“A New Assumption”: Democratic Hope as a Just Response to the Tragedy-Attuned

The tools of religious ethics are uniquely equipped to propose a vision of democracy as a theory of virtuous practice. Among the primary democratic virtues worthy of attention is hope - which I define as the just response to the tragedy-attuned. I contrast this vision with rival conceptions of hope, Augustinian and otherwise, where hope is understood as a merely internal disposition, where hope requires an object hoped in or hoped for, and where hope is understood to be solely future-oriented. I argue that hope instead is inextricable from the discursive practices endemic to its expression, and that the primary focal point of hope is one’s fellow tragedy-related-citizens for the sake of whom and with whom one is hoping. I conclude with meditations about the necessity of the recognition of tragedy for democratic practice.