7.12.2008
We call a person optimistic if she generally expects things to work out
in a positive way, in a way that is good for her.
1) There are different views on what counts as good, of course. In
Derek Parfit's helpful terminology, theories about what is good broadly fall
into three categories: "desire fulfillment theories" (if you get what you
want, whatever that happens to be, that's good for you), "hedonistic
theories" (good is what gives you pleasure, or more generally any positive
feelings, and what helps you to avoid pain and negative feelings) and
"objective list theories" (some things, such as friendship, justice etc.,
are good independently of what people want, think or feel).[1]
Optimism seems to cut across these kinds of view on what is good. You are
optimistic if you tend to expect good things to happen, not bad things -
where 'good' means whatever your preferred account understands by that
notion. That is, if you are in the objective-list camp, as an optimist you
will think that events will bring much of what your list contains - so if
friendship is high on that list, you'll expect to have many friends and great
relationships with them. If you adhere to hedonism, you'll tend to expect
that pleasant things will happen (more of them, more intensely pleasant
ones), rather than unpleasant things; you'll see a future full of positive
feelings in store for you. Finally, if you are convinced by a
desire-fulfillment theory, being optimistic means that you believe in
mostly getting what you want.
So it seems that optimism is not strongly connected to adopting one of
these views on well-being.
2) What are we ascribing to someone when we call them optimistic?
Is it a style in interpreting evidence? Concepts such as 'overly optimistic'
could be interpreted, for instance, as a failure to judge realistically.
In many situations, we would take things to stand better than the evidence
at hand sanctions. We would ignore or wrongly assign too little weight to
considerations which show that problems are awaiting us - and over-emphasize
indicators for outcomes we think would be good for us.
This direction of analysis focuses on the cognitive aspect of optimism,
on the ability to perceive and judge circumstances - an ability that could
in principle be evaluated objectively. In principle, that is, we could
scrutinize a series of judgments made by a person, a series that exhibits
an optimistic tendency, and for each judgment carefully trace the evidence
available to the subject, examining whether it warrants the positive
expectations derived from it. (This hasn't to be quite so local or situative
as it seems at first glance, for of course we would have to take into account
the experiential background of the subject, which plays a role in their
forming of expectations.)
3) There is, however, another aspect in optimism, and we would
risk overlooking it by narrowly focusing on those cognitive elements.
All optimism is about future events. But we may view future events in
different ways, depending on how much we think we can control what will
happen. On the one hand we sometimes estimate how likely it is that
something happens (or happens in a certain way), where it is clear that
one cannot influence or control whether it happens, or happens in a certain
way. That is, we can be more or less realistic in our forecasts about future
events. On the other hand, when it is conceivable that the event will be
influenced (or brought about) by our own actions, then we take further
ingredients into the equation: how determined we are ourselves, and how
capable of doing certain things that may have an impact on developments.
To put it differently, thinking about the future is influenced by what you
think your own role in these future happenings is.
Seen under this aspect, optimism is not so much a matter of judging
a situation, and the options one has in it, given certain evidence. It is
more a question of character, determination and trust in oneself (or in
one's later self).
It is also a more general attitude to the future: You don't predict
what will happen - you just trust that whatever will happen, you'll be
able to handle it. So whether optimism is justified here is no longer
dependent on correct judgment of detail evidence, it relies rather on
preceding experience of how well oneself can cope with whatever comes up.
(Of course, such optimism might still turn out to have been misplaced,
if those future situations are extreme or very unusual in some way.)
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[1] Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Oxford
University Press 1984, 493-502.
