Abstract

This paper is a critical discussion of Claudia Blöser’s (2022) “Global Poverty and Kantian Hope.” While Blöser shows that a lack of hope is often rational in the context of global poverty, I argue that some people’s hopes in the face of poverty might actually be rational, and that understanding the rationality of a person’s hope may require knowing more about the unique circumstances of their lives. I suggest that Blöser’s work on ‘fundamental hopes’ (with Titus Stahl) (2017) may be key to understanding why some people hold on to hope for a better life and future. These reflections are meant to be more complementary to Blöser’s argument than critical, and they invite further inquiry into possibilities for hope that attend to people’s lived experiences under poverty.