Kant and the Dimension of the Ethics of Hope

Abstract

There lis a great difference between the ontological basis of the ethics of Spinoza and that of Kant. This article intends to show the effect of this difference on their ethical thought, by focusing upon the concept of «hope».
The ontology of Spinoza permits only one modal concept of necessity. Given this ontological premise, the value of human existence consists in affirming everything, which exists in the modus of necessity, with the cognition of the Reason. Thus Spinoza places no great value on «hope», which should be conquered through the cognition of Reason.
For Kant, the problem of the evaluation of human existence cannot be solved as a problems of «what it ought to be», morality. It demands that we take into account happiness, which has its place in the realm of what it is.
But the mere pursuit of happiness itself leads to the ethics of despair, so the value of human existence must be won through the struggle with this ethics of despair, (nihilism). Happiness is located as an object of hope, and hope is not a mere knowledge but a virtue which brings into human existence a «ορθος λογος» (right reason) to deal properly with the happiness.