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)

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)

:Resentment and other hard feelings may outlive their targets, and people often express a desire to overcome these feelings through forgiveness. While some see forgiving the dead as an important moral accomplishment, others deny that genuine forgiveness of the dead is coherent, let alone desirable or valuable. According to one line of thought, forgiveness is something we do for certain reasons, such as the offender’s expressed contrition. Given that the dead cannot express remorse, forgiveness of the dead is impossible. Others (...) see the apparent coherence and moral importance of forgiving the dead as a reason to give up on the idea that forgiveness is conditional upon the offender’s remorse. According to these philosophers, forgiveness of the dead poses no special problems; forgiveness of the dead, like forgiveness of the living, is not contingent upon the offender’s contrition. I steer a path between these two positions in such a way as to bring out an important aspect of forgiveness that is not adequately addressed in the literature: I argue that forgiving the dead may be perfectly coherent and morally valuable even though the dead cannot ask for forgiveness or engage in reparative activities. A full appreciation of the relational character of forgiveness allows us to make sense of forgiving the dead. (shrink)

While forgiveness is widely recognised as an example of a supererogatory action, it remains to be explained precisely what makes forgiveness supererogatory, or the circumstances under which it is supererogatory to forgive. Philosophers often claim that forgiveness is supererogatory, but most of the time they do so without offering an adequate explanation for why it is supererogatory to forgive. Accordingly, the literature on forgiveness lacks a sufficiently nuanced account of the supererogatory status of forgiveness. In this paper, I seek to (...) remedy this shortcoming by offering a systematic account of forgiveness as an example of a supererogatory action. In terms of explaining the supererogatory status of forgiveness, I will argue that, to qualify as supererogatory, a forgiving action must fulfil three conditions: (i) it must be permissible; (ii) it must not be obligatory; and (iii) it must be good or praiseworthy, that is, it must have a certain moral value. Moreover, a distinction is drawn between “unconditional” and “conditional” forgiveness. I argue that conditional forgiveness (i.e. forgiveness of repentant wrongdoers) is sometimes a duty and sometimes supererogatory, whereas unconditional forgiveness (i.e. forgiveness of unrepentant wrongdoers) is typically supererogatory or beyond duty. (shrink)

Are torture and torturers unforgivable? The article examines this question in the light of a Humean account of forgiveness. Initially, the Humean account appears to suggest that torturers are unforgivable. However, in the end, I argue it provides us with good reasons to think that even torturers may be forgiven.

We argue for a particular conception of forgiveness with the following characteristics: forgiveness as transactional, elective and conditional. Initiating the process requires forgiveness to be extended to the wrongdoer but not at the expense of forgetting, excusing, or condoning the wrong. The offer of the apology shifts the control or power from the wrongdoer to the victim who may initiate the conditional decision which may culminate in the repairing of the damaged relationship. A wrong may not be simply a perpetration (...) of harm, but also a moral insult. It is the insult, this loss of respect for the dignity and integrity of the other, that needs to be addressed by the apology. The focus of this paper is on the role of apology; in particular, as it is offered by the perpetrator of the wrong and as it is received by victim who can, if she chooses, forgive. (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)

Abstract:Business negotiations often involve cooperative arrangements. Sometimes one party will renege on a cooperative enterprise for short-term opportunistic gain. There is a common assumption that such behavior necessarily leads to a spiral of mutual antagonism. We use some of the philosophical literature to frame general research questions and identify relevant variables in dealing with defection. We then describe an experimental approach for examining the possibility of reconciliation and discuss the results of one such experiment where participants were the victims of (...) defection. In contrast to the initial assumptions we found that many participants were willing to reconcile, and that penance conditions, when demanded, were less stringent than expected. We suggest that these findings warrant further study and have implications for business dealings.Very little can be learnt about [retribution] from Aristotle’sPoliticsor his three ethics. In modern ethico-political concepts of justice (in Hobbes, Rousseau and Hegel), the problem of retribution appears in conjunction with other problems and is not of central importance.—Agnes Heller. (shrink)

I assert that Bulgarian journalists recruited during communism to also serve the government as intelligence agents had the opportunity to make moral choices despite the country's dictatorship. Post-communist discussions in Bulgarian media focused on the extent of guilt of journalists who acted as spies. The three possibilities of forgetting the past, punishing those who spied, or forgiving them, are considered. The article concludes that the spy/journalists cannot be forgiven because they violated moral principles that had been vital in Eastern Europe (...) even during the communist regimes; a democratic society should rely on journalists with no history of deceiving audiences. (shrink)

Abstract:Business negotiations often involve cooperative arrangements. Sometimes one party will renege on a cooperative enterprise for short-term opportunistic gain. There is a common assumption that such behavior necessarily leads to a spiral of mutual antagonism. We use some of the philosophical literature to frame general research questions and identify relevant variables in dealing with defection. We then describe an experimental approach for examining the possibility of reconciliation and discuss the results of one such experiment where participants were the victims of (...) defection. In contrast to the initial assumptions we found that many participants were willing to reconcile, and that penance conditions, when demanded, were less stringent than expected. We suggest that these findings warrant further study and have implications for business dealings.Very little can be learnt about [retribution] from Aristotle’sPoliticsor his three ethics. In modern ethico-political concepts of justice (in Hobbes, Rousseau and Hegel), the problem of retribution appears in conjunction with other problems and is not of central importance.—Agnes Heller. (shrink)