Journal article

Fundamental Hope and Practical Identity

Published in Philosophical Papers

Abstract

This article considers the question ‘What makes hope rational?’ We take Adrienne Martin's recent incorporation analysis of hope as representative of a tradition that views the rationality of hope as a matter of instrumental reasons. Against this tradition, we argue that an important subset of hope, ‘fundamental hope’, is not governed by instrumental rationality. Rather, people have reason to endorse or reject such hope in virtue of the contribution of the relevant attitudes to the integrity of their practical identity, which makes the relevant hope not instrumentally but intrinsically valuable. This argument also allows for a new analysis of the reasons people have to abandon hope and for a better understanding of non-fundamental, ‘prosaic’ hopes.

Publication details

Date of publication
02 Sep 2017
Publication link
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Volume
46
Issue
3
Pages
345-371

Bibliometrics

OpenAlex

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Citation count
57
Collected 2026-08-22
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.22
Collected 2026-08-22
Citation percentile
82.5%
Percentile among comparable publications of the same age and field.

About FWCI: Field-Weighted Citation Impact compares citations received with the number expected for a work of the same type, year, and subfield. A value of 1.0 represents the world average.

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Citation count
64
Collected 2026-08-16