Abstract
Imagine a case of wrongdoing—not something trivial, but nothing so serious that adequate reparations are impossible. Imagine, further, that the wrongdoer makes those reparations and sincerely apologizes. Does she have a moral right to be forgiven? The standard view is that she does not, but this paper contends that the standard view is mistaken. It begins by showing that the arguments against a right to be forgiven are inconclusive. It ends by making two arguments in defense of that right.
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Notes
I am defining “amends-making offender” as “someone who makes adequate amends and sincerely apologizes.” If the worst offenses do not admit of adequate amends, it will be impossible for the worst offenders to qualify as amends-making.
Roadevin’s paper is well-argued and insightful. But the language of “earning” forgiveness creates a tension that runs through whole thing. That tension reaches its zenith in a footnote: “I dispute the assumption that earning forgiveness through apology will automatically generate obligatory reasons to forgive. One can earn forgiveness and this ‘earning’ may only generate permissive reasons” (Roadevin 2017: 4, note 10). Something we earn—a salary or a diploma—just is something we are owed by right. Putting ‘earned’ in scare quotes and severing its connection to rights is to change earning into a different concept altogether.
Lewis (2018) is the notable exception. He uses resources from the Eirenic tradition to defend a right to forgiveness. Unfortunately, I cannot lay out the details of the Eirenic tradition and discuss their connection to forgiveness in the confined space of this article. Readers, especially those with Eirenic sympathies, will find Lewis (2018) well worth the read. The vast majority of philosophers stand opposite to Lewis and I. Murphy (Murphy 1988: 29) suggests that “repentance does not give one a right to be forgiven.” Bovens (2008: 233) writes, “the offender does not have a claim right that the victim accept her apologies.” Bovens (2009: 232) reiterates that claim. See also: Allais (2013) and Gamlund (2010). Many of these sources assert, rather than argue, that there is no right to forgiveness.
Margaret Holmgren (2012: chapter 3) makes this point.
See Radzik (2009). Radzik construes making amends as primarily a matter of mending relationships; I am following her lead.
Pettigrove (2012: chapter 1) is a particularly lucid account of forgiveness. He analyzes “I forgive you” as a speech act, and argues that the act involves taking on several normative commitments—in particular, commitments not to retaliate, to foreswear resentment, and to bear the offender a degree of goodwill.
Again, this paper makes no claims at all about whether those who do not qualify as amends-making offenders might have a right to be forgiveness.
I am not suggesting—even obliquely—that all victims who refuse to forgive are wallowing in their victimhood. Not all wrongdoers make adequate amends, in part because not all wrongs admit of adequate amends. The point is that in this example, it is not obviously wrong for my daughter to demand forgiveness. The point is that moral practice is more complicated than the argument from moral practice lets on.
Roadevin (2017) also emphasizes that there is humility in asking for forgiveness.
This may be the position Govier intends too, though it is not what her choice of language suggests to me.
For a more thorough treatment, see Milam (2018). Milam’s article has significantly influenced my thinking on electivity.
Lewis (2018) is an interesting book-length account of how rights might structure even our most intimate relationships.
Holmgren’s thesis is in one way less radical than mine, and in another way more radical. It is less in that while she does insist that forgiveness is morally appropriate, she does not insist that it is morally appropriate because wrongdoers have a right to be forgiven. It is more radical in that she defends a practice of forgiving unrepentant offenders, whereas I focus on amends-making offenders.
The quote is from Priest’s Bible Defense of Slavery, available online here: http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/christn/chesjpat.html
An excellent lecture by Myisha Cherry has informed my thinking about some of these issues. The lecture is available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UERZo9x6d0Y&feature=youtu.be
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Acknowledgments
Sincere thanks to Del Ratzsch, Linda Radzik, Jonna Vance, Katie Tullman, Jason Matteson, Russ Pryba, and Aaron Rizzieri for comments on earlier, rougher drafts. This work was funded by the Northern Arizona University Research Investment Fund..
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Maring, L. Is There a Right to Be Forgiven?. Philosophia 48, 1101–1115 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00160-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00160-x