Hope and Friendship: Being and Having

In its first part, the paper explores the challenge of conceptualizing the Thomist theological virtue of hope in Aristotelian terms that are compatible with non-Thomist and even atheist metaphysics as well. I argue that the key concept in this endeavor is friendship—as an Aristotelian virtue, as relational value in Thomist theology, as a recognized value in supportive care and as a kind of ‘personal hope.’ Then, the paper proceeds to examine the possible differences between hope as a virtue and hope as an experience reported by people, terminal patients in particular. With the clinical problem of hope at the end of life in mind, the paper concludes with two meta-ethical questions—about the overridingness of morality and about ‘moral luck’ in virtue ethics and ethics focused at the virtues.

Opening

At the opening of my response, I wish to thank Barbro Fröding and Daniel Munday for their kind, learned, and stimulating attention to my work. They have raised inspiring questions that invite deeper reflections on fundamentals and practical issues alike.

I wish, first, to clarify the notion of the virtue of hope as something distinct (even if often overlapping) from other hope-related experiences. As much as some acts of generosity do not express the virtue of magnanimity, not every experience of hope is necessarily reflective of the virtue of hope. Then, in the second part of my response I explore to what extent, if at all, this distinction is relevant to terminal care and to ‘having hope’ at the end of life.

Hope as a Virtue

Ethics is a Greek word; moral is Latin. Philosophers have tended to identify one of the two words with interpersonal conduct, the other with questions of personal identity and happiness (Dworkin 2011; Williams 1985, 6–7). Attempts have been made to prioritize the perspectives (e.g., Williams grants higher priority to personal identity and integrity) and to bridge them (e.g., Dworkin). I perceive Barbro Fröding’s work on the ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ elements the virtues as part of this tradition. It is indeed a promising track for hope. When Gabriel Marcel formulated the paradoxical maxim ‘I hope in thee for us’ he aimed precisely at transcending the ‘I–other’ distinction. Research in the psychology of hope elucidated an archetypal metaphor “hope as a bridge” (Scioli and Biller 2009, 24–5) following which scholars have defined hope as having a “sense of spiritual integrity, a feeling of wholeness and continuity across space and time” (Scioli and Biller 2009, 36).

We find people and scholars referring to hope as a feeling, emotion, disposition, cognitive heuristics, and something people ‘have,’ as well as an intentional state of mind. Often, meanings overlap and shape shift during the very same discourse. As Daniel Munday observes, hope “has many guises” (2012, 188). Contemporary talk about care and responsibility similarly ranges over these conceptions in a protean flexibility.

In my paper, I chose to talk about hope as a virtue and a life skill. Hence, to develop the ideas proposed by Barbro Fröding and Daniel Munday, we had better clarify the conception of ‘virtue’ (i.e., explicate and analyze moral problems at the conceptual level of virtue ethics, with or without commitment to any doctrine of virtue ethics).

In my work, I follow a sort of ‘Aristotelian’ conception of the virtues as human excellences. What is an excellence? I submit that both Aristotle and contemporary virtue ethicists would agree to the following definition:

1. 1. Achievements of high standards in a few areas of being or activity.¹

2. 2. An internal coherence and mutual support among those properties, typically toward an integrated identity.

3. 3. If the excellence is human, there is intentional and noninstrumental striving to excellence in the light of the common good.

A fast car is not, yet, an excellent car. A car that is fast, fuel efficient, environmentally friendly, and safe is an excellent car. A car that is beautiful and that is radioactive opaque is not excellent, because there is no internal coherence and mutual...