Recovery the Good: Recovering Hope

Abstract

This article demonstrates, through a hermeneutic-systematic study, how the transformation that hope has undergone in the modernization of the Western world, as explained by Benedict XVI in Spe Salvi, can be understood through the three malaises of modernity identified by Charles Taylor: individualism, the primacy of instrumental reason, and the growing subordination of personal freedom to the dictates of political systems. Taylor’s ethics, which call for the recovery of the good through the recognition of strong valuations, also reveal a path for the recovery of hope. The conclusion points toward opening a hopeful Christian path through the recovery of the good. In this way, the individualism characteristic of instrumental reason and autonomous freedom is also overcome.

Key words: Hope. Good. Individualism. Freedom. Rationalism.