Name: Mostafa Abdelfattah To: Jordan

Dodd PHIL 2550: Philosophy Of Moral Psychology

ESSAY 3
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Part 1- Bovenss account of the nature of hope:

In The Value of Hope, Luc Bovens proposes that there are three necessary conditions that
are jointly sufficient for hoping
[1, p. 12]
.
Firstly, Bovens explains that One cannot hope for some state of the world, unless one has
a degree of credence that it will come about which ranges between some threshold value close to
0 for condence that it will not come about and some threshold value close to 1 for condence that
it will come about.
[2, p. 673]

For example, Kate is a philosophy student, she hopes that she aces her philosophy exam, she is not
fully certain that she will be able to do it. The uncertainty in her confidence that she will ace it can
be due to reasons like unfair marking, false understanding of an exam topic, and small avoidable
mistakes. Therefore, her degree of confidence that it will come about is close to 100 percent, but
not exactly 100 percent. On the other hand, she is not fully certain that she will not fail it. The
uncertainty in her confidence that she will fail it can be due to her commitment, prior experience
with other philosophy exams, as well as her good performance in class. Therefore, her degree of
confidence that it will not come about is close to but not exactly 0. Hence, 0 and 100 are
considered extreme cases implying being certain and not hoping.
The second condition looked at is One cannot hope for some state of the world, unless
one has some desire that it will come about.
[2, pp. 673-674]
Meaning that, if Kate hopes that she aces
her exam, she is looking forward to and has a desire of acing it, and doing so will grant her self-
satisfaction and pleasure. If that exam was optional, Kate might not desire acing it, she might also
not be interested in doing the exam at all. In that case, Kate will not be hoping to ace the exam.
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The last necessary condition for hoping for some state of the world is to engage to some
degree in mental imaging about that state. Meaning that if we are hoping for something, we
devote some mental energy to imagine how things would be like if they were to actually happen.
[2, p. 674]
In Kates case, if she does hope to ace the exam, she would have spent some time imagining
her happiness and the appreciation or reward she will acquire if it were to happen.
Therefore it can be concluded that, if A (Kate) is hoping for B (acing the exam), then A must think
that B is possible but not certain, A should also desire B to come about, and A must devote some
mental energy to imagine how things would be like if B were to happen.
[1, p. 16]

Part 2 A Potential objection to Bovenss account of the nature of hope:
In Moral Repair, Margaret Urban Walker claims that the three necessary conditions
proposed by Bovens are not jointly sufficient for hoping, and she doubts that Bovenss analysis
manages to distinguish between hoping and wishing for some state of the world.
[1, p. 19]
Walker supports her objection using the following example. The candidate who hopes to
get the job does not remain in a reverie of successful competition without attempting to prepare
for the interview and showing up for it
[3, p. 53]
. Furthermore, she adds We mark the difference
between wishing and hoping precisely by noting whether individuals work to sustain and augment
the feelings that will carry them through to some course of action, whether they look out for
circumstances that bear on their hopes being fullled, whether they take care to seek and explore
routes to achieving the end, whether they express their hopes to others who might provide what is
desired or assist them in obtaining it; whether, in other words, they do anything other than engage
in wishful thinking
[3, p. 53]
. Here Walker proposes that acting towards what we hope for in any
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form, rather than wishful thinking, is another necessary condition for hoping alongside the other
three conditions.
The earlier case of Kate, would agree with Walkers objection, as she will not be hoping
to ace the exam unless she prepared and studied hard for it. Meaning that, Kate acted toward acing
the exam jointly with the other three necessary conditions to justify her hope. If Kate did not act,
she will be merely wishing to ace the exam and not hoping to do so, according to Walkers
proposition.
Therefore, according to Walker, if A (Kate) is hoping for B (acing the exam), then A must satisfy
all necessary conditions proposed by Bovens in conjunction with acting to attain B.
Part 3 A response to the Walkers objection:
My response is that Walkers proposal of the necessity of actions toward what we hope for
will fail in the case of hoping for things that are not in our control as humans, such as rain, wind
or sunlight, and that Bovenss three conditions will be jointly sufficient to explain this hope.
Furthermore, I think the fallacy in Walkers example is the assumption that action is not one of the
products of desire as explained by Timothy Schroeder in his paper about desire. If Schroeder is
correct about action being a product of desire, then the three conditions for hope according to
Bovens, which include the desire for a thing to come about, are indeed adequate.
For example, consider the people living in lands affected by drought. These people have
not witnessed rain for several years, their farms became dry, their crops died and never grew back,
and they are suffering from hunger and thirst. If a person learns from the weather forecast that
countries nearby have witnessed rain, therefore he starts to think that there is a great possibility
that it will rain on his land but he is not certain (close to 1) and he will think that there is a small
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possibility of it not raining (close to 0). He also desires that it rains and he starts to imagine how
the crops will grow back again and the suffering will end when it does. Meaning that, although the
person cannot perform any action for the sky to rain, he still has hope that it will rain, by satisfying
the other three conditions proposed by Bovens.
Finally, with regards to Walkers proposal. In Desire by Timothy Schroeder, Schroeder
proposes three answers to the nature of desire. The first holds that the central necessary fact about
desires is that they lead to action. The second makes pleasure the essence of desire. And the third
holds that the central necessary fact about desires is that they open us to reward-based learning
[4,
p. 1].
Meaning that the inaccuracy in Walkers proposal is the assumption that actions are not a
product of desire. In her example the candidate that prepared and showed up for the interview was
led by his desire to get the job. Schroeder, further states that survival is a reason for pleasure
[4, p.
2]
, which is the essence of desire, explaining the suffering persons desire to survive.
Meaning that what distinguishes hope from wishful thinking is the correct explanation of our
desires in the form of pleasure, actions or how it opens us to reward-based learning, which further
emphasizes Bovenss proposal of the necessity of desires, and therefore supports his account for
the nature of hope.
References

[1] J. Dodd, Class Slides: Luc Bovens, "The Value of Hope", 2014.
[2] L. Bovens, "The Value of Hope," International Phenomenological Society, 1999.
[3] M. U. Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations After Wrongdoings, Cambridge
University Press, 2006.
[4] T. Schroeder, "Desire," Blackwell Publishing, Ohio, 2006.
http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/Desire%20(Philosophy%20Compass).pdf