Is there a place for hope in law?

This post is co-authored with Kimberley Brownlee.

We humans are wired to hope. The very act of planning is fueled by hope that tomorrow will come, that the object of our hope is achievable, and that we will have the resolve to take concrete actions towards it.

Such a personal emotion might seem to have little place in the law. After all, hope is not something a court can simply grant. And yet, recent developments in European human rights law have begun to suggest that the law might have a role in fostering, or even protecting, the fragile social conditions that make hope possible. Specifically, European human rights law has begun to develop the idea that there may be a legal right to hope in the context of prison sentences, and particularly life sentences.^[1] This refers to the notion that sentences must carry ‘a prospect of release and possibility of review’.^[2] It raises a host of interesting questions – many of which were investigated at a recent LSE Law working paper series which we participated in.

Our view, shared by many contributors to that series, is that there should be a larger place for hope in the law. Hope is a crucial part of a human life. It is best understood as the emotional and cognitive counterpart to planning: it galvanizes our resolve and motivates us to act as if the hoped-for outcome were possible—even in the face of setbacks.^[3] When you truly hope to finish that work project, learn to make sourdough, or develop a better relationship with a loved one, you take steps to make that happen – with an invested heart – despite the challenges that those tasks might give rise to.

No Explicit Right to Hope

Yet, the relationship between hope and the law is not a simple one because we cannot have an explicit right to hope. Rights are entitlements to treatment or resources. Yet, hope is neither a treatment nor a resource that anyone could supply; it is a subjective sense of positivity that a person feels. We can provide a person with adequate conditions in which to experience hope, but completing the puzzle requires that person to take up what is available to them. This introduces a key legal tension: while rights can secure external goods, hope is partly internal and volitional.

Nonetheless, hope is well-connected to other things that people can provide. Hope is a highly social enterprise. In hard times, our hopes are bolstered by our friends, family, and even memories of love and care. We also draw strength from the wider social world: in music, art, sport, and the sense of being seen and valued in community. Furthermore, the very things we hope for tend to be highly social.^[4] Our hopes often revolve around connection—to love and be loved, to be accepted, valued, and needed.^[5] In prison, hope might mean seeing family again, hugging our kids, being forgiven, starting over, or finding someone who accepts us despite our criminal record. Staying connected to those who believe in us is often key to change.

These thoughts speak in favour of a broader idea: that to secure hope, we ought not to focus on hope per se, but the conditions that allow hope to thrive in the first place.

What makes hope possible

Although we cannot have a right to hope, we can have rights to the things that make hope possible. Our capacity to hope rests on our sense of social recognition, inclusion, and acceptance. Hope and other forms of positivity such as joy, gratitude, and compassion, are cultivated in childhood as parts of a healthy emotional profile that we cannot develop without adequate nurturing from caregivers.^[6] Moreover, we cannot sustain a healthy emotional profile over the course of our lives without adequate access to social inclusion.^[7] To be able to hope, we have to feel that there is something worth hoping for – and so we have to feel that we are worthy of love and loving, and of basic forms of social attention and acceptance from others.

As a growing field of literature in philosophy is beginning to show,^[8] these are things to which we can and should have a right. We should have rights to opportunities to form social bonds, to form lasting connections over time, to participate in the life of the community, and to avoid being exposed to the many risks that arise from isolation, ostracism, and marginalisation.^[9] The banner statistic is that isolation and loneliness are worse for our health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day.^[10] A 2023 US National Advisory on Social Connection summarised recent findings that unwanted isolation and loneliness not only correlate with physical health morbidities, but also correlate with more overtly social and emotional ills such as anxiety, despondence, depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation and behaviour.^[11]

So, although there may be no right to hope, there is a place for hope in the law: the law can foster and protect the conditions under which hope can survive and – ideally – thrive in community with others. Given the significance of the relationship between hope and sociality, the state must attend to the social pre-conditions for hope.

How to nurture hope

In the context of punishment, that means several practical things. Policies must focus on long-term, preventative measures. This begins in childhood, with stable environments, nurturing relationships, education, and social integration. For those in prison—especially serving life sentences—maintaining social connections is crucial, both with loved ones and within the prison community, requiring adequate visitation, social opportunities, and protection from harm. Mental health support is also essential to help individuals retain a sense of self-worth, which underpins their ability to hope. Finally, upon release, individuals must be met with strong social and material support to counter isolation and marginalisation, and to foster a renewed sense of belonging that can sustain hope and reduce recidivism.

Hope cannot be granted like a legal verdict. But it can be nurtured – through careful public policy, social connection, and the quiet recognition that no one is beyond the reach of redemption.

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[1] See Sarah Trotter ‘Hope’s Relations: A Theory of the “Right to Hope” in European Human Rights Law’ (2022) 22 Human Rights Law Review.

[2] Vinter and Others v UK Applications Nos 66069/09 et al., Merits and Just Satisfaction (2013), para 12.

[3] See Victoria McGeer & Philip Pettit, ‘The self-regulating mind’ (2002), Language & Communication, 22(3), 281-299; Philip Pettit, P., ‘Hope and its place in mind’ (2004), The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 592(1), 152-165.

[4] Our claim here is not that the object of hope is always social in nature.

[5] Kimberley Brownlee, Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights and Freedoms (Oxford University Press 2020); Ariel Gordy, Helen Han Wei Luo, Margo Sidline & Kimberley Brownlee, ‘The missing measure of loneliness: A case for including neededness in loneliness scales’ (2021) International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(1).

[6] S. Matthew Liao, The Right to be Loved (Oxford University Press 2015).

[7] Matthew Lieberman, Social: Why our brains are wired to connect (Oxford University Press 2013), ch. 1.; Vivek Murthy, Office of the US Surgeon General, ‘Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The US Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community’ (2023), https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf.

[8] See e.g. Kimberley Brownlee (ed.), David Jenkins (ed.) & Adam Neal (ed.), Being Social: The Philosophy of Social Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2022).

[9] Liao, ‘The Right to be Loved.’

[10] Julianne Holt-Lunstad, ‘The Potential Public Health Relevance of Social Isolation and Loneliness: Prevalence, Epidemiology, and Risk Factors’ (2017), Public Policy and Aging Report 27, no. 4: 127–130.

[11] Murthy, ‘Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation’.