Abstract

Compared to justice, the subject of mercy has not received a great deal of attention by moral philosophers. Moreover, the contemporary body of work on mercy is by no means univocal in its understanding of mercy. This dissertation is intended to clarify the nature and moral status of this neglected and misunderstood virtue. ;Attention to a broad range of paradigm contexts for mercy in Chapter 1 yiels a rich but unified understanding of its nature: mercy is personal response to another's great need despite lack of an effective claim to that response. On the basis of this understanding, I address the question of mercy's relation to justice. Some moral philosophers have been inclined to identify mercy with justice; their reasons and arguments for doing so are critically discussed in Chapter 2. In Chaper 3, I suggest that the historical development of mercy within the law, wherein mercy is generally a mechanism for promoting justice, inclines those who focus on legal mercy to identify mercy as essentially a kind of justice. Chapter 4 is an examination of the conceptual concern that, unless it is understood as a form of justice, mercy conflicts with the demands of justice. I argue that there is no fundamental opposition between mercy and justice and answer the question of just what the relationship is between them. ;The conclusion that mercy is not simply a form of justice raises the issue of mercy's moral status. Chapter 5 is a rejection of the position that mercy is strictly supererogatory as well as a rejection of the more prevalent view that mercy is supererogatory when it is not required by justice. Chapters 6 and 7 suggest a positive account of mercy's moral status. In Chapter 6 the moral worth of mercy is found to be rooted in its expression of the values of attachment, the personal and the particular. Chapter 7 explores a possible way of understanding an imperative of mercy in virtue of its grounding in care and commitment. ;In Chapter 8 it is left to respond to some objections to mercy which have been raised against it. I argue that while mercy does involve power differences, it does not require inappropriate humbling of its recipient and conclude that mercy remains moral activity worth understanding and practicing today