mental imaging”, that is, anticipating at least mentally the thing one hopes for. Again, for Bovens, this anticipation provide pleasure and satisfaction especially in times of hardships or difficulties.
- Hope, Love, and Self-worth. The idea here is that for Bovens, hope is directly connected to love and self-worth. In fact, Bovens says that love vindicates attitude of hoping and fearing.
Hope and Epistemic Rationality
Before Bovens finally address the puzzles of hope, he engages hope and epistemic rationality.
Bovens says that when we hope for something, we assign to some extent subjective probabilities, which is determined by available evidence. But for Bovens, hope is thought to be epistemically rational if one’s belief about the possibility of the outcome is correct in light of the available evidence. Hence, Bovens suggests that we guard ourselves against wishful thinking which violated the rationality of hope.
Finally, on Resolving the Puzzle of Hope
Bovens succinctly articulated his main arguments in this concluding part, and summarizing will distort its main thoughts. Let me just read the concluding part then:
