The virtue of forgiveness

Ernesto Garcia argues we have a moral duty to forgive but that this duty need not necessarily involve giving up resentment (1). In this posting I am going to suggest the opposite; that we should always give up resentment but that we should not always forgive.

Garcia argues there are two levels of forgiveness. Firstly there is our personal relationship with the wrongdoer and secondly we way we see his relationship with the moral community. When Garcia talks about forgiveness he means readmitting the wrongdoer to the moral community. He does not believe that this re-admittance must necessarily involve overcoming the negative emotions we feel towards him. However I would worry that readmitting the wrongdoer to the moral community without giving up resentment might be difficult to achieve in practice. Our moral concerns and emotions are not easily separated. Many philosophers from David Hume to Shaun Nichols have pointed out there is an emotive element in moral relationships. Resentment is an emotion. It follows if we hold on to resentment as suggested by Garcia it might be difficult in practice for us to forgive at the second level.

Before attempting to answer the question, as to what is involved in reaccepting a wrongdoer back into the moral community, the domain of persons needing forgiveness by this reacceptance must be clearly specified. Let it be assumed my wife and family have been murdered by someone who is delusional. Let it be further assumed that he can never be cured of his delusions. Such a person never was and never will be part of our moral community and hence cannot be reaccepted back into it. Such a person of course should be part of our moral concern but then so should animals. Secondly if a drunken driver crashes into my car causing me harm but also causing brain damage to himself which means he will never again be part of the moral community then once again he is of moral concern but there is no question of his being reaccepted back into that community. I would suggest such a person was a wrongdoer but he is not now a wrongdoer and as such is not in need of forgiveness. Lastly if my grandchild, age two pulls, my hair there is no question of his needing forgiveness and needing reacceptance back into our moral community because he isn’t yet part of that community. He is of course again of moral concern and hopefully will one day be admitted to our moral community but his admittance is independent of his previous actions. Wrongdoers who might be forgiven are only those people who at the time of their wrongdoing were part of the moral community and can again be part of that community.

Should we always forgive wrongdoers by reaccepting them back into the moral community? Should we unilaterally forgive wrongdoers who do not apologise by this reacceptance? Whether we should seems to depend on what this reacceptance involves. If reacceptance simply involves the recognition of the wrongdoer as a creature like us who can make moral decisions and be held accountable for these decisions then of course we should do so. Indeed I would argue the very idea of a wrongdoer depends on regarding him as someone who was and could again be part of the moral community. However there is a difference between accepting that someone can be part of the moral community and someone is part of that community. In what follows forgiving wrongdoers means accepting someone once again is part of the moral community. What does it mean to accept someone is part of a moral community? Garcia believes acceptance involves normal­ized moral relationships and these relationships involve impartial goodwill and civility towards him as a fellow human being. Garcia further believes we are morally obligated to normalize relations with wrongdoers and treat them with civility (2).

If someone unjustifiably harms us should we unilaterally accept that he is part of the moral community rather than just someone who could be part of this community? Garcia believes this acceptance involves impartial goodwill and civility. I agree with Garcia that once our initial anger at the harm we suffered fades we should treat the wrongdoer with civility. Should we also treat the wrongdoer with impartial goodwill? Perhaps we should. However treating someone with civility and extending our impartial goodwill towards him is not all that is involved in restoring a normalized moral relationship. After my grandchild has pulled my hair I remain pleasant with him and he retains my impartial goodwill but there is no moral relationship to be restored. It is important distinguish between my moral concern and moral relationships. Moral concern involves caring about, empathy and beneficence. Moral relationships include these elements but also include trust. It follows the normalization of moral relations involves the re-establishment of trust. Trust is very important to our decision making for as O’Neill points an inability to trust produces a total paralysis of action, see (3) If we accept the centrality of restoring trust to the restoration of normal moral relations, when we are unjustifiably harmed, then two questions naturally arise. Firstly can we unconditionally trust the wrongdoer again and secondly should we?

If someone unjustifiably harms us we are more cautious in our future dealings with him and naturally become more suspicious of his motives. However some people are naturally more suspicious than most and others are more trusting. It certainly seems possible to trust a wrongdoer again event though this might prove to be difficult to achieve in practice as I have suggested above. Should we then trust the wrongdoer? This question splits into two. Firstly should we trust the wrongdoer for prudential reasons and secondly should we trust him for moral reasons. Whether we should trust a wrongdoer for prudential reasons seems to depend on his actions post his wrongdoing. If he fails to apologise and promise not to repeat his wrongdoing and we unilaterally trust him then we would seem to be guilty of gullibility. In this context we should not trust the wrongdoer. If however the wrongdoer apologises and promises not to repeat the wrong whether we should trust him again depends on two judgements. Firstly do we judge his apology and promise to be sincere and secondly if we judge his promise to be sincere do we judge him to be capable of carrying out this promise.

Nevertheless it remains a possibility that we should unilaterally trust a wrongdoer for moral reasons. At this point I should note I have a worry as to whether prudential and moral reasons can be completely disentangled. However for the sake of the argument I will put this worry to one side. It might be suggested that by unilaterally trusting wrongdoers we set them an example and hopefully they might come to emulate our good behaviour. It might be further suggested this is exactly what a good or virtuous person would do. I would reject these suggestions for three reasons. Firstly the virtuous person, at least in the Aristotelian sense, seems to aim at some mean. Intuitively the unilateral restoration of trust seems to breach the mean between being too gullible and too suspicious. Secondly the unilateral restoration of trust seems to over emphasise the virtue of beneficence whilst underplaying that of justice. Lastly virtue ethics is concerned with character. It seems to me virtue ethics must be concerned with the good character of others. If it were not would virtue ethics be an ethical system at all? It further seems if someone unilaterally trusts a wrongdoer hoping to set him an example, he might come to emulate, that she might be more concerned with her character than that of the wrongdoer. Let it be accepted a wrongdoer who apologises for his wrongdoing displays better character than a wrongdoer who does not. If someone unilaterally forgives all wrongdoers then she fails to differentiate between wrongdoers who apologise and those who do not. It follows she fails to pay attention to the character of the wrongdoer. An objector might attempt to rebut the above argument. She might argue an agent should only be concerned with her good character and creating the circumstances in which others can express their good character. She might further argue if we attempt to shape another’s character that all we really do is shape his behaviour rather than his character. For instance, if a wrongdoer apologises solely due to our reluctance to forgive his apology would be insincere and his character remain unreformed. She might then conclude the only way we should seek to change the character of others is by example. I would reject my objector’s argument because it is based on a view of the way we become virtuous which I would reject. My objector seems to believe someone becomes virtuous simply by copying the virtuous. I would suggest as does Julia Annas that if someone becomes virtuous simply by copying he might come to merely mimic virtue rather than be truly virtuous, see (4). I would agree with Annas that if we are to become truly virtuous that this requires learning. Learning requires understanding and that understanding sometimes has to taught rather than simply acquired through observation. Being taught why apology is sometimes necessary means expressing our disapproval by expressing what is wrong with the wrongdoer’s actions rather than simply unilaterally forgiving.

However not everyone is a virtue ethicist. Should we unilaterally trust a wrongdoer for moral reasons independent of virtue? It seems clear that part of any ethical system must be some sort of duty at least to preserve and perhaps even enhance moral relationships. It also seems clear moral relationships depend on some norms, some rules of behaviour. In practice we expect people to act morally. We don’t usually check whether others are behaving morally towards we simply trust them. For any system of morality to be reasonably functional we have to take a view of others based on trust, see O’Neill above. A wrongdoer can harm us in many different ways but if we are aware of his wrongdoing then he always harms us by damaging our trust. It might be objected this damage is restricted solely to us as persons and need not of necessity damage our moral relationships. It then might be further objected trusting is not part of a moral relationship. Trusting is only of instrumental value in preserving this relationship. Trust might be seen simply as a lubricant that oils the machinery of morality. I accept trust is instrumental in preserving moral relationships and oils the machinery of morality. Let it be accepted trust helps preserve moral relationships. However if we also accept we have a duty at least to preserve moral relationships then trusting others is also part of moral relationships and we have a duty to preserve. I would suggest that we are less likely to trust wrongdoers who do not seek forgiveness than wrongdoers who do. I would further suggest that unilaterally trusting wrongdoers is likely to make at least some wrongdoers less likely to seek forgiveness. It follows we should not unilaterally forgive wrongdoers as this will make them less likely to seek forgiveness damaging trust which in damages, rather than preserves, moral relationships.

At this point someone might object basing forgiveness purely on the restoration of moral relations restricts the domain of forgiveness. My objector might use the example of Eric Lomax who forgave Nagase Takashi (5). In 1942 Lomax was forced to build the Burma to Siam railway. During this time he was tortured and Takashi was the translator present. Lomax developed a deep hatred of the Japanese and this hatred was focussed on Takashi. Fifty years later Lomax met and forgave Takashi. Lomax wrote “meeting Nagase has turned him from a hated enemy, with whom friendship would have been unthinkable, into a blood brother”. My objector might point out in cases of forgiveness such as this it is possible that the participants will never met again. She might further point out any relationship between such participants will be non existent or extremely limited. In the light of the above she might then suggest we would do better to consider forgiveness in terms of the restoration of moral standing rather than moral relationships. She might argue that doing so would increase the domain of forgiveness. This expanded domain she might suggest would include people who are separated by large distances and who will have no future contact. I accept that the restoration of moral standing is important but I don’t believe moral standing can be detached from moral relationships. Moral standing is not simply moral concern. If we restore someone’s moral standing we must of necessity see them as someone who we could enter a moral relationship with, someone we could trust.

At the beginning of this posting I suggested we should do as Bishop Butler suggested and let go of our resentment towards wrongdoers. For Bishop Butlers forgiveness and the subsequent letting go of resentment is a moral matter. I have argued above we should not readmit a wrongdoer back into the moral community without an apology. It follows I do not believe holding on to resentment is necessary for us express our moral disapproval. I do however believe we should let go of resentment for prudential reasons. A resentful person is basically someone who characteristically sees himself as being undervalued whilst at the same time not expressing this feeling. This feeling when unresolved can become an emotionally debilitating condition. People who don’t have the ability to express this feeling of being undervalued run the risk of undervaluing themselves because of this inability. It seems clear having a resentful character harms an agent. However it is important to differentiate between having a resentful character and simply being morally resentful. Moral resentment involves seeing ourselves as someone who has been wronged. Moral resentment is connected to anger and indignation. I would suggest these are simple emotions which do not contain a cognitive element whilst moral resentment does. I would further suggest anger and indignation express our outrage at the wrong done to us and then like any emotion, free of a cognitive element, fade. However it seems to me moral resentment if unexpressed by anger or indignation may well persist because it contains a cognitive element. This persistence means the agent runs the risk of acquiring a resentful character which is harmful. In the light of the above it seems it would be better for someone who has been morally wronged to express his anger and indignation and let go of moral resentment even if he excludes the wrongdoer from those he regards as part of the normal moral community.

1. Ernesto Garcia, 2011 Bishop Butler on Forgiveness and Resentment, Philosophers Imprint, 11(10).
2. Garcia, page 17.
3. Onora O’Niell, 2002, Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics. Cambridge University Press, page 12).
4. Julia Annas, 2011, Intelligent virtue, Oxford, page 17).
5. Eric Lomax, 1995, The Railway Man, Vintage.