Tiberius and Realistic Optimism

In this posting I want to question whether optimism is really a virtue. The type of optimism I want to consider is realistic optimism and not some excessive Panglossian optimism. Traditionally the main virtues are wisdom, courage, humanity, justice and temperance. There are of course many more minor virtues. Valerie Tiberius (1) suggests some new virtues. These are flexibility and wisdom, perspective, moderate self-awareness and realistic optimism. In this posting I want to consider Tiberius’ approach to realistic optimism and question whether it is indeed a virtue.

Before proceeding to consider whether realistic optimism is a virtue we must be clear about what a virtue is. Tiberius considers her new virtues to be reflective virtues. For Tiberius a reflective virtue is one that is justified by its usefulness in helping an agent to live a life which she can justify on reflection. I want to consider optimism from a more traditional conception of a virtue. For the purposes of this posting a virtue is roughly a disposition to think, act and feel in certain ways which are good in some way and help the agent to flourish. An optimist is someone who has a disposition to think and act in certain ways due to her optimism. Using the above definitions mean whether optimism is a virtue or not depends on whether optimism helps an agent to flourish. There is some evidence that unbridled optimism does not help everyone to flourish. A study in Japan of 101 obese men and women undergoing a program of counselling, nutrition and exercise therapy found that slimmers with a happy-go-lucky bright outlook at the start of the therapy were less likely to succeed in losing weight see Telegraph  . It follows that optimism may not be a virtue. However it does not follow from the study that optimism is not a virtue. For instance courage is not always a virtue. Unbridled courage or rashness might be classed as simple stupidity. Aristotle believed there was a mean attached to a virtue and that someone could be either too courageous or lack courage altogether and be a coward. Further he believed the virtues had a certain unity which constrained the unbridled excesses of any single virtue. Much of the above might be applied to optimism. Perhaps Tiberius believes realistic optimism must be seen in the context of her other reflective virtues of, flexibility, perspective, and moderate self-awareness; perhaps so doing places some constraints on unbridled optimism. Perhaps a slimmer’s optimism about her weight loss should be constrained by her moderate self-awareness.

I however want to examine optimism using the more traditional definition of a virtue. Before doing so I want to consider the domain of optimism. What does Tiberius mean by realistic optimism? She does not regard realistic optimism as just the mean between unbridled optimism and pessimism. She argues that realistic optimism helps us to live a life which we can justify on reflection by combating cynicism. She limits cynicism to human nature (2). I myself cannot see how cynicism can extend to things outside human nature. One may well be pessimistic about the weather tomorrow, but can one be cynical about it? Accepting Tiberius’ position, which I do, means accepting realistic optimism is limited to the domain of human affairs. According to Tiberius,

“Cynics in my sense doubt that human beings have truly good qualities; they attribute ugly ulterior motives to others without much evidence and they react to other people with scorn and disdain, whether or not they have information about the particular person’s character.” (3).

I agree with Tiberius that cynicism is harmful. I would argue it is harmful to the cynic as it damages her agency because she is likely to attribute ugly ulterior motives to herself. Cynicism damages people’s autonomy. If someone believes the reasons she acts on are ulterior, not really hers, then she may well question why she should act at all. However even if it is accepted that cynicism is harmful it does not automatically follow we should adopt an attitude of realistic optimism. We could, as Tiberius acknowledges, simply adopt a more realistic attitude. I will present three connected arguments against adopting a purely realist attitude. I will firstly argue that a purely realist attitude is inadequate for dealing with life’s complexities. Secondly I will argue trust depends on realistic optimism. Lastly I will argue that a purely realist attitude is, like that of the cynic, harmful to agency.

Let us assume that we should adopt a purely realist attitude to life. Unfortunately in many situations we encounter we don’t have the information needed to adopt this attitude. If I meet someone for the first time having no information whatsoever about her what should I do? Should I adopt an attitude that is indifferent and detached because of this lack of information? A realistic attitude. I would suggest that I should adopt a different attitude, a pleasant and welcoming one in the hope that this will be beneficial in any future relations. Tiberius argues that we should adopt hopeful attitudes, realistically optimistic attitudes, to combat cynicism (4). Perhaps she is right but I would argue that in some circumstances, such as the above, a realistic attitude is an empty attitude and cannot form a meaningful basis on which to base our actions. It seems to me that in such circumstances we should adopt a realistically optimistic attitude. This brings us to my second reason connected to my first reason as to why we should not adopt a purely realist attitude. Society depends on trust. If we adopt a purely realistic attitude we have no basis for trust. Trust depends on us being optimistic about the good intentions of others. Lastly realistic optimism seems conducive to agency. Hume famously argued reason alone gives us no reason to act. If I am completely indifferent or detached from something then I do not care about it. If I do not care about something I have no reason to act. If I don’t believe my actions will benefit me or avoid harm I have no reason to act. It follows indifference and detachment alone give me no reason to act even if I am well informed. I may of course act; but as I have no reason to act any action, or none, will do equally well and I act wantonly. I have argued previously someone who acts wantonly is not a real person and lacks agency, see wooler.scottus  . It follows a purely realist attitude in life, like that of the cynic, damages our agency, damages our autonomy. It would seem then if we value our autonomy we should adopt an attitude that has some import to us.

Nonetheless the question still remains as to why we should adopt an optimistic attitude. The fact that we should adopt an attitude that has some import to us does not mean this import must be positive. It might be argued that pessimism might give us equally as good a reason to act as optimism. I have argued above that cynicism can damage us as autonomous agents. I would further argue that because pessimism can easily slip into cynicism we have a good reason to choose a realistically optimistic attitude over a pessimistic one. Let us accept that if we wish to preserve our agency we have reason to be realistically optimistic but the question remains is this realistic optimism a virtue, does it help us flourish? The above suggests to me that realistic optimism is a disposition to think, act and feel in certain ways which are necessary for flourishing. It follows realistic optimism is a virtue. Of course someone may be realistically optimistic and not flourish but same is true of more accepted virtues one may be brave but still not flourish.

It seems to me that games theory offers some support for the above conclusion. Let us consider the prisoners dilemma. In this game the police arrest two men but do not have enough evidence for a full conviction and so offer a deal. The deal is this if one prisoner confesses and testifies against his partner and the other does not the prisoner goes free and his partner will receive the full sentence. If both remain silent each receives a short sentence. The best outcome is achieved if both remain silent. If this game is repeated several times the most successful strategy is one called tit for tat. This strategy calls for a prisoner to remain silent initially. In subsequent round if his partner confessed in the previous round then he should confess in this round. If however his partner remained silent then he should remain silent. I would suggest tit for tat is a realistically optimistic strategy. In the first round the prisoner when choosing to remain silent is being optimistic in hoping his partner will do likewise. In subsequent rounds his choice is determined by his partner’s previous choice. Tit for tat is not however an over optimistic strategy in which the prisoner always assumes his partner will remain silent nor is it a pessimistic strategy in which the prisoner always assumes his partner will confess.

1. Valerie Tiberius, 2008, The Reflective life, Oxford.
2. Tiberius, page 140.
3. Tiberius page 141.
4. Tiberius, page 150.