What is involved in forgiving?

Philosophia (United States)

Volumn 25, Issue 1-4, 1997, Pages 33-49

  Hughes, Paul M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEARBORN   (United States)

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EID: 84897937415     PISSN: 00483893     EISSN: 15749274     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF02380023     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. The view that forgiveness involves the overcoming of a specific type of anger toward another is maintained by Bishop Butler and shared by Howard McGary and Jeffrie G. Murphy. See Butler, "Upon Forgiveness of Injuries", in The Work of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Butler, D.C.L., Late Bishop of Durham, ed. Samual Halifax (New York: Carter, 1846).
2. Howard McGary, "Forgiveness", American Philosophical Quarterly 26, No.4, October, 1989, pp.343-350
3. Jeffrie G. Murphy, "Forgiveness and Resentment", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol.7, ed. Peter French, Theodore Uehling, and Howard Wettstein (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1982, p.504
4. "Forgiveness, Mercy, and the Retributive Emotions", Criminal Justice Ethics, Vol.7, No.2, 1988, pp.3-14
5. Forgiveness and Mercy, Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
6. Norvin Richards in "Forgiveness, " Ethics, 99 (October, 1988), pp.77-97.
7. Forgiveness and Mercy, Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
8. A more precise formulation of my view is as fotlows. "Moral anger" is anger partially constituted by the belief that (a) one has been wrongfully harmed, or (b) one has been wrongfully put at the risk of harm, or (c) one has been or is the object of an intended wrongful harm or has been or is the object of an intended wrongful risk of harm. These complex qualifications are needed to fully articulate the possible constitutive beliefs of moral anger. The background theory of emotions I rely upon throughout is the view that fairly sophisticated emotions such as resentment, pride, love, and shame require specific identificatory beliefs the lack of which would render them unintelligible. For more on such a theory see Gabriele Taylor, Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions of Self Assessment, (Oxford, 1988). Because the full definition of moral anger is so unwieldy, I shall restrict my discussion to the belief that one has been wrongfully harmed, though it should be understood that my analysis applies as well to the other relevant constitutive beliefs noted here.
9. Forgiveness and Mercy, Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
10. Forgiveness and Mercy, Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
11. Jeffrie G. Murphy, "Forgiveness and Resentment", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol.7, ed. Peter French, Theodore Uehling, and Howard Wettstein (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1982, p.504
12. This point is echoed in both "Forgiveness, Mercy, and the Retributive Emotions", and Forgiveness and Mercy.
13. Howard McGary, "Forgiveness", American Philosophical Quarterly 26, No.4, October, 1989, pp.343-350
14. Jeffrie G. Murphy, "Forgiveness and Resentment", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol.7, ed. Peter French, Theodore Uehling, and Howard Wettstein (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1982, p.504
15. Howard McGary, "Forgiveness", American Philosophical Quarterly 26, No.4, October, 1989, pp.343-350
16. See the Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1980, p.635.
17. "Overcome" may also mean "to counteract", and this meaning need not involve the concepts of self-activity or struggle or effort. Thus, one may counteract the debilitating physical effects of a virus by receiving medication through injection, taking nourishment intravenously, and sleeping. All of this implies a significant degree of passivity on the part of the recipient of the treatment. It would therefore be misleading to say of influenza victims that they are "struggling" to counteract the flu, or that they are "overcoming" it (unless one means by this that they are "getting over it", that is, "recovering").
18. Norvin Richards makes this point as well, although his conception of forgiveness is broader than either Murphy's or McGary's. For Richards forgiveness is the overcoming of all hard feelings (derivative of the harm that caused them) toward another, but again the mere forgetting of hard feelings won't do.
19. Thus Murphy's account of forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment, despite his efforts to limit what can count as acceptable cases of "overcoming", fails to isolate the true nature of forgiveness as an internal drama that typically involves a struggle, McGary's view is vaguely suggestive of this struggle (e, g. "forgiving or failing to forgive primarily involve the forgiver's feelings about the elimination of her resentment", p.344). Richards' view is closer to the truth in this regard, for he argues that to forgive is to change one's hard feelings toward another and this frequently involves a struggle and is not always entirely successful. This raises an important question: Is forgiveness the complete overcoming of resentment or is it perhaps the overcoming of resentment "for the most part"? I read Richards as claiming that forgiveness requires the complete forswearing of negative feelings caused by the specific wrong committed.(On this see below, section II). My view is that all resentment (moral anger) caused by the wrongdoing must be overcome. McGary's view with regard to this issue is inconsistent. On the one hand, he tells us that "Forgiveness... might be best described as a virtue that allows us to keep our resentment within appropriate limits." (p.343). Such language suggests a "resentment management" conception of forgiveness and implies that forgiveness can occur without the utter renunciation of the resentment caused by the wrongdoer. So long as one's resentment is properly "managed" or kept within appropriate bounds, then forgiveness can be said to have occurred. That one can forgive and still resent is, however, inconsistent with McGary's insistence that forgiveness requires the cessation of resentment (e.g. ",.. in order for X to forgive Y, X must intentionally cease to have some warranted resentment towards Y...", p.345; and "... the intentional cessation of resentment (is) a necessary condition for forgiveness." p.344). Murphy may be guilty of this same contradiction in his earliest piece on forgiveness where he claims that forgiveness is the forswearing of resentment and yet that it is "a virtue that functions to check resentment and keep it within proper bounds." (p.128) He later argues that Bishop Butler's view (which is to a large extent the source of his own) is simply that forgiveness is "the forswearing of resentment-the resolute overcoming of the anger and hatred that is naturally directed to a person who has done one an unjustified and non-excused moral injury." ("Forgiveness, Mercy, and the Retributive Emotions", p.5).
20. This is obviously not true in all cases of forgiveness but perhaps is so only where forgiveness is understood as a process rather than as an act. I shall discuss this distinction in greater detail below. On forgiveness as "re-acceptance" see Aurel Kolnoi, "Forgiveness", Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society 74 (1973-74), p.93 and p.104. On Richards' view forgiveness is not necessarily "re-acceptance", for one can forgive another one has, in some sense, never "accepted" in the first place. I believe Richards is mistaken about this, for while one may forgive a stranger for splashing one with mud (a stranger one will never encounter again), to forgive that person is to restore the moral relationship that existed all along. Clearly, insofar as we have moral obligations to all other moral agents we are ipso facto in a relationship with them, albeit a formal and highly abstract relationship. Richards seems to be assuming that for forgiveness to be the re-acceptance of a prior relationship one must already have been involved in a personal or professional relationship with the wrongdoer. But this is too restrictive a conception of "relationship".
21. Forgiveness and Mercy, Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
22. I should acknowledge that I am walking a fine line here when I suggest on the one hand that the eradication or overcoming of all negative feelings is not required for forgiveness and, on the other, that the elimination of all "moral anger" caused by the wrongful harm is required. The existence of a residual unhappiness or disappointment is quite consistent with forgiveness, and, I think, with "re-accepting" another into one's life.
23. Forgiveness and Mercy, p.36.
24. Forgiveness and Mercy, p.37.
25. Forgiveness and Mercy, p.38.
26. Forgiveness and Mercy, p.38.
27. Forgiveness and Mercy, p.38.
28. It seems to me quite consistent with the idea of forgiveness as "reacceptance" that one might nevertheless retain the belief that the other has wrongfully harmed one. Restoring equal moral relations with another does not mean that one must forget what has occurred in the past or be blind to the foibles of one's associates. There is a difference between retaining the belief that another has wronged one and holding that wrong "against" the other person.
29. Forgiveness and Mercy, p.39.