Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is tasked with facing the hundred-year history of Indian Residential Schools. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is frequently invoked in relation to the Canadian TRC, perhaps because this is one of the few TRCs worldwide that Canadians know. Whilst the South African TRC is mainly applauded as an international success, I argue that loose analogizing is often more emotive than concise. Whilst much indeed can be drawn from the South African (...) experience, it is important to specify the Canada–South Africa analogy. In this article, I do so by focussing on the institutional approach to truth and how this relates to issues of settler/White denial. The South African experience teaches that narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence. Consequently, I argue that Indigenous–settler reconciliation requires a broad truth that locates residential schools on a continuum of violence, linking extraordinary abuses with structural injustices and historic colonization with lived relationships. (shrink)

Particular conceptions of reconciliation vary across a number of dimensions. As section 1 explains, the kind of relationship at issue in a specific context affects the type of improvement in relations that might be necessary in order to qualify as reconciliation. Reconciliation is widely taken to be a scalar concept. Section 2 discusses the spectrum of intensity along which kinds of improvement in relationships fall, and indicates why, in particular contexts, theorists often disagree about the point along (...) this spectrum that is morally or politically most significant. Section 3 provides an overview of the processes commonly cited as contributing to reconciliation. These processes are often controversial; those praised by some commentators as appropriate and constructive responses to past conflict are dismissed by others as undermining the moral or political conditions for just and peaceful relations. Section 4 concentrates on the relationship between reconciliation and justice. While some see these values as compatible and mutually supporting, others argue that, especially in the immediate wake of conflict, parties must often choose between reconciliation and justice. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence experts are currently divided into “presentist” and “futurist” factions that call for attention to near-term and long-term AI, respectively. This paper argues that the presentist–futurist dispute is not the best focus of attention. Instead, the paper proposes a reconciliation between the two factions based on a mutual interest in AI. The paper further proposes realignment to two new factions: an “intellectualist” faction that seeks to develop AI for intellectual reasons and a “societalist faction” that seeks to develop (...) AI for the benefit of society. The paper argues in favor of societalism and offers three means of concurrently addressing societal impacts from near-term and long-term AI: advancing societalist social norms, thereby increasing the portion of AI researchers who seek to benefit society; technical research on how to make any AI more beneficial to society; and policy to improve the societal benefits of all AI. In practice, it will often be advantageous to emphasize near-term AI due to the greater interest in near-term AI among AI and policy communities alike. However, presentist and futurist societalists alike can benefit from each others’ advocacy for attention to the societal impacts of AI. The reconciliation between the presentist and futurist factions can improve both near-term and long-term societal impacts of AI. (shrink)

'Political reconciliation' refers to processes for establishing right relations between groups that are emerging from a history coloured by violent relations. However, dominant Western, euro-descendent philosophies of political reconciliation rarely focus on ecological forms of harm or consider practices of ecological violence as constitutive of the violent relations that reconciliation hopes to repair. This article argues that the exclusion of ecological dimensions of harm from dominant Western models of political reconciliation is one way of understanding Indigenous (...) claims of dissatisfaction with such reconciliation projects. This article analyses and contextualises these claims of dissatisfaction by focusing on how dominant Western, euro-descendent models of reconciliation in the North American context import settler-colonial commitments that obscure the primacy of ecological violence in settler-Indigenous land-based conflicts. Furthermore, this article posits that settler-colonial commitments in reconciliation models pose an obstacle to deeper forms of reconciliation, partly because these models uphold dominant euro-descendent cosmologies and conceptions of land over and above Indigenous ones. Finally, this article suggests that that the possibility of deep reconciliation exists, and requires engaging with Indigenous philosophies that place land and relations to land at the centre of right relations, thus working toward decolonising settler-colonial-infused forms of reconciliation. (shrink)

Adherents to reconciliation, restorative justice, and related approaches to dealing with social conflict are well known for seeking to minimize punishment, in favor of offenders hearing out victims, making an apology, and effecting compensation for wrongful harm as well as victims forgiving offenders and accepting their reintegration into society. In contrast, I maintain that social reconciliation and similar concepts in fact characteristically require punishment but do not require forgiveness. I argue that a reconciliatory response to crime that includes (...) punitive disavowal but not necessarily forgiveness is supported by an analogy with resolving two-person conflict and by relational facets of human dignity. I also specify a novel account of the type of penalty that is justified by reconciliation, namely, burdensome labor that is likely to foster moral reform on the part of wrongdoers and to compensate their victims, which would serve neither retributive nor deterrent functions. I illustrate this conception of punishment in contexts that include having cheated on an exam at a university, engaged in criminal behavior such as robbery, and committed atrocities during large-scale social conflict. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to answer the following cluster of questions: What would a characteristically African, and specifically relational, conception of a criminal trial’s final end look like? What would the Afro-relational approach prescribe for sentencing? Would its implications for this matter forcefully rival the kinds of penalties that judges in South Africa and similar jurisdictions typically mete out? After pointing out how the southern African ethic of ubuntu is well understood as a relational ethic, I draw out of (...) it a certain conception of reconciliation that I advance as a strong candidate for being the proper final end of a criminal trial. I argue that, far from requiring forgiveness, seeking reconciliation can provide strong reason to punish offenders. Specifically, a reconciliatory sentence is one that roughly has offenders reform their characters and compensate their victims in ways the offenders find burdensome, thereby disavowing the crime and tending to foster cooperation and mutual aid. I argue that this novel account of punishment is a prima facie attractive alternative to more familiar retributive and deterrence rationales, and that it entails that widespread practices such as imprisonment and mandatory minimum sentences are unjust. (shrink)

This article intends to re-examine Rousseau’s educational theory in the context of the nature/culture opposition. In contemporary discussions on the nature/culture dualism, it has been often stated that his educational theory is based on the assumption that a child is a natural being. However, the author demonstrates that Rousseau was instead committed to a duality of human nature; this influences his educational theory. In his model, human nature consists of a natural and a social side; these two parts are in (...) conflict which seems unsolvable due to the present state of society. A child is regarded as a figure which is open to the future reconciliation of nature and culture. Thus, Rousseau’s model of education is presented not from the standpoint of the present state of society, but from the standpoint of an ideal state which might be built in the future. In addition, the examination of human duality allows one to show that Rousseau’s ideas on civil and private education are closely interrelated. (shrink)

Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice presents fifteen reflections upon justice twenty years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa introduced a new paradigm for political reconciliation in settler and post-colonial societies. The volume considers processes of political reconciliation, appraising the results of South Africa’s Commission, of the recently concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and of the on-going process of the Waitangi Tribunal of Aotearoa New Zealand. Contributors discuss the separate politics of (...) Indigenous resurgence, linguistic justice, environmental justice and law. Further contributors present a theoretical symposium focused on The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice, authored by Colleen Murphy, who provides a response to their comments. Indigenous and non-indigenous voices from four regions of the world are represented in this critical assessment of the prospects for political reconciliation, for transitional justice and for alternative, nascent conceptions of just politics. Radically challenging assumptions concerning sovereignty and just process in the current context of settler-colonial states, Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice will be of great interest to scholars of Ethics, Indigenous Studies, Transitional Justice and International Relations more broadly. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Global Ethics, with one addition from The Round Table.”. (shrink)

It may be nearly impossible to use standard principles to make a decision about a complex ethical case. The best decision, say virtue ethicists in the Aristotelian tradition, is often one that is made by a person of good character who knows the salient facts of the case and can frame the situation appropriately. In this respect ethical decisions and strategic decisions are similar. Rationality plays a role in good ethical decision-making, but virtue ethicists emphasize the importance of intuitions and (...) emotions as well.Virtue ethics suggests a reconciliation of the factual and the normative. Virtues may explain as well as justify actions. The same is true of other psychological states and events. That psychological terms have normative implications does not render them useless in explanation. As Aristotle does not distinguish cleanly between the normative and empirical, so many moral philosophers today reject the is-ought dichotomy. They are prepared to learn from economists, psychologists, and other empirical scientists who offer information about the nature of the good life and of values. Social psychologists who study community or corporate culture suggest a close relationship between organizational and ethical features, much as Aristotle saw a close relationship between politics and ethics. We should infer from all this that in business ethics there is good reason for philosophers and organization scholars to work closely together. (shrink)

The European Rivers Network (ERN) calls for the 'reconciliation of citizens with their rivers and lakes', as a necessary step for freshwater protection and restoration of rivers. It co-ordinates annual river-bathing days with collective river jumps; upstream and downstream, across Europe, citizens simultaneously jump into rivers and lakes. But what is 'reconciliation with the river'? This paper analyses that concept as the acknowledging and restoring of distorted, marginalised or blocked capabilities, and, based on this analysis, critically discusses the (...) practical contribution which the ERN makes to 'reconciliation with the river'. (shrink)

The rhetoric of reconciliation is common in situations where traditional judicial responses to past wrongdoing are unavailable because of corruption, large numbers of offenders, or anxiety about the political consequences. But what constitutes reconciliation?

It may be nearly impossible to use standard principles to make a decision about a complex ethical case. The best decision, say virtue ethicists in the Aristotelian tradition, is often one that is made by a person of good character who knows the salient facts of the case and can frame the situation appropriately. In this respect ethical decisions and strategic decisions are similar. Rationality plays a role in good ethical decision-making, but virtue ethicists emphasize the importance of intuitions and (...) emotions as well.Virtue ethics suggests a reconciliation of the factual and the normative. Virtues may explain as well as justify actions. The same is true of other psychological states and events. That psychological terms have normative implications does not render them useless in explanation. As Aristotle does not distinguish cleanly between the normative and empirical, so many moral philosophers today reject the is-ought dichotomy. They are prepared to learn from economists, psychologists, and other empirical scientists who offer information about the nature of the good life and of values. Social psychologists who study community or corporate culture suggest a close relationship between organizational and ethical features, much as Aristotle saw a close relationship between politics and ethics. We should infer from all this that in business ethics there is good reason for philosophers and organization scholars to work closely together. (shrink)

I argue that international criminal trials can contribute to political reconciliation by fostering the social conditions required for law’s efficacy.

ABSTRACTSince the release of the Final Report of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, many non-Indigenous Canadians, politicians, and educational and cultural institutions have embraced reconciliation. Yet, many Indigenous people in Canada remain skeptical. In this article, I examine six reasons Indigenous people may resist reconciliation. Reconciliation may aim to restore a relationship that never existed in the first place, and may limit an Indigenous future. Reconciliation may look more like adaptation than transformation. Reconciliation (...) may serve as a government project whose primary aim is to bolster state legitimacy. Reconciliation may reflect the desire, for settler-descendants, for expiation or a ‘move to innocence.’ Ultimately, reconciliation is about living together, which may be incompatible with more transformative political projects, such as decolonization. (shrink)

This book inquires into the role and effects of public apologies in international relations. It focuses on two major questions - why and when do states issue apologies for historic crimes and how and under what conditions are these apologies successful in remedying conflictive relationships? In recent years, we have witnessed an unseen popularity of apologies, particularly in the public sphere, with numerous politicians, managers and clergymen being eager to apologise and atone for the wrong-doings of their countries or institutions. (...) The pope, for instance, has apologized for the Inquisition, the United Nations have apologized for their idleness during the Rwandan civil war and US President Bill Clinton has apologized for slavery, to mention just a few examples. Public apologies, thus, are a new and highly interesting, while nevertheless still puzzling phenomenon, the precise role and meaning of which in international politics remains to be explored. This book sets out to do exactly this. Focusing in particular on state apologies, i.e. apologies which are given and/or demanded by states, it assembles twelve detailed empirical case studies which deal with the two questions raised above. In a first part, the case studies reconstruct the processes in which state representatives react to calls for public atonement by either issuing a public apology or refusing to do so. In a second part, the case studies explore the reactions to the apology (in cases where an apology was given) and evaluate signs for its success or failure. All case studies are based on a theoretical framework which is outlined in the introduction to the book and help develop tentative assumptions about the emergence and the effects of state apologies, drawing on different strands of literature, such as political science, philosophy, sociology or psychology. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of conflict reconciliation, international relations and transitional justice. (shrink)

This article examines the public significance of emotions, most specifically their role in constituting identity and community in the wake of political violence and trauma. It offers a conceptual engagement with processes of healing and reconciliation, showing that emotions are central to how societies experience and work through the legacy of catastrophe. In many instances, political actors deal with the legacy of trauma in restorative ways, by re-imposing the order that has been violated. Emotions can in this way be (...) directed by elites who are concerned with reinstating political stability and social control. Healing often becomes more about retribution and revenge, rather than a long-term project begetting peace, collaboration and emotional catharsis. The emotions triggered by trauma thus tend to perpetuate existing antagonisms, further entrenching the disingenuous perceptions of identity that may have created violence in the first place. Surveying this process, this article suggests that scholars of politics and reconciliation need to be more attentive to the role emotion plays in shaping particular forms of community. Doing so requires a systematic understanding not only of the feelings associated with first-hand experiences of trauma, but also of the manner in which these affective reactions can spread and generate collective emotions, thus producing new forms of antagonism. Addressing this challenge, the authors explore how a more conscious and active appreciation of the whole spectrum of emotions — not only anger and fear, for instance, but also empathy, compassion and wonder — may facilitate more lasting and ingenuous forms of social healing and reconciliation. (shrink)

Calls for justice and reconciliation in response to political catastrophes are widespread in contemporary world politics. What implications do these normative strivings have in relation to colonial injustice? Examining cases of colonial war, genocide, forced sexual labor, forcible incorporation, and dispossession, Lu demonstrates that international practices of justice and reconciliation have historically suffered from, and continue to reflect, colonial, statist and other structural biases. The continued reproduction of structural injustice and alienation in modern domestic, international and transnational orders (...) generates contemporary duties of redress. How should we think about the responsibility of contemporary agents to address colonial structural injustices and what implications follow for the transformation of international and transnational orders? Redressing the structural injustices implicated in or produced by colonial politics requires strategies of decolonization, decentering, and disalienation that go beyond interactional practices of justice and reconciliation, beyond victims and perpetrators, and beyond a statist world order. (shrink)

Reconciliation is a theologically-charged word with politically-charged implications. The work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) raised questions about reconciliation in a political context including the “parts” or “partners” of reconciliation: truth-telling, repentance, amnesty, reparations, and ultimately forgiveness and justice. This paper explores two questions. First, are theologians ready to give up an exclusive claim on reconciliation as a theological term or, at the very least, be agreeable to the fact that (...) class='Hi'>reconciliation might have political as well as theological meanings? Second, if reconciliation is granted unhindered access across the borders of theology and politics, what wisdom from the theological tradition has informed the political praxis of reconciliation, and has political praxis in any way challenged our theological understanding of reconciliation? As responses to these questions, the paper looks at the theological development of reconciliation, with particular attention to the New Testament and subsequent historical praxis. It then discusses points of connection where the theological development has informed political praxis. (shrink)

The critical theory tradition has, since its inception, sought to distinguish its perspective on society from more purely descriptive or normative approaches by maintaining that persons have a deep-seated interest in the free development of their personality—an interest that can only be realized in and through the rational organization of society, but which is systematically stymied by existing society. Yet it has struggled to specify this emancipatory interest in a way that avoids being either excessively utopian or overly accommodating to (...) existing society. Despite the fact that Hegel’s concept of reconciliation is normally thought to run aground on the latter horn of this dilemma, this book argues that reconciliation is the best available conceptualization of this emancipatory interest. It presents Hegel’s idea of freedom as something actualized in individuals’ lives through their becoming reconciled to how society shapes their roles, prospects, and sense of self; it presents reconciliation as being less a matter of philosophical cognition, and more of inclusion in a responsive, transparent political process. It then introduces the concept of reification, which—through its development in Marx and Lukács, through Horkheimer and Adorno—substantiates an increasingly cogent critique of reconciliation as something unachievable within the framework of modern society. Giving equal attention to psychoanalysis and legal theory, the second half critically appraises the writings of Rawls, Honneth, and Habermas as efforts to spell out what a concept of reconciliation more democratic and inclusive than Hegel, yet sensitive to the reifying effects of legal systems, might mean. (shrink)

The reconciliation between Juno and Jupiter at the end of the Aeneid forms the cap to the divine action of the poem. The scene is conventionally regarded as the resolution of the heavenly discord that has prevailed since the first book; in particular, it is normal to see here a definitive transformation of Juno, as she abandons, her enmity once and for all, committing herself wholeheartedly to the Roman cause. So G. Lieberg, for example: ‘I due emisferi di Giove (...) e di Giunone alia fine del poema si ricongiungono nella totalita del mondo divino, garante del glorioso futuro di Roma’ or W. Kiihn: ‘In einem strahlenden, vollen Schlussakkord endet das Gottergesprach.’. (shrink)

The Sámi have long desired a public process to examine and expose the Nordic states’ colonial, assimilationist practices and policies, past and present, toward the Sámi people. This article considers the truth and reconciliation process in Finland, assessing it in light of recent legislative and other measures. Employing settler colonial theory, it argues that reconciliation, although seemingly progressive, signifies a continuation of colonialism unless the state terminates its current approach of overlooking Sámi rights. The article concludes with a (...) discussion of structural reconciliation and justice and considers some concrete measures for structural change in order for the reconciliation process to be valid and successful in Finland. (shrink)

This article is about the relationship between business and ethics in academic research. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the status of the separation and the integration theses. In the course of this article, I defend the claim that neither separation nor integration is entirely accurate; indeed they are both potentially confusing to our audience. A strategy of reconciliation of normative and descriptive approaches is proposed. The reconciliation project does not entail synthesizing or dividing prescriptive and (...) empirical approaches, but rather respecting the identity of both inquiries, while recognizing the limitations they place on each other. The research agenda of the reconciliation project is discussed. (shrink)

Cet article examine quelques idées concernant ce que j’appelle une éthique de la mémoire publique. Plus exactement, il considère comment les citoyens devraient apprendre à se souvenir du mal politique commis et subi dans des sociétés marquées par les circonstances de la réconciliation, dans lesquelles la stabilité politique et les pratiques démocratiques sont mises en péril par des souvenirs collectifs qui alimentent l’antipathie mutuelle et le ressentiment entre les citoyens d’un même État. Comment des communautés démocratiques fonctionnelles peuvent-elles être réparées (...) ou créées à nouveau lorsqu’elles ont été fracturées par des hostilités historiques ? Cet article examine un certain nombre de réponses possibles à cette question en utilisant une conception délibérative de ce qu’une communauté démocratique fonctionnelle devrait être. Cette conception s’incarne en gros dans deux normes démocratiques : l’impartialité et l’inclusion. C’est en référence à ces deux normes que l’article discute différentes tentatives actuelles de remplacer les anciennes histoires nationales, qui s’appuyaient sur les mythes civiques, par des histoires multiculturelles qui les refusent.This article examines some ideas about what I call the ethics of public memory. More exactly, it considers how citizens should learn to remember political evil done and endured in societies marked by the circumstances of reconciliation in which political stability and democratic practices are thwarted by collective memories that fuel mutual antipathy and resentment among citizens of a common state. How democratically functional national communities can be repaired or created anew when they have been fractured by historical enmities? The article examines a number of possible answers using a deliberative conception of what a functional democratic community should be. This conception is roughly embodied in two democratic norms : impartiality and inclusion. It is in reference to those two norms that the article discusses current attempts at replacing the old national histories, which relied on civic myths, by multicultural histories, which eschew them. (shrink)

Recently debates about the worth of “ideal theory” have directed attention to the functions that an account of a perfectly just society can serve. One function is that of “reconciliation”: learning that a seemingly undesirable feature of the social world would exist even in the perfectly just society can show us the value that it has in the present as well. John Rawls has emphasized reconciliation as among the roles of political philosophy. For instance, Rawls claims that his (...) theory of justice can reconcile us to the pluralism of liberal democracies. In this essay, I argue that Rawls’s political theory also can reconcile the inhabitants of liberal democratic societies to the fact that such societies may be cognitively confusing on account of their complexity. Then I contend that Rawls’s work offers valuable theoretical resources for analysing a society’s transparency or lack thereof. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to interrogate the concept of cultural genocide. The primary context examined is the Government of Canada's recent attempt at reconciliation through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Drawing on the work of Audra Simpson, Glen Sean Coulthard, Kyle Powys Whyte, Stephanie Lumsden, and Luana Ross, I argue that cultural genocide, like cultural rights, is depoliticized, thus limiting the political impact these concepts can invoke. Following Sylvia Wynter, I also argue that the aims of (...) “truth and reconciliation” can sometimes serve to resituate the power of a liberal multicultural settler state, rather than seek systemic changes that would properly address the present-day implications of the residential school system. Finally, I argue that genocide and culture need to be repoliticized in order to support Indigenous futurity and sovereignty. (shrink)

This article intervenes in the project of theorizing the politics of reconciliation and transitional justice with the suggestion that (a) more attention be paid to subjective experiences and discursive sensitivities affected/shaped by the trauma of historical violence and injustice, and that (b) the constitutive as well as potentially subversive working of these experiences and sensitivities be recognized. It focuses specifically on Paul Celan (1920?1970), a Jewish-Romanian-German poet and Holocaust survivor, proposing a reading of his work that connects aspects of (...) the poetic, the traumatic and the peripheral that are relevant to political theories of reconciliation and justice. Celan's work is shown to problematize the dominant understandings of communal temporality that are encoded in the reconciliatory transitional project. This temporality approximates a linear and progressive motion: the transitional community (a) leaves behind the legacies of the ?violent past? and (b) imagines (and moves towards) its future as an emancipative movement positioned beyond the constraints of the historical violence and injustice. In Celan's work, however, the traumatized subject's experience of temporality is understood metaphorically as an impossible passage. In contrast to the linear and progressive unfolding of the collective imaginary, the movement within a passage is repetitive, elliptical and, quite literally, aporetic (impassible). There is no guarantee of a successful passing through; instead, within the passage, Celan's traumatic and poetic subject encounters the abysmal. This basic contrast suggests that a critical theory of reconciliation should not only account for the fragility of human life in relation to historical violence, but respond to the constant proximity of violence within the reconciliatory project itself. (shrink)

Que la théorie de la « double vérité » n'a jamais été soutenue par les aristotéliciens radicaux du moyen âge est une certitude déjà acquise par les historiens. Le terme même d' « averroïstes » par lequel on les identifiait a été sérieusement mis en cause. Pourtant, il est évident que les maîtres és arts de Paris, dans la deuxième moitié du XIIIe siécle, ont éprouvé des difficultés considérables à mettre en harmonie les vérités de foi et les conclusions du (...) raisonnement philosophique. Comment se posait ce conflit et quelle voie de réconciliation ont-ils cherchée? Deux ouvrages récents nous donnent l'occasion de reprendre ce problème qui a fait déjà couler beaucoup d'encre dans l'historiographie du XXe siècle. Il s'agit de la monographie monumentale de M. Van Steenberghen sur Siger de Brabant et l'étude fondamentale de M.R. Hissette sur la condamnation de 1277. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article porte sur l’analyse des interrelations entre les pratiques non officielles du sulh, de la réconciliation, et le travail des cours de justice à partir d’enquêtes menées en Algérie et, subsidiairement, au Soudan. J’illustrerai en particulier l’idée que le sulh – action faisant bien souvent référence au ‘ûrf (conventions usuelles ou droit coutumier) ou encore à la loi coranique et aux jurisprudences musulmanes (malékite en particulier) – s’inscrit en continuité et en complément avec le travail judiciaire. Je propose (...) ici de réfléchir à la pluralité des acteurs, mais également aux dimensions spatiales et temporelles qui orientent l’ensemble du processus articulant pratiques non officielles de réconciliation et celles (officielles) des cours de justice. Nous avons en effet une pluralité de lieux – lieu du crime, lieux de la réconciliation, cours de justice – qui imprègnent et l’interprétation que l’on se fait de l’offense et le procès socio-légal (réconciliation/cours de justice) dans son ensemble. Je discuterai ainsi des conséquences pratiques et théoriques de cette articulation entre réconciliation (sulh) et processus judiciaire. (shrink)

Le statut des fidèles divorcés remariés est cause de malaise. Cet article se propose d’exposer la doctrine de l’Église catholique en ce domaine, de l’analyser et de faire apparaître les insatisfactions qu’elle suscite. Dans une seconde partie, il tente d’ouvrir une nouvelle voie. Celle-ci suppose la prise en considération de l’échec, dans la vie chrétienne. Elle déplace le moment où l’Église intervient, pour le situer non plus lors d’un second mariage, mais au moment de la faillite du premier. Elle propose (...) aux personnes en cause un accompagnement ecclésial, et le sacrement de réconciliation qui les rétablit dans la communion plénière avec l’Église. (shrink)

Traditionally, transitional justice has referred to that field of theoretical scholarship that proffers recuperative strategies for political societies divided by a history of violence. Through the establishment of truth commissions, public confessionals and reparative measures, transitional justice regimes have sought to establish restorative conditions that might help reconcile historical antagonists both to each other and to the trauma of their shared past. Because of some of the theoretical lapses in this scholarship some have turned recently to the field of radical (...) democratic and ‘new pluralist’ thought – and especially to agonistic literature – to foreground a theory of post-conflict reconciliation based not on the principles of the sublimation of difference, but rather the perpetual deferral of accord. This essay works both to underscore that effort, as well as to problematize it. Through unorthodox readings of Giorgio Agamben, Jean Améry and Sheldon Wolin, the essay argues that an emphasis on messianicity as the temporal mode of political repair is ultimately less productive for what I call an agonistics of reconciliation than a more nuanced approach to what Wolin calls ‘fugitive democracy’. Where the former is allied with a problematic politics of mutual respect, the latter affirms a more germane politics of abiding resentment. In the end, a startling conclusion is drawn from reading agonistic reconciliation through Wolin: democracy may be a political experience reserved for scenes of transitional justice alone. (shrink)

Thisarticle critically examines the normative, liberal assumptions that most frequently underlie scholarly, activist, and policy calls for reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rather than measuring how reconciliation is progressing, I suggest we ask ourselves whose reconciliation is being desired here: by whom, for whom, and for what? Which importantalternative questions remain unasked and which latent answers are ignored ordownplayed in the process? Particular attention is paid to the ways in which liberal reconciliation discourse tends to depoliticize (...) questions of justice. (shrink)

I discuss why one critical aspect of the process of political reconciliation involves the restoration of mutual respect for the rule of law and suggest that psychological research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) provides valuable resources for understanding how successfully to restore such mutual respect.

Nir Eisikovits argues in A Theory of Truces that most contemporary conflicts wind down in a much more piecemeal fashion than our theorizing about the morality of ending wars suggests. Pauses in violence are achieved by securing agreement on narrow questions. Moreover, rather than hoping to do away with violence, theorizing would do best, he writes, to take as its starting point the fact of warfare as part of the human condition. Eisikovits aims to articulate the features of truce thinking, (...) a framework that is more descriptively accurate and normatively useful in navigating contemporary conflicts and promoting reconciliation. After summarizing his view, I argue that Eisikovits’ explanation of the contribution of truces to political reconciliation is too narrow; contrary to what he claims, truces can make an important contribution to the rule of law. I also challenge Eisikovits’ characterization of the first feature of truce thinking. I argue that while there is an important present focus on immediate benefits from temporary measures, the future looms much larger than Eisikovits recognizes. Truces matter not only for what they make possible now, but also for their ramifications for prospects for future peace. These ramifications go beyond creating conditions for hope or optimism. (shrink)

This essay argues that the overuse of the idiom of forgiveness has distorted our understanding of the nature and requirements of political reconciliation, and proposes its supplementation by a notion of grace. This is a mode of response to wrongs that is less hedged around by conventions and conditions, and grace complements forgiveness in contexts in which the latter is inappropriate; it is also more serviceable for maintaining inter-community harmony in the long term. Following a detailed analysis of grace (...) in the political environment, the paper concludes by tracing a concept of grace in the Sermon on the Mount. (shrink)

In A Moral Theory of Political Reconilication, Colleen Murphy brings much-needed clarity to debates over political reconciliation by setting out plausible desiderata for a satisfactory theory. She responds to these desiderata by introducing three normative frameworks which, taken together, measure reconciliation: the rule of law, trust and trust responsiveness, and support for political capabilities. In my remarks, I raise two concerns about the relationships among these normative frameworks, and the extent to which they are emblematic of political (...) class='Hi'>reconciliation, specifically, rather than political health more generally. (shrink)

“A Common Word Between Us,” an open letter from Muslim scholars to Christian leaders, is the most developed effort at Muslim-Christian reconciliation to date. Endorsed by well-known Muslim scholars from diverse sects and backgrounds, the letter emphasizes the central role of love of God and the Golden Rule in both religions and cites the catastrophic consequences of conflict. The signatories frame a norm of interreligious covenant for constructive collaborations, present their argument as an authoritative Islamic position, and effectively reject (...) the clash-of-civilizations narrative. Using game-theory models to articulate strategic challenges facing interreligious initiatives, this essay argues that a norm of interreligious covenant can potentially produce successful collective action in situations resembling both coordination and prisoner's dilemma games, depending on the success of norm entrepreneurship. (shrink)

Reconciliation and the Technics of Healing Content Type Journal Article Pages 235-237 DOI 10.1007/s11673-011-9318-y Authors Paul A. Komesaroff, Monash Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia Elizabeth Kath, Global Cities Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia Paul James, Global Cities Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529 Journal Volume Volume 8 Journal Issue Volume 8, Number 3.

Abstract: This article provides an account of the meaning of reparations and presents a brief explanation as to why African Americans believe they are entitled to reparations from the United States government. It then goes on to explain why reparations are necessary to address the distrust that is thought to exist between many African Americans and their government. Finally, it rejects the belief that reparations require reconciliation.

I propose a theory of punishment that is unfamiliar in the West, according to which the state normally ought to have offenders reform their characters and compensate their victims in ways the offenders find burdensome, thereby disavowing the crime and tending to foster improved relationships between offenders, their victims, and the broader society. I begin by indicating how this theory draws on under-appreciated ideas about reconciliation from the Global South, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, and is distinct from the protection (...) and retribution theories that have dominated the Western philosophy of punishment for about 250 years. Then I argue that it neatly avoids objections to them and is prima facie plausible in its own right. I conclude that this reconciliation theory of state punishment should be taken seriously by philosophers of law and policy makers. (shrink)

I would like to discuss two interconnected projects of reconciliation. The first is the reconciliation of indigenous and non-indigenous people (natives and newcomers) with each other in all our diversity. The second is the reconciliation of indigenous and non-indigenous people (human beings) with the living earth: that is, reconciliation with more-than-human living beings (plants, animals, ecosystems and the living earth as a whole). I will not discuss formal reconciliation procedures carried on by governments, courts and (...) commissions. Rather I focus on more basic, informal and transformative practices of reconciliation and the shared responsibilities we all have to engage in these two projects of reconciliation. This first section sets out the general argument and the following three sections explore aspects of it. (shrink)

In 1991, the Australian Commonwealth Parliament unanimously passed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991. This Act implemented a 10-year process that aimed to reconcile Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by the end of 2000. One of the highest priorities of the reconciliation process was to address Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage, including health, education and housing. However, despite this prioritising, both the Keating Government (1991–1996) and the Howard Government (1996–2000) failed to substantially improve socio-economic outcomes for Indigenous people over the (...) reconciliation decade. In this paper, I examine one of the most prominent socio-economic areas, that of Indigenous health. First, I discuss the appalling levels of Indigenous health throughout the reconciliation decade by analysing a number of health indicators, including life expectancy, infant mortality rate, standard mortality ratios, hospital rates and health Infrastructure. This analysis reveals significant and often worsening disadvantage in these health indicators. Second, I analyse a number of policies and programs concerning Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage that were developed by Commonwealth Governments in the 1990s. I argue that these policies and programs largely failed to address Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage. I also discuss alternative policies and programs that could reduce the significant levels of socio-economic disadvantage suffered by Indigenous people. (shrink)