Hope

3. Hope in Kant’s moral philosophy

Like Augustine, Kant held that hope and love presuppose faith. Kant, however, viewed faith as moral faith. Moral faith, unlike what he called ecclesiastical faith, is not based upon belief in metaphysical truth or contingent historical fact, and so available only to those who know of this truth or fact, but is a reasoned corollary of the moral law, and available to all (1793: 93–4). For Kant, the ultimate hope is no longer a hope for union with God, but a hope to attain the highest good (summum bonum) which is demanded by the moral law. The three postulates of pure practical reason, as laid out in the Critik der practischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason) (1788), namely the hope for the existence of God, for immortality and for the attainment of perfect freedom, are all subordinate to this superordinate hope, and ultimately to the moral law.

Kant describes the assumption of the validity of the three postulates as ‘a need of reason’ (1788: 149). The use of the term ‘need of reason’ is not meant to suggest that the hope for the existence of God, immortality and freedom are necessary illusions. These postulates are both possible from a theoretical point of view, and objectively justified from a practical point of view by the fact that they are necessary corollaries of the moral law, which itself is based on reason (1788: 127). Since the postulates are the necessary and unavoidable conditions of the possibility of the summum bonum, every rational being ought (morally) to hope for the existence of God, immortality and freedom (1788: 149).

This moral argument for the belief (or hope) in God and immortality, has been subjected to a great deal of criticism. Nevertheless it has had an important influence on certain figures in twentieth-century critical theory. Walter Benjamin held that the historical materialist cannot abandon hope for those who have suffered past injustice, and therefore, cannot regard the past as closed. To do so would be implicitly to side with the victors and betray their victims (see §5 for an account of hope as a relation of communion or love).

Peukert also takes up this Kantian/Benjaminian approach to hope in Science, Action and Fundamental Theology (1984). Here he argues that utopianism requires hope (see Utopianism). Utopian existence would be destroyed if the individuals who participate in it were burdened with the memory of unredeemed suffering. He asks: ‘How can one hold on to the memory of the conclusive, irretrievable losses of the victims of history – to whom one owes one’s entire happiness – and still be happy?’ (1984: 209). If Peukert’s argument is sound, the very idea of utopia is incoherent without hope for immortality, for the redemption of the victims of history, and the hope that God exists.