Michael Lamb writes:

The binary between optimism and pessimism does not capture the complexity of Augustine’s thought. As concepts, ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’ came to be employed only in the 18th century. Moreover, the binary overlooks Augustine’s more nuanced account of hope as a virtue that finds a middle way between the vices of presumption and despair.

The difference that it makes when we understand hope as a virtue is often missed in contemporary discourse, which tends to characterise hope as an attitude or emotion and to neglect the possibility that hope might also be a virtue that regulates our desires for future goods. Like many contemporary thinkers, Augustine also recognises that hope is a natural affection or emotion: it is a love or desire for objects that we perceive to be good, future and possible, but not yet seen or possessed. However, unlike those who identify hope with ‘optimism’ and see it as unqualifiedly good, Augustine recognises that the emotion can sometimes go wrong: we can hope for the wrong objects, in the wrong people, or in the wrong ways. Our hopes can become misplaced or disordered. This is why we need a virtue of hope, a more stable and enduring quality of character that helps to direct the emotion of hope toward the right objects in the right ways.

Augustine’s theology shapes how he understands the content of hope. The Christian bishop identifies God and ‘eternal goods’ as the ultimate objects of hope, but he recognises that human beings must also hope for ‘temporal goods’ such as health, peace and friendship. He believes these goods are legitimate objects of hope as long as they are properly ‘ordered’ to eternal goods.

His idea of right order is complex. Here it is worth highlighting one feature often overlooked in interpretations of Augustine’s ‘pessimism’: the virtue of hope helps human beings to resist two vices of disorder: presumption and despair. Presumption characterises those whose feelings of hope are perverse, excessive or false. Those with the vice of presumption hope for the wrong objects, or in the wrong people, or too much for, or in, the right ones. In some cases, optimism can reflect the vice of presumption more than the virtue of hope.

By contrast, pessimism can often express hope’s corresponding vice of deficiency – despair. While despair, like hope, is a natural emotion that can be justified in some situations, it becomes a vice when it reflects a more habitual failure to hope sufficiently for goods that are actually possible to attain. This vice causes us to give up all hope, which can lead us to withdraw from the pursuit of difficult goods or, out of desperation, cause harm to ourselves or others. Augustine compares those in despair to Roman gladiators destined to die in the arena. Because they have ‘no hope of being spared’, they are either ‘looking for a way to die’ or ‘do not hesitate to commit a foul’, using violent force without constraint. For Augustine, both vices can cause complacency or complicity. If we presume that attaining an object is certain, or despair that it is impossible, we will not work to attain what we hope for. We need the virtue of hope to act in the face of the difficulties, dangers and delays that accompany our objects of hope. [Continue reading…]