Abstract
This article proposes a Kantian account of our reasons to forgive that situates our moral fallibility as their ultimate ground. I explore similarities and differences between Kant’s account in the Doctrine of Virtue and the more recent account offered by Garrard and McNaughton (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 103(1), 39–60, 2003). After tracing the connection between moral fallibility and moral luck, I discuss Kant’s argument for a duty to be forgiving. Kant’s strategy yields a plausible account of the normative status of forgiveness: Although we generally have a moral reason (a “wide duty”) to forgive others, forgiveness is not required in every case of wrongdoing. Kant’s argument is based on the assumption that we are all in need of forgiveness, the nature of which I go on to explain. Forgiveness has the power to relieve us of a burden that results from moral failure, which grounds both its standing as a duty and its importance in the lives of fallible moral agents.
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Notes
Garrard and McNaughton do not present their view as explicitly Kantian, although they mention their similarity to Kant in a footnote (Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 55, n.19).
Notable exceptions are Lucy Allais (2014) and Owen Ware (2014). Kate Moran (2013) and David Sussman (2005) also discuss Kant’s views on forgiveness, but they aim to offer an immanent interpretation of Kant’s thought. Paula Satne (2016) has recently offered an interpretation of Kant’s position that I will engage with in more detail.
Mary Gregor translates “Verzeihung” as “pardon” here, but “forgiveness” is closer to the original German. References to Kant’s works are given by citing the translation used and the corresponding page number, followed by the volume and page number (volume: page) of the Akademie edition of Kant’s writings.
It should be noted that in the original German Kant speaks of a duty to be reconciliatory (“Versöhnlichkeit (placabilitas)”). However, it is not obvious that “Versöhnlichkeit” amounts to anything other than forgiveness. I will address this issue in Section 3.
Satne 2016, 1031.
Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 54, 57.
Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 55.
Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 54.
See Nagel 1979.
See also Satne 2016, 1036.
Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 56.
Garrard and McNaughton introduce this as a comparative claim: They assume that the possible world in which the victim performs a similar deed is typically closer than the possible world in which the wrongdoer chooses to do otherwise in the future (Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 55 f.). This is highly speculative, however, and they give no reason for this assumption. What is more, in treating all possible wrongs as being on the same plane – or in treating all possible worlds in which the victim’s actions mirror the wrongdoer’s as close – we risk “minimizing the severity of the offense”, an objection that Moran advances against Kant (Moran 2013, 439).
Satne also rejects (2), although for the different reason that “it is not clear why ‘less favourable circumstances’ should be linked with the disposition to perform awful deeds” (2016, 1036).
Kant advances another variant of this idea in the Religion, where he points out that it can be a matter of “good luck” that one’s actions do not have “evil consequences” (1793/1998, 60; 6:38) – an idea that Thomas Nagel calls “consequential luck”.
In Garrard and McNaughton’s word: Awareness of moral luck “can produce a sense of commonality” with the wrongdoer (Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 54).
I agree with Charles Griswold that awareness of human frailty is not sufficient for forgiveness and “may as well lead to the view that it is all the more important – just because we are so frail – to hold ourselves and each other accountable by not forgiving” (Griswold 2007, 66). See also Satne 2016, 1035 (“if we are all bad, we might as well not forgive anyone”).
Cf. Nelkin 2005 for different formulations of the situationist thesis and for discussions of how (if at all) situationism poses a threat to responsibility. The thesis that what we do and what our moral record looks like is also a function of the circumstances is a weak version of situationism because it does not explicitly rank the explanatory value of situational factors as being higher than facts about the agent’s character. Situationism, traditionally understood, claims that situational factors are more important (than we thought) than facts about character in explaining the behavior of the agent. Still, it is not misleading to call the weak version of the thesis “situationism”, not least because Paula Satne also refers to Garrard and McNaughton’s position as a version of “situationism” (Satne 2016, 1036).
In his discussion of Kant’s approach to forgiveness, Jeffrie Murphy also cautions against assigning a large role to considerations of moral luck, even though he sees the value of promoting awareness of moral humility (Murphy 1988, 102). He holds that “[o]ne does not [...] want to let natural-lottery arguments carry one too far down this road of moral humility, for an utter absorption in such considerations would spell the end of moral responsibility” (Murphy 1988, 102). However, he does not answer the difficult question of what “too far” means.
A striking example from the Critique of Practical Reason (5:30).
Kant himself acknowledges the influence of obstacles on judgments of moral imputation (see 6:228). See for a detailed discussion of how situational factors may influence our degree of responsibility without questioning responsibility per se (Blöser 2015).
Satne also reads Kant as allowing for moral luck in one’s circumstances in the sense of “luck with respect to whether or not the fundamentally evil disposition is ever externally manifested” (Satne 2016, 1037). However, she claims that “in order to ascribe to Kant the […] argument that we should all forgive each other because we are all evil”, one “needs the stronger thesis about moral luck in the choice of our fundamental maxim” (ibid.). I agree with Satne that Kant does not allow for luck with respect to the choice of our fundamental maxim. However, we can allow for the thought that I too am morally fallible (i.e. not perfectly virtuous) without presupposing this stronger kind of moral luck. It suffices to assume (i) that I cannot be sure about the moral quality of my fundamental disposition, and (ii) that there are therefore circumstances in which I would act immorally. (ii) is a reformulation of the thesis that I am not perfectly virtuous. Indeed, even if my fundamental maxim is morally good as a result of my having achieved a “revolution” of the will, this revolution will be experienced as a gradual “reform”, such that immoral acts are still possible (1793/1998, 68; 6:47ff.). Further, I do not see how moral luck in the choice of our fundamental maxims could ever be a reason for forgiveness (rather than undermining responsibility altogether). What Satne neglects, to my mind, is the fact that on both Kant’s and Garrard and NcNaughton’s views moral fallibility and awareness of moral luck are not per se reasons to forgive. Rather, they lead to our having concern for the wrongdoer, which is then a reason to forgive. I will argue for this in more detail in the following sections.
It can be objected that this assumption of a wish that the need be fulfilled is too strong in the case of forgiveness. First, assuming that the existence of a need for forgiveness is an objective fact, the individual might still not be conscious of it and therefore lack the relevant wish. Second, the fulfilment of the need might be consciously rejected by the agent. She might object to being forgiven on principle, for instance. Consequently, Kant’s justification runs into problems to the extent that it relies on the universality of this wish. Indeed, it seems that Kant is not aware of any conceptual gap between the notion of a “need” and a “wish for its fulfilment” (as we have seen, he claims that “every man who finds himself in need wishes to be helped by other men” (247, 6:453, my emphasis)). In defence of Kant’s approach, however, and putting cases of “need ignorance” and “fulfilment rejection” to the side, the idea that needs and wishes for their fulfilment normally go together is generally plausible. Thanks to Marcus Willaschek for drawing my attention to this issue.
Allais 2013, 642.
The issue of electiveness is related to the question whether forgiveness is supererogatory on Kant’s approach. Whereas Thomas Hill argues that actions falling under wide duties share features with supererogatory actions and thus help us to accommodate intuitions about actions that are morally praiseworthy but not required (Hill 1992), Timmermann (2005) rejects this idea. I sympathize with Hill’s interpretation, which reveals another similarity between Kant’s and Garrard and McNaughton’s positions. Garrard and McNaughton are inclined to see forgiveness as supererogatory, i.e. as not demanded by duty: “While it is always admirable to forgive [...], we need not suppose that it is obligatory to do so. In many cases, especially those involving serious wrongs, forgiveness is supererogatory” (Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 40). With this said, they do not make explicit which cases of forgiveness are supererogatory (see also p. 51: “[I]t is (usually) supererogatory rather than obligatory”). They seem to leave open the possibility that the wrongdoer “deserve[s]” forgiveness, in which case it is obligatory to forgive: “[T]he wrongdoer does not deserve to be forgiven (and where he does deserve it, it ceases to be supererogatory)” (Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 58).
See Timmermann 2005.
Thomas Hill grounds his interpretation on Kant’s claim in the Groundwork (“I understand here by a perfect duty one that admits of no exception in favor of inclination” (1785/1997, 31; 4:421n.)), which suggests (even though it does not follow necessarily) that wide duties admit of some such exceptions (Hill 1992, 148). He also points out that a non-rigoristic interpretation of wide duties is required in order to preserve Kant’s claim that there are moral adiaphora, i.e. actions that are morally permissible without being required. This is ruled out by the rigoristic interpretation, which is committed to saying that since it is always possible to help someone else, it is never permissible to do something merely out of self-interest instead, e.g. for the sake of pleasure (Hill 1992, 152). Against this interpretation, Timmermann offers various considerations, among them a passage from the Metaphysics of Morals which indeed suggests a more rigoristic reading: “But a wide duty is not to be taken as permission to make exceptions to the maxim of actions but only as a permission to limit a maxim of duty by another (e.g. love of one’s neighbor in general by love of one’s parents)” (1797/1996, 153; 6:390).
Hill 1992, 159.
Interpreters are divided on whether we should allow for forgiveness for prudential reasons. Garrard and McNaughton reject prudential reasons for forgiveness because they understand them as “attitude focused” rather than “object focused” reasons (Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 51). By contrast, see Hallich (2013) for a positive account of prudential reasons for forgiveness. I cannot decide this issue here; my point is simply to draw attention to the fact that a Kantian account can leave room for prudential reasons for forgiveness if it focuses on the justification in (6:461), but not if forgiveness is construed as an instance of beneficence.
The following is an interpretation of the position that Garrard and McNaughton present on page 54.
I take “concern” and “beneficence” to be sufficiently similar to allow for comparison of Kant’s and Garrard and McNaughton’s accounts in this respect. According to Garrard and McNaughton, concern is directed to the well-being of the person. Similarly, according to Kant, beneficence is directed to the “happiness” of others (1797/1996, 202; 6:453). Apart from that, since Kant takes forgiveness to answer another’s need, this suffices to regard it as an expression of concern.
Kolnai, 1973/1974.
Roberts 1995.
Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished.
Garrard and McNaughton 2003, 42.
Ibid. 45.
I draw the following thoughts on forgiveness as an emotional phenomenon from (Blöser, C. Forgiveness and love of human beings: A Kantian two-aspect account of forgiveness. Unpublished.), where I discuss the issue in more detail.
Moran 2013.
Gregor translates “Versöhnlichkeit” (placabilitas) as “forgiving” (1797/1996, 208; 6:461).
See also Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished.
Cf. also Moran 2013, 435; Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished.
See e.g. Satne 2016, 1032.
On an emotion-based account that understands forgiveness as overcoming excessive resentment, it would seem as though one consideration speaks in favor of assuming a need for forgiveness while another speaks against it. On the one hand, it is plausible to assume that we need others to refrain from answering our wrongs with hatred out of revenge. On the other, it is not plausible to assume that this need is intimately or normally tied up with our being morally fallible, because people do not normally react with excessive resentment to wrongs.
Satne 2016, 1046.
Ibid.
Hieronymi 2001, 550.
Note that the claim that unrepentant wrongdoers also might have a need for forgiveness does not imply the different thesis that forgiving the unrepentant is permissible. This is a topic that deserves a discussion of its own.
Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished, 51.
Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished, 68.
Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished.
Allais, Lucy. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans. Unpublished.
The proposal can also account for a need for forgiveness within the framework of a debt-release model, which does not construe the overcoming of warranted resentment as a necessary aspect of forgiveness (see Nelkin 2013). On this view, forgiveness consists in releasing the other from a debt, e.g. from (further) apology. To be required to give an apology can be interpreted as an aspect of the burden of moral failure. Thus the need for forgiveness can be explained by the need to be relieved of the burden of being indebted to the victim.
Work on this article was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (BL 1290/3-1). Special thanks go to Dana Nelkin, who supported my stay at UC San Diego, where most of this article was written. A workshop on forgiveness with Kate Moran, Jens Timmermann and Owen Ware inspired the first version of this article. I would also like to thank Carolyn Benson, Rosalind Chaplin, Dieter Schönecker and his colloquium, Matthias Schmitt, Marcus Willaschek and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this text.
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Blöser, C. Human Fallibility and the Need for Forgiveness. Philosophia 47, 1–19 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9950-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9950-4