Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural DevastationShortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story—up to a certain point. “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground,” he said, “and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.” It is precisely this point—that of a people faced with the end of their way of life—that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear’s view, Plenty Coups’s story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all: how should one face the possibility that one’s culture might collapse? |
Contents
AFTER THIS NOTHING HAPPENED | 1 |
Protecting a Way of Life | 10 |
Gambling with Necessity | 21 |
Was There a Last Coup? | 26 |
Witness to Death | 34 |
Subject to Death | 42 |
The Possibility of Crow Poetry | 50 |
ETHICS AT THE HORIZON | 55 |
Radical Hope | 91 |
CRITIQUE OF ABYSMAL REASONING | 103 |
Aristotles Method | 108 |
Radical Hope versus Mere Optimism | 113 |
Courage and Hope | 118 |
Virtue and Imagination | 124 |
Historical Vindication | 136 |
Personal Vindication | 142 |