Some philosophers think that forgiveness should only be granted in response to the wrongdoer’s repentance, while others think that forgiveness can properly be given unconditionally. In this paper I show that both of these positions are partially correct. In redemptive forgiveness we wipe the wrong from the offender’s moral record. It is wrong to forgive redemptively in the absence of some atonement. Personal forgiveness, on the other hand, is granted when the victim overcomes inappropriate though humanly (...) understandable feelings of hate or vindictive anger towards the wrongdoer and comes to see them as deserving of a certain unconditional respect ’qua’ moral agent. Personal forgiveness is unconditionally admirable. (shrink)

This paper challenges a common dogma of the literature on forgiveness: that only victims have the standing to forgive. Attacks on third-party forgiveness generally come in two forms. One form of attack suggests that it follows from the nature of forgiveness that third-party forgiveness is impossible. Another form of attack suggests that although third-party forgiveness is possible, it is always improper or morally inappropriate for third parties to forgive. I argue against both of these claims; (...) third-party forgiveness is possible, and in some cases it is morally appropriate for third parties to forgive (or refuse to forgive) wrongdoers for wrongs done to victims. I also propose an explanation of third parties’ standing to forgive: third parties have the standing to forgive when it is appropriate for them to take wrongs done to victims ‘personally’. While appropriately ‘taking a wrong personally’ does not require seeing oneself as a victim, it typically does require being in some form of personal relationship with victims. Thus, while the standing to forgive is not grounded exclusively in having been wronged, the prerogative to forgive is normally limited to victims and their loved ones. And once we recognize the importance of third-party forgiveness in our moral lives and the norms that govern it, we can more easily adjudicate between competing accounts of the nature of forgiveness.​. (shrink)

This article discusses the political possibilities of personal forgiveness in transitional justice. Personal forgiveness is extended by a single human victim who has been harmed by a wrongdoer. The victim forgives only that harm which has been done to him or to her. Personal forgiveness is distinguishable from three other forms of forgiveness: group forgiveness, legal forgiveness (a form of group forgiveness), and political forgiveness. In the context of transitional justice, I argue (...) that: (1) personal forgiveness is a necessary condition for political forgiveness; (2) group forgiveness (including legal forgiveness), while not without a normative function, cannot effectuate either personal or political forgiveness, and (3) personal forgiveness requires a shared narrative framework to lead to political forgiveness. These assertions lead to two further observations. First, because the state has a normative role in its (limited) capacity to forgive on its own behalf and a practical role in its ability to spread and to transmit a shared narrative framework, the state is an important actor in political forgiveness. Second, because the primary historical example of political forgiveness in transitional justice is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that unfolded within an explicitly Christian theological framework, it may be that the shared narrative framework need be religious or even Christian in nature. (shrink)

In ‘Human Fallibility and the Need for Forgiveness’, Claudia Blöser has proposed a Kantian account of our reasons to forgive that situates our moral fallibility as their ultimate ground. Blöser argues that Kant’s duty to be forgiving is grounded on the need to be relieved from the burden of our moral failure, a need that we all have in virtue of our moral fallible nature, regardless of whether or not we have repented. Blöser claims that Kant’s proposal yields a (...) plausible account of the normative status of forgiveness. Kant classifies the duty to be forgiving as a wide duty of virtue, and according to Blöser, this means that Kantian forgiveness is elective in the sense that forgiveness is good in general but without being obligatory in each particular case. In the course of presenting her own reconstruction of Kant’s account, Blöser also objects to some aspects of an interpretation of Kant’s theory of forgiveness which I had previously defended in my paper ‘Forgiveness and Moral Development’. Although there are a lot of points of agreement between our interpretations, the aim of this article is to highlight four key points of disagreement. These issues are worth discussing because they have implications not only for a plausible interpretation of a recognisable Kantian account of forgiveness but also for wider debates in the contemporary literature on forgiveness. First, I show that Kant is not committed to a form of weak situationism as suggested by Blöser and that Kant’s grounding of the duty to be forgiving does not appeal to moral luck. Second, I argue that although Kant’s duty to be forgiving is elective in one sense of the term, it is not elective in another important sense of the term, and that it is in fact better not to interpret Kantian imperfect duties as being elective. Third, I show that awareness of moral fallibility per se does not provide a morally appropriate ground for forgiveness and offer an alternative reconstruction of Kant’s account- in which fallibility plays a role, but it is not the main reason to forgive. Finally, I argue that Blöser’s account of the need to be forgiven is not recognisable Kantian because, from a Kantian perspective, repentance is a necessary condition for the desirability and, in fact, the very possibility of ameliorating our own guilt. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse Kant's views on the ruler's right of pardon. This particular theme in the Rechtslehre has remained on the margins of Kant research. The few existing commentaries have taken as their starting-point to interpret Kant's conception of the ruler's right of pardon chiefly against the background of his legal philosophy and its criminal law theory in particular. However, it is argued in this article that Kant's conception of the right of pardon cannot be (...) fully grasped without knowledge of the intellectual history of pardoning and the contemporary Prussian law code, Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preussischen Staaten, of 1794. It is claimed that in Kant's mind the right of pardon came close to the ruler's personal forgiveness. (shrink)

This essay explores Hannah Arendt's claim that Jesus was the “discoverer” of forgiveness. It assesses Charles Griswold's view that person-to-person forgiveness is in evidence in Greek culture and practice before Jesus. The essay refines Griswold's view and suggests that person-to-person forgiveness is a cultural universal. The essay makes observations about the significance of the different words that denote person-to-person forgiveness; it also explores the implications of reading the New Testament writings on person-to-person forgiveness in the (...) chronological order in which they were written. From a close reading of the early New Testament documents, the essay makes two suggestions about the Western tradition of forgiveness. First, it suggests that Paul the apostle is the first to identify person-to-person forgiveness as a moral virtue. Second, it suggests that in the Synoptic tradition, Jesus is the first to identify person-to-person forgiveness as a discrete category of behavior distinct, for example, from pardoning, excusing, waiving, or ignoring the wrongs of others. (shrink)

The concept of respect for persons is often rejected as a basis for understanding forgiveness. As many have argued, to hold your offender responsible for her actions is to respect her as a person; but this kind of respect is more likely to sustain, rather than dissolve, your resentment toward her (Garrard & McNaughton 2003; 2011; Allais 2008). I seek to defend an alternative view in this paper. To forgive, on my account, involves ceasing to identify your offender with (...) her wrongdoing, and this requires a corresponding affective change on your behalf. While there are different ways this may happen, I argue that respect for your offender as a person can play a significant role in the process. (shrink)

The theme of this book is the complex moral psychology of forgiving and remembering in both personal and political contexts. It offers an original account of the moral psychology of interpersonal forgiveness and explores its role in transitional societies. The book also examines the symbolic moral significance of memorialization in these societies and reflects on its relationship to forgiveness.

We address how trait self-control and trait concern for others relate to the concepts of monitored and intrinsic Welfare Tradeoff Ratios (WTRs), respectively, and how recent work on personality, revenge, and forgiveness are informed by the adaptationist perspective proposed in the target article. We also discuss how the proposed adaptationist perspective provides clues to some previously puzzling findings on revenge.

Forgiveness as a positive response to wrongdoing is a widespread phenomenon that plays a role in the moral lives of most persons. Surprisingly, Kant has very little to say on the matter. Although Kant dedicates considerable space to discussing punishment, wrongdoing and grace, he addresses the issues of human forgiveness directly only in some short passages in the Lectures on Ethics and in one passage of the Metaphysics of Morals. As noted by Sussman, the TL passage, however, betrays (...) some ambivalence. Kant establishes a duty of virtue to be forgiving (TL, 6:460), yet he immediately warns against its excess: meek toleration of recurrent wrongs could manifest a lack of self-respect and a violation of a duty to oneself (TL, 6:461). Sussman claims that this ambivalence ultimately arises from the fact that forgiveness sits uncomfortably in Kant’s moral thought. First, forgiveness has an ‘ineluctably elective aspect’ that makes it, to a certain extent, arbitrary and dependent on particular features of the forgiver’s psychology and, as such, in tension with Kant’s central claims that human beings are autonomous agents capable of determining their own moral status. Second, according to Sussman, Kant’s moral retributivism, i.e. ‘the particular moral position that every moral wrong against another deserves punishment of the wrongdoer’ seems to be in tension with the possibility of a ‘truly redemptive forgiveness’. Moreover, forgiveness also seems to be in tension with a passage of the Religion in which Kant argues that the moral guilt from our original evil disposition cannot be understood as a debt or liability that can be compensated, erased, transferred or otherwise wiped out by others (Rel, 6:72). Thus, to the extent that forgiveness might be thought to involve the forgoing of moral guilt, it seems incompatible with Kant’s views on culpability and punishment. This chapter seeks to clarify Kant’s views on forgiveness in order to show that, although not often appreciated, personal forgiveness plays an important role in the lives of ordinary human agents as understood by Kant. In particular, I aim to show there is a conception of forgiveness available to Kant that is not incompatible with Kant’s views of punishment and culpability. In Section 1, I argue that, for Kant, far from being merely ‘elective,’ forgiveness is, under certain conditions, morally required. I provide a brief summary of an interpretation of Kant’s theory of forgiveness that I have defended in recently published work , in order to argue that Kant’s duty to be forgiving should be understood as an imperfect duty of virtue which is conditional on repentance. Kant is not ambivalent about this duty because he maintains that when the relevant conditions are not met, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. The TL passage thus identifies two different duties. In Section 2, I show that forgiveness, as conceptualised by Kant, does not require the forgoing of punishment or the overcoming of moral guilt and that this could, in fact, be seen as an attractive feature of Kant’s position. I end by offering a very brief assessment of Kant’s views. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction and overview; 2. The nature of forgiveness and resentment; 3. The moral analysis of the attitudes of forgiveness and resentment defined; 4. The moral analysis of the attitudes of self-forgiveness and self-condemnation; 5. Philosophical underpinnings of the basic attitudes: forgiveness, resentment, and the nature of persons; 6. Moral theory: justice and desert; 7. The public response to wrongdoing; 8. Restorative justice: the public response to wrongdoing and the process of addressing (...) the wrong. (shrink)

Forgiveness and Retribution: Responding to Wrongdoing argues that ultimately, forgiveness is always the appropriate response to wrongdoing. In recent decades, many philosophers have claimed that unless certain conditions are met, we should resent those who have wronged us personally and that criminal offenders deserve to be punished. Conversely, Margaret Holmgren posits that we should forgive those who have ill-treated us, but only after working through a process of addressing the wrong. Holmgren then reflects on the kinds of laws (...) and social practices a properly forgiving society would adopt. (shrink)

Philosophers discussing forgiveness have usually been split between those who think that forgiveness is typically virtuous, even when the wrongdoer doesn’t repent, and those who think that, for forgiveness to be virtuous, certain pre-conditions must be satisfied. I argue that Darwall’s second-personal account of morality offers significant theoretical support for the latter view. I argue that if, as Darwall claims, reactive attitudes issue a demand, this demand needs to be adequately answered for forgiveness to be warranted. (...) It follows that we should reject the thesis that unconditional forgiveness is appropriate in the absence of repentance. (shrink)

At the center of this paper are three questions: in the absence of a religious worldview, can one gain access to the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, can reconciliation be achieved in the absence of forgiveness or does the former depend in some way upon the latter, and can we make sense of a restorative approach to justice in the absence of either forgiveness or reconciliation? To answer these questions, I look closely at the concept of (...) class='Hi'>forgiveness in the first section of this article with the goals of disentangling it from its religious undertones and emphasizing its importance to the very concept of restorative justice. Drawing on both theoretical work and practical examples, I argue that forgiveness is not necessarily a religious concept ? contrary to common perception ? and that, contra Zehr, it is a foundational component of restorative justice. Having considered this first problem, I turn ? in the second section ? to a discussion of the concept of reconciliation, arguing that personal and political reconciliation must be separated from one another and from the concept of forgiveness. Ultimately, I conclude that forgiveness and reconciliation are quite different concepts, that the latter relies on the former, and that the latter is a goal rather than a necessary component of restorative justice. Drawing largely on the work of Hannah Arendt, Susan Dwyer, Trudy Govier, and Howard Zehr, as well as discussions with members of Murder Victims? Families for Reconciliation, I argue that political reconciliation between groups can be achieved in the absence of personal reconciliation between individual victims and perpetrators in those groups. Further, I demonstrate that restorative practices open up the possibility of both types of reconciliation, but that they are ultimately founded only on the principle of forgiveness. (shrink)

Forgiveness and Revenge is a powerful exploration of our attitudes to serious wrongdoings and a careful examination of the values that underlie our thinking about revenge and forgiveness. From adulterous spouses to terrorist factions, we are surrounded by wrongdoing, yet we rarely agree which response is appropriate. The problem of how to respond realistically and sensitively to the wrongs of the past remains a perplexing one. Trudy Govier clarifies our thinking on this subject by examining the moral and (...) practical impact of revenge and forgiveness, both personal and political. Forgiveness and Revenge offers much-needed clarity and reason where emotions often prevail. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the ethics of attitudes to wrongdoing. (shrink)

This article investigates how to understand interpersonal forgiveness from a Christian perspective through content analysis of research-based literature on forgiveness. The analysis is supported by theory of power approach, and the science of diaconia is used as a lens to describe a Christian perspective. The focus is on how forgiveness can be used and misused when encountering people with traumatic experiences of violation manifested by sexual misconduct in church context. The aim is to discuss an understanding of (...) forgiveness that conveys freedom and redresses for the offended, but also for the offender. The content analysis led to the following thematic categories: (1) forgiveness of fellow humans related to God’s forgiving of human, (2) the role and function of forgiveness in the personal life of human, and (3) forgiveness as an issue between people. Here, an important aspect is the necessity of exploring the three perspectives in dialogue with each other, to decrease the risk of misusing forgiveness by not addressing the issue of responsibility. Forgiveness must be conceptualized within the preconditions for God’s forgiving of humans by considering how the violation has influenced the violated’s self-understanding (the inner relational dimension) and the contextual status of the violator’s position of power (the outer dimension). This provides a basis from which to consider whether forgiveness will contribute to an uplifting and liberating outcome or is misused by avoiding clarification of the party responsible for the violation. (shrink)

Forgiveness and mercy are both generous responses to wrongdoing. Forgiveness is a personal reaction to wrongful harm. It can be expressed in emotional, verbal, or relational terms, and it can potentially express a number of important moral values. Controversial topics with regard to forgiveness include the possibility of unforgivable actions and of third-party, self, and group forgiveness. Recent political developments have invited philosophical reflection on public forgiveness. Mercy is usually theorized in relation to punishment, and (...) it is understood to provide the basis for more lenient treatment than that demanded by justice, interpreted strictly. It remains controversial as to whether mercy should be understood apart from justice or incorporated within it. (shrink)

In this paper, I begin with a familiar puzzle about forgiveness, namely, how to distinguish forgiveness from excuse on the one hand and “letting go” on the other. After considering three recent and influential accounts of forgiveness that offer answers to this challenge among others, I develop an alternative model of forgiveness as a kind of personal release from debt or obligation. I argue that this model has a number of distinct advantages, including offering a new (...) explanation of the subtle connections between forgiveness, resentment and perspective taking, as well as helping to provide plausible answers to normative questions such as whether forgiveness is ever morally required. Finally, I draw connections between the debate about forgiveness and the debate about free will, and suggest one way in which the compatibility of forgiveness and understanding of an action’s causes can illuminate the debate about the compatibility of freedom and determinism. (shrink)

Personal forgiveness, in a worldly setting, is an act performed by a human person to overcome resentment, among others, in order for that person to open up to possibilities of accommodation of, acceptance of, and reconciliation or communion with the Other. I want to argue that such an act is spiritual in nature or has an element of divinity in it. To forgive is to be lovingly compassionate, and the act of being lovingly compassionate in the midst of being (...) wronged or downtrodden, or exploited and so on—real or imagined—is an act that goes beyond being human: it appears knowingly or unknowingly—even for a non-believer—to have the guidance of a spiritual support. One overriding reason, among many, on why we must forgive is to have peace of mind, that is, to overcome the inherent spiritual distress or emotional burden, or both. In this regard, personal forgiveness may be considered as a form of an enlightened self-interest. (shrink)

In the wake of the Dylann Roof church shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, forgiveness became a focus of the discussion. Within 48 hours of the shooting, several family members of the victims made personal offers of forgiveness to Dylann Roof. The flood of editorials and opinion pieces commenting on this offer of forgiveness revealed a deep division in public attitudes toward forgiveness, particularly in the context of racially motivated crimes. In this article, (...) I explore the ethics of forgiveness, raising questions about the limits and possibilities of forgiveness in the broader context of social injustice. I defend the view that forgiveness can function as act of social resistance. Against some who think that forgiveness functions primarily as an interpersonal act, I will offer reasons to think that forgiveness can play a socially constructive role. And so I will argue for the value and practice of a social forgiveness, over and above whatever occurs at the interpersonal level. (shrink)

Forgiveness is often understood as a primarily interpersonal experience, a type of moral response to a wrongdoing that has particular effects on the personal relationship between the one wronged and the wrongdoer. However, some have also attempted to defend another kind of forgiveness, one that takes place in public and applies to a wider range of practices in a specifically political context. That such a concept of forgiveness is possible is not particularly controversial. But the way that (...) this political forgiveness is unified—if it is unified—with personal forgiveness has not been clarified. By approaching the question phenomenologically, it becomes possible to root forgiveness, both personal and political, in the more fundamental context of the shared human world. Hannah Arendt's analysis of forgiveness does just this. In so doing, Arendt accounts for both the role of forgiveness in private human relationships and the way in which this role is fundamentally political. (shrink)

Influentially, Pamela Hieronymi has argued that any account of forgiveness must be both articulate and uncompromising. It must articulate the change in judgement that results in the forgiver’s loss of resentment without excusing or justifying the misdeed, and without comprising a commitment to the transgressor=s responsibility, the wrongness of the action, and the transgressed person=s self-worth. Non-articulate accounts of forgiveness, which rely on indirect strategies for reducing resentment (for example, reflecting on the transgressor’s bad childhood) are said to (...) fail to explain forgiveness. I argue that the articulateness condition is not a necessary condition for forgiveness. I respond to numerous objections advanced against non-articulate accounts, including the claim that the resentment-mitigating practices they involve amount to excusing. Appealing to P.F. Strawson=s distinction between objective and participant attitudes, I argue that forgivers can take transgressors to be detrimentally causally shaped by their past while holding him them to be morally responsible. (shrink)

With respect to wrongdoing and harm, most accounts of forgiveness focus on benefits of forgiving to the forgiver and others; some advocate vengeance against a wrongdoer; and others argue for reconciliation. However, forgiveness, revenge, and traditional reconciliation may be impossible, inappropriate, or morally undesirable in cases in which people suffer from wounds and scars not healed by time that can and do alter irrevocably one’s ability to make choices, take actions, or enjoy life fully. In these cases, a (...) form of “reconciliation” that is morally appropriate and morally preferable is reconciliation with, but not to, harm. I argue for an alternative conception of reactions to wrongdoing, wrongdoers, and harm that is a moral competitor to forgiveness, revenge, and traditional reconciliation that centers on the sufferer of harm. Reconciling with harm is morally superior to traditional notions of forgiveness, revenge, and reconciliation with a perpetrator, all of which give more power to the perpetrator than is warranted and less to the harmed person than is deserved. Reconciling with harm is therefore an affirmation of the value of the harmed person and, I argue, a virtue to be cultivated. (shrink)

It is widely recognised in moral philosophy that there is only something to forgive in cases of unexcused and unjustified wrongdoing. I will call this the standard view. According to this view, forgiveness presupposes that the person to be forgiven has done something that warrants blame and resentment. This standard view has not prompted much discussion in the literature on forgiveness. Most writers on forgiveness seem to accept that it only makes sense to speak of forgiveness (...) in those cases where someone is strictly speaking to blame for having done wrong. I think, however, that the literature on forgiveness lacks an adequately nuanced account of the relationship between forgiveness, justifications and excuses. The present paper challenges the standard view among philosophers that we can only make sense of forgiveness in the context of unexcused and unjustified wrongdoing. I will propose and consider an alternative view according to which there is something to forgive in certain types of cases involving limited responsibility, that is, where a person has a justification or an excuse for her action. More precisely, the aim of this paper is twofold: First, to argue that there is something to forgive others for in certain cases where the other person is excused or justified (i.e. interpersonal forgiveness). Secondly, to argue that there is something to forgive oneself for in certain cases where one has an excuse or a justification for one’s action (i.e. self-forgiveness). (shrink)

Philosopher Myisha Cherry teaches us the right ways to deal with wrongdoing in our lives and the world Sages from Cicero to Oprah have told us that forgiveness requires us to let go of negative emotions and that it has a unique power to heal our wounds. In Failures of Forgiveness, Myisha Cherry argues that these beliefs couldn’t be more wrong—and that the ways we think about and use forgiveness, personally and as a society, can often do (...) more harm than good. She presents a new and healthier understanding of forgiveness—one that will give us a better chance to recover from wrongdoing and move toward “radical repair.” Cherry began exploring forgiveness after some relatives of the victims of the mass shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, forgave what seemed unforgiveable. She was troubled that many observers appeared to be more inspired by these acts of forgiveness than they were motivated to confront the racial hatred that led to the killings. That is a big mistake, Cherry argues. Forgiveness isn’t magic. We can forgive and still be angry, there can be good reasons not to forgive, and forgiving a wrong without tackling its roots solves nothing. Examining how forgiveness can go wrong in families, between friends, at work, and in the media, politics, and beyond, Cherry addresses forgiveness and race, canceling versus forgiving, self-forgiveness, and more. She takes the burden of forgiveness off those who have been wronged and offers guidance both to those deciding whether and how to forgive and those seeking forgiveness. By showing us how to do forgiveness better, Failures of Forgiveness promises to transform how we deal with wrongdoing in our lives, opening a new path to true healing and reconciliation. (shrink)

The paper argues that in our usage of moral language we relate three concepts: guilt, forgiveness, and reconciliation. This assumes that we can distinguish between external actions and internal executions, because guilt as well as forgiveness and reconciliation are realities that first affect our inner humanity. When a relationship has been damaged by culpable actions (sometimes even by both sides), forgiveness is the precondition of reconciliation. As long as people accuse each other, there can be no talk (...) of true reconciliation. Although these are attitudes, that is, inner engagements, reconciliation also becomes outwardly recognizable as peace. However, these relationships can only be explained well in the connections of individual persons to each other. When political communities confront each other, our moral sense becomes fuzzy, because it is not so easy to say how such collectives (e.g., peoples) are to be determined in their inside and outside. Who can and may forgive, if other persons have become victims of culpable actions, but cannot forgive themselves? Here, then, the difficulty of individuality and collectivity is added. The essay pleads for maintaining the conceptual conjunction between individual and collective forgiveness. However, this should not be done at the price of a complete socio-ontological dissolution of collectives. Therefore, one must also be cautious about rash universalistic appropriation of the Other or the other group, because this is usually accompanied by a failure to recognize and endure the selfhood of the Other. Before it comes to a “false” reconciliation in this way, it is better to at least recognize each other – also in diversity. This should also be reflected in the rules of conflict, which must above all be oriented toward ensuring that conflicts are not carried out in such a way that the manner in which the conflict is carried out makes reconciliation impossible. But in both collective and individual reconciliation, the person does not have the outcome of the process entirely in his or her own hands. Reconciliation is not a technique, but a relational event that is carried out in an “open space.”. (shrink)

Are proneness to forgive, optimism and gratitude associated with life satisfaction? The main aim of the current study was to examine whether and how life satisfaction is related to propensity to forgive one's transgressor. Additionally, it also explored the relationship between life satisfaction and other chosen psychological variables, such as optimism and gratitude. The study involved 338 persons between 16 and 83 years of age. For the measurement of psychological variables the following research tools were used: Satisfaction With Life Scale, (...) Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory, Gratitude Questionnaire, and Learned Optimism Test. Among the study participants satisfaction with life was positively correlated with the conviction about a permanent and ubiquitous nature of positive events, optimism and gratitude. The study also observed a negative correlation between satisfaction with life, the motivation for revenge and avoidance motivation, and the perception of a permanent and ubiquitous nature of adverse events. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of forgiveness has mainly focused on cases in which victims and offenders are known to each other. But it commonly happens that a victim brings an offender under a definite description but does not know to which individual this applies. I explore some of the conceptual and moral issues raised by the phenomenon of forgiveness in circumstances in which identification is incomplete, tentative or even mistaken. Among the conclusions reached are that correct and precise identification of (...) the offending individual is not essential for forgiveness to take place; that an offender can, under certain strict conditions, be said to be forgiven by proxy where the victim has misidentified the offender and ‘forgiven’ the wrong person; and that proxy forgiveness of this sort is not subject to the objections commonly levelled against ‘proxy’ or ‘third-party forgiveness.’. (shrink)

Forgiveness is a highly personal act. Only a moral agent can forgive and the only proper object of forgiveness is a moral agent. One trait that is particularly characteristic of moral agents is selfevaluation. It is precisely this activity that is involved in a genuine act of forgiveness. According to Bishop Butler and several other contemporary philosophers, forgiveness involves foreswearing one’s resentment towards another person. Successful forgiveness, for these accounts, essentially involves overcoming oneself. An important (...) part of this self-overcoming involves dissolving resentment. I argue that disowning resentment is a key step along the way towards successful forgiveness. In order to dissolve resentment, an individual must engage in self-reflection and selfevaluation. Frankfurt’s hierarchical theory of intentional agency provides a helpful conceptual apparatus for analyzing the act of forgiveness. (shrink)

Many theorists have found the notion of forgiveness to be paradoxical, for it is thought that only the blameworthy can be appropriately forgiven but that the blameworthy are appropriately blamed not forgiven. Some have appealed to the notion of repentance to resolve this tension. But others have objected that such a response is explanatorily inadequate in the sense that it merely stipulates and names a solution leaving the transformative power of repentance unexplained. Worse still, others have objected that such (...) a response cannot succeed because no amount of repentance can render the blameworthy not blameworthy. I argue that this latter objection is based on a mistaken assumption, the acknowledgement of which has the power to resolve the paradox in a way that meets the explanatory adequacy challenge, and, more generally, has significant implications with which any full theory of forgiveness must engage. (shrink)

Many philosophers analyzing standing to blame have argued that a hypocrite can lack standing to blame someone even if what that person did is blameworthy, and that standingless, hypocritical blame is _pro tanto_ morally wrongful. Philosophers have yet to address the issue of standing to forgive. In this article, I defend two main claims. I argue first that _if_ these two claims about blame are true, _then_ so are the two corresponding claims about forgiveness: a hypocritical forgiver can lack (...) standing to forgive someone for an act even if there are reasons to hold that this act is forgivable, and standingless, hypocritical forgiveness is _pro tanto_ morally wrongful. I then argue, separately, that these two claims about forgiveness _are_ true. (shrink)

In this paper, the principal objections to unconditional forgiveness are canvassed, primarily that it fails to take wrongdoing seriously enough, and that it displays a lack of self-respect. It is argued that these objections stem from a mistaken understanding of what forgiveness actually involves, including the erroneous view that forgiveness involves some degree of condoning of the offence, and is incompatible with blaming the offender or punishing him. Two positive reasons for endorsing unconditional forgiveness are considered: (...) respect for persons and human solidarity; and it is argued that the latter provides more plausible grounds for it than the former. (shrink)

This chapter reviews and evaluates the most common strategies for defending the view that, whatever other reasons might support forgiving in a particular case, forgiveness is defective when the person purporting to forgive lacks standing. Various arguments in favor of limiting standing are used in order to clarify what standing might be. In the end, I endorse an interpretation of standing as the possession of a normative power, which allows for the possibility of third-party forgiveness in some circumstances.

Francis J. Ambrosiso begins with sentence that is either self-effacing or alarming “Truly, I do not know why I must write this book, so I must begin by asking for your forgiveness for having done son without knowing why and therefore, necessarily, without knowing how.” An Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, Ambrosio believes “the difference the book makes is this: it traces and remarks in the texts of Dante and Derrida two episodes in the history of (...) class='Hi'>forgiveness” (p. xi). (shrink)

Court D. Lewis, author of Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness, presents a rights-based theory of ethics grounded in eirenéism, a needs-based theory of rights (inspired by Nicholas Wolterstorff) that seeks peaceful flourishing for all moral agents. This approach creates a moral relationship between victims and wrongdoers such that wrongdoers owe victims compensatory obligations. However, one further result is that wrongdoers may be owed forgiveness by victims. This leads to the “repugnant implication” that victims may be wrongdoers who (...) do not forgive. Author Lewis addresses the “repugnant implication” by showing that victims are obligated to work toward forgiveness, if not forgiveness itself. Critic Gregory L. Bock argues that victims are not the only ones who can forgive, that the personal dimensions of forgiveness are overlooked, and that the force of the “repugnancy implication” may be questioned. Instead of rights-based eirenéism, Bock supports a virtue ethics framework. Instead of rights-based eirenéism, Bock encourages virtue ethics. Critic David Boersema raises questions about the binding nature of relationships, the dependency of flourishing upon forgiveness, and the nature of needs or rights. Boersema also questions the wisdom of a rights-based approach to forgiveness. Critic Jennifer Kling asks whether a rights-based approach is necessary to ground obligations to meet the needs of others: why not an ethics of care? If a rights-based approach is taken, perhaps a wrongdoer is obligated to not make forgiveness a life good. By disengaging this obligation, we avoid constraining a victim’s work toward forgiveness, especially when the wrongdoing is oppressive. Author Lewis responds to these objections. (shrink)

To consider that the nature of forgiveness consists in its healing effects on the forgiver overlooks the distinction between the nature of forgiveness and the question about its desirable effects. What I suggest is that the curing effect of forgiveness is an indirectly intended consequence of forgiveness. To forgive mywrongdoer only because this is the way to gain inner peace or to “heal my soul” shows a somewhat utilitarian view on forgiveness. By forgiving the wrongdoer, (...) thevictim extends an attitude of authentic goodwill toward the offender as a person. However, the one who forgives does not extend this attitude toward the action theoffender performed. We can strongly oppose wrong behavior without opposing wrongdoers as persons. (shrink)

To consider that the nature of forgiveness consists in its healing effects on the forgiver overlooks the distinction between the nature of forgiveness and the question about its desirable effects. What I suggest is that the curing effect of forgiveness is an indirectly intended consequence of forgiveness. To forgive mywrongdoer only because this is the way to gain inner peace or to “heal my soul” shows a somewhat utilitarian view on forgiveness. By forgiving the wrongdoer, (...) thevictim extends an attitude of authentic goodwill toward the offender as a person. However, the one who forgives does not extend this attitude toward the action theoffender performed. We can strongly oppose wrong behavior without opposing wrongdoers as persons. (shrink)

As Japan marks the 75th anniversary of World War II in 2020, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not offer a fresh apology and maintained that future generations should not have to keep apologizing for past mistakes. This paper uses the unresolved war issue of the military comfort women system as a context to discuss what it means for political apologies to be more than mere political gestures founded on political interests and discusses what it takes to facilitate forgiveness. It (...) will examine the features of a repentant wrongdoer who deserves forgiveness based on how one relates to one’s past wrongdoing in order to distinguish political apologies that are genuine from those that are mere gestures aimed at hasty reconciliation. This will be discussed through the works of Jacques Derrida and Vladimir Jankélévitch. Next, through Jankélévitch’s and Paul Ricoeur’s ideas of forgiveness, it will be discussed how matters of justice and forgiveness should be understood as well as how the history of past wrongs and injustice is necessary for a genuine apology and makes forgiveness possible. It is also a moral responsibility for both perpetrators and victims to remember history in order to achieve personal forgiveness as well as begin social and political reconciliation. (shrink)

This article presents the findings of research conducted on ‘forgiveness’ as a spiritual construct, religious survival strategy and meaning-giving tool during incarceration. The research was conducted with 30 men serving long-term sentences in Zonderwater, a correctional centre outside Pretoria, South Africa. A review of literature showed that forgiveness has mainly been seen as something the perpetrator owed the victim and that asking for and granting forgiveness were religious imperatives. However, this study shows that offenders, in the troubled (...) space of incarceration, survived by putting themselves in control of forgiveness. They found peace of mind by granting forgiveness to those who caused them to be incarcerated, whilst at the same time taking responsibility for their own actions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. Applying an interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology, the collected data were analysed and the following themes were identified: forgiving those who transgressed against me; the role of politics in forgiveness; God’s role in forgiveness; and the effects of forgiveness on the self.Contribution: This article contributes to an understanding of the construction of forgiveness as experienced by offenders, independent from the traditional victim-offender relations. Living in a troubled, unforgiving space, these men are expected to practice forgiveness by set standards. From their shared narratives, it is illustrated that their spiritual navigation with this phenomenon is not a chronological, time dependent process, but a multi-dimensional, personal journey to self-discovery. (shrink)

Several philosophers who argue that forgiveness is an important virtue also wish to maintain the moral value of retributive emotions that forgiveness is meant to overcome. As such, these accounts explicate forgiveness as an Aristotelian mean between too much resentment and too little resentment. I argue that such an account ends up making forgiveness superfluous: it turns out that the forgiving person is not praised for a greater willingness to let go of her resentment, but rather (...) for her fairness or good judgment. I conclude by arguing that the virtue of fair-mindedness is more compatible with maintaining the value of the retributive emotions than the virtue of forgiveness. (shrink)

Contemporary moral philosophy rightly gives an important place not only to theories of right action, but to the nature and value of our interpersonal moral attitudes, including such reactions as resentment, admiration and forgiveness. Whilst these concerns have always been of interest to theologians and psychologists, their philosophical importance partly derives from wider concerns about the nature of persons. The recent resurgence, for instance, of retributivist theories of punishment, which are finding favour among many philosophical writers, largely bases itself (...) on the idea that a range of ‘participant reactive attitudes’ is both socially indispensable and morally legitimate. In this web of interpersonal responses is forgiveness, which cannot properly be examined without discussion of other responses such as indignation, anger and even hatred. (shrink)

We introduce what we call the Emergent Model of forgiving, which is a process-based relational model conceptualizing forgiving as moral and normative repair in the wake of grave wrongs. In cases of grave wrongs, which shatter the victim’s life, the Classical Model of transactional forgiveness falls short of illuminating how genuine forgiveness can be achieved. In a climate of persistent threat and distrust, expressions of remorse, rituals and gestures of apology, and acts of reparation are unable to secure (...) the moral confidence and trust required for moral repair, much less for forgiveness. Without the rudiments of a shared moral world — a world in which, at the very least, the survivor’s violation can be collectively recognized as a violation, and her moral status and authority collectively acknowledged and respected — expressions of remorse, gestures and rituals of apology, or promises of compensation have no authority as meaningful communicative acts with reparative significance. Accordingly, we argue that repair in the wake of traumatic violence involves ‘world-building,’ which supports the ability of survivors to move from despair to hope, from radical and disabling distrust to trust and engagement, and thus from impotence to effective agency. Our Emergent Model treats forgiveness as a slowly developing outcome of a series of changes in a person’s relationship to the trauma and its aftermath, in which moral agency is regained. We argue that forgiveness after grave wrongs and world-shattering harm, when it occurs, emerges from other phenomena, such as cohabitation within a community, gestures of reconciliation, working on shared projects, the developing of trust. On this view, forgiveness is an emergent phenomenon; it entails taking and exercising normative power—coming to claim one’s own moral authority in relation to oneself, one’s assailant, and one’s community. The processes that ultimately constitute forgiving are part and parcel of normative repair more broadly construed. (shrink)

Dissertation Summary—Mark Taylor My dissertation explores forgiveness and revenge within a narrative conception of human lives. In Chapter One, I lay out an account of human life stories and argue for its advantages in understanding the value of redemption. In particular, I suggest that the goods we care about in our lives depend on their integration into the way we see ourselves as persons who exist through time. Forgiveness and revenge can recontextualize moments from our past and infuse (...) them with a new meaning. Building on Peter Goldie’s work, I identify unity, purpose, direction, and truth as qualities of life stories toward which forgiveness contributes. I examine some of the psychological literature to understand the role our internal narrative plays in making sense of the world (and the lack of sense when that narrative fails). I conclude by defending against a well-known objection from Galen Strawson against narrative analysis. In Chapter Two I take up a qualified defense of the rationality of revenge. My motivation in doing so is a link in the logic between revenge and forgiveness. If revenge is always straightforwardly irrational, forgiveness is undermined. My strategy to defend revenge is to give a taxonomy characterizing it and then pick out its most justifiable form. I argue that revenge at its best is a form of caring about one’s past, or the past of a loved one. I defend this form of revenge against various objections, especially that it is pointless or involves a rational error about one’s own untouchable value as a person. I argue that the point of revenge is to ‘change the ending’ of the offender and victim’s relationship. I also argue that focus on objective value misses the point: what is threatened is not the victim’s objective value as a person, but the value of a life story worth having. In Chapter Three I lay out my own account of forgiveness. I first provide several characteristic features of forgiveness, and then describe two camps in the literature that disagree about whether forgiveness is primarily a private matter of the heart or a public matter of treatment. I then argue for what I call ‘inaugurated forgiveness’ as a synthesis between these emotional and behavioral views. I suggest that forgiveness begins with a commitment toward the offender, but takes time to come to its emotional culmination. The nature of that commitment is a second-order endorsement of the desires of love over the desires of resentment. I also highlight the importance of hope as the operative forward-looking virtue rather than trust. Forgiveness involves committing oneself to openness to eventual redemption and reconciliation, but does not require the unjustified trust that the offender can be redeemed or reconciled at the moment of forgiveness. In Chapter Four I examine the underlying reasons for forgiving and avenging. I argue that personal reasons have a legitimate role to play in these practices, rather than merely impersonal considerations. Impersonal reasons, such as generic respect for personhood, or desert, play a dominant role in the literature where a major concern is to find a justification of forgiveness within a moral justice conception. Personal reasons are tied to the basic cares and commitments of a life, and these projects are what the life is about as a whole. There is thus an important connection between the narrative direction of a life and its ground projects. Forgiving for personal reasons is a way of giving appropriate weight to the particular life one has. I argue that personal reasons give us a way of understanding how forgiveness is elective and generous. I conclude by using this analysis to briefly outline some strategies for arguing for forgiveness over revenge. For example, I suggest that arguments against revenge need to begin from the victim’s ground projects, such as each person’s commitment to seeing the world truly, or the desire for one’s community to flourish; I suggest that forgiveness usually allows better epistemic access, and better protects one’s intimates. (shrink)

Forgiveness has traditionally been characterized an affective response to a wrongdoing, i.e. a psychological process that involves ridding oneself of resentment or other negative reactive attitudes. In contrast to the prevailing model, this paper advocates for the emerging position that forgiveness should be understood as a normative power akin to a promise. In particular, I argue that forgiveness involves surrendering the right to discount the interests of a perpetrator (a special permission the victim acquires in virtue of (...) having been wronged). I argue that this model fits and/or explains important features of forgiveness, such as the idea that forgiveness is a personal response to a blameworthy wrong, that forgiveness re-establishes a relation of equality, and that forgiveness is ‘normatively significant’. I further develop the position by showing how it can provide a unified case of paradigmatic forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and third-party forgiveness—this explanatory power distinguishes the view from previous articulations of the idea that forgiveness is a normative power. The final section further explores these distinctions by delimiting the scope of forgiveness to exclude powers related to apologies, compensation, or ‘redemption’. (shrink)

The claims of Mt. 5:17—20 are often taken to provide the interpretive key to the ethical claims of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The theological issue at stake here is the determinative relation between Christ's person and work and his teaching. This article explores the vital role played by the identity of Christ as the `fulfiller of the law' and `bringer of the Kingdom' in the exegesis of the Sermon offered by Eduard Thurneysen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in (...) their respective works Die Bergpredigt (1936) and Nachfolge (1937). Both readings assert that the force and nature of the claims of the Sermon cannot be understood aright apart from constant attention to the difference made by the fact that Christ is the preacher. Out of this shared conviction, both theologians advance a reading of the Sermon as `the gospel itself' in the light of the eschatological identity of Jesus. Such readings of the Sermon, arising amidst the German Kirchenkampf of the 1930s, represent substantial contributions to the `responsible interpretation' of the Barmen Declaration (1934) whose second article states that, `As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life.'. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explain what is involved in the exercise of the Judaeo-Christian virtue of forgiveness, and in so doing to lay bare the structure of human (rather than Divine) forgiveness. It argues that it is not possible, through some act of will, to forgive a person for the wrongs that have been done to one, but shows nonetheless that forgiving is a task and that the disposition to undertake this task in the appropriate (...) circumstances may properly be regarded as a virtue. However, to be too willing to undertake this task, or to undertake it in inappropriate circumstances, is a vice since it is indicative of diminished self-respect. Success in the task of forgiving falls beyond our full rational control and depends very largely on a capacity to empathise and to feel an appropriate degree of compassion. Whether or not we are able to do so and sustain this itself depends on certain social contingencies. (shrink)

The epistemic relevance of forgiveness has been neglected by both the discussion of forgiveness in moral psychology and by social epistemology generally. Moral psychology fails to account for the forgiveness of epistemic wrongs and for the way that wrongs in general have epistemic implications. Social epistemology, for its part, neglects the way that epistemic trust is not only conferred but repaired. In this essay, I show that the repair of epistemic trust through forgiveness is necessary to (...) the economy of knowledge for fallible persons like us. Despite the fact that forgiveness is never included on lists of important intellectual virtues or epistemic activities, it is vital to our lives as social knowers. Likewise, an account of forgiveness that neglects its epistemic dimension is importantly incomplete. (shrink)

We have all been victims of wrongdoing. Forgiving that wrongdoing is one of the staples of current pop psychology dogma; it is seen as a universal prescription for moral and mental health in the self-help and recovery section of bookstores. At the same time, personal vindictiveness as a rule is seen as irrational and immoral. In many ways, our thinking on these issues is deeply inconsistent; we value forgiveness yet at the same time now use victim-impact statements to argue (...) for harsher penalties for criminals. Do we have a right to hate others for what they have done to us? Providing a nuanced approach to a proper understanding of the place of our strongest emotions in moral, political, and personal life, and using lucid, easily understood prose, this volume is a classic example of philosophical thinking applied to a thorny, everyday problem. (shrink)

(In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Psychology of Forgiveness, edited by Glen Pettigrove and Robert Enright) This chapter discusses forgiveness conceived as primarily a volitional commitment, rather than an emotional transformation. As a commitment, forgiveness is distal, involving moral agency over time, and can take the form of a speech act or a chosen attitude. The purpose can be a commitment to repair or restore relationships with wrongdoers for their sake or the sake of the relationship, (...) usually by forswearing one’s hostile attitudes toward a particular wrongdoing; the commitment may also be to oneself for one’s own sake, to be a person with a virtue of forgivingness. It can be incident-specific, that is, a response to a particular occasion of harm, or a forward-looking disposition, an aim to cultivate the habit of being a forgiving person in advance. The enabling conditions of forgivingness as a virtue may be more basic master virtues including integrity and humility, motivations that also underpin commitments to be unforgiving, so this chapter concludes with some careful consideration of the ethics of unforgivingness to others, and the commitment to be unforgiving of oneself. (shrink)

This paper argues that the moral value of unconditional forgiveness is more complicated and constrained than it is often taken to be. When we unconditionally forgive, we engage with someone in a way that doesn’t take seriously their perspective about the meanings and values at stake in our relations with them. Other things being equal, this is problematic; it is normatively condescending, belittling the place of the other person’s moral agency in our relations with them. This doesn’t mean that (...) unconditional forgiveness is always bad or impermissible. It does, though, complicate how we should think about its moral value. (shrink)