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Abstract
This paper examines the idea that forgiveness requires, either for its existence or for its justification, the meeting of moral and epistemic conditions which show that resentment is no longer warranted. I argue that this idea results in over-intellectualizing and over-moralizing forgiveness, and in failing to accommodate its elective nature. I sketch an alternative account, which appeals to the differences between emotions and beliefs, and the idea that we have more rational optionality with respect to emotions.
Notes
1 Charles Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration, 2007.
2 Pamela Hieronymi, ‘Articulating and Uncompromising Forgiveness’, 2001.
3 This may be more of a problem in Griswold’s account than in Hieronymi’s; she seems to say that forgiveness not given for warranted reasons is compromized forgiveness, rather than saying that it is not forgiveness. Griswold, it seems to me, fluctuates between saying that in the absence of the conditions being met forgiveness is mistaken, and saying that it is not forgiveness. In support of attributing the second view to him, one of his main arguments for adding the conditions he thinks forgiveness requires is that without these we cannot distinguish forgiveness from excusing, justifying and condoning. This implies that without these conditions being met we do not have forgiveness.
4 Two classic accounts are Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton, Forgiveness and Mercy, 1988, and Joseph Butler, ‘Upon Resentment’, in Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Cathedral, 1913.
5 See J. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 2001.
6 Murphy and Hampton, 1988; Hieronymi, Citation2001; and Griswold, Citation2007, are examples.
7 See for example Murphy and Hampton, 1988. I discuss this in Lucy Allais, ‘Wiping the Slate Clean: The Heart of Forgiveness,’ 2008.
8 Hieronymi takes as a starting point the idea that forgiveness will be compromised if it involves abandoning (without justification) beliefs in the wrongness, culpability and blameworthiness of the wrongdoer (2001: p. 531), and that an account of forgiveness must be articulate, in the sense that it explains what justifies the change in view of the wrongdoer.
9 On Griswold’s account, the conditions which are necessary for forgiveness to be justified are also conditions for something to count as a paradigmatic instance of forgiveness.
10 Her discussion is not meant to exclude the possibility of other justifications, or of the idea of unconditional forgiveness, but to explore the role apology plays in warranting forgiveness. However, she does think that there must be something to warrant the abandonment of resentment.
11 A problem with this is that I can resent you without believing myself to be threatened by any message expressed by your action, and even in this case, forgiveness is a possibility for me.
12 Similarly, there can be moral reasons for giving a gift (for a wedding, for example) without these being reasons for thinking that the gift is something the recipient is owed or is due, or that it is something they are in a position to demand. Thanks to Saul Smilansky for making me think of this point.
13 I discuss this in Allais, 2008.
14 P. F. Strawson, ‘Freedom and Resentment’, reprinted in Gary Watson (ed.) Free Will, 2004, pp. 72–93.
15 Peter Goldie, The Emotions, 2002.
16 For discussion of this point, see also R. C. Roberts, ‘What and Emotions is: A Sketch’, 1988.
17 See R. de Sousa, ‘The Rationality of Emotions’, in A. O. Rorty (ed.) Explaining Emotions, 1980; Goldie, Citation2002; Roberts, Citation1988; A. O. Rorty, ‘Explaining Emotions’, in Rorty, Explaining Emotions. For example, De Sousa argues that ‘emotions can be said to be judgments rather in the way that scientific paradigms might be said to be “judgements”: they are what we see the world “in terms of.” But they cannot be articulated propositions … [P]aying attention to certain things is a source of reasons, but comes before them’ (De Sousa, Citation1980: pp. 138–9).
18 Using Stephen Darwall’s terms, esteem respect here, is contrasted with recognition respect. Recognition respect is not earned: it is what we owe to all rational/moral agents, in virtue of their being such agents, irrespective of how well they act, so it does not involve an evaluation of their moral character. Darwall argues persuasively that your respecting people in this sense involves seeing them as legitimate sources of claims on you. In contrast, esteem respect involves an evaluation of the person’s worthiness to be admired in some way, moral or otherwise: S. Darwall, ‘Presidential Address to the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association’, 2004. I discuss this in more detail in Lucy Allais, ‘Dissolving Reactive Attitudes: Forgiving and Understanding’, 2008.
19 Forgiveness can also involve overcoming reactive attitudes other than resentment; resentment is simply a central case.
20 See Karen Jones, ‘Trust as an Affective Attitude’, 1996.
21 Note, what is her due and what she is entitled to demand are not necessarily the same thing. See S. Smilansky, ‘The Paradox of Moral Complaint’, in 10 Moral Paradoxes, 2007, pp. 90–99. My view is that we can forgive both where forgiveness is not something the wrongdoer is in a position to demand, and where it is not what she is due.
22 It involves affectively seeing someone in a certain way: as someone who was prepared to do this to me, perhaps as someone who has chosen not to regard my feelings in a certain way.
23 E. Garrard and D. McNaughton, ‘In Defence of Unconditional Forgiveness’, 2003.