Making a place for forgiveness in the context of public morality

Abstract

This paper maintains that forgiveness of one human by another is not a merely personal transaction, but is social or public in nature. This leads to a better grasp of interpersonal forgiveness, and makes it easier to recognize and understand political acts of forgiveness. Such an understanding explains, and possibly reinterprets, the special authority of the victim to forgive. The victim’s authority is puzzling, given that most offenses are not merely personal, but are moral. This puzzle prompts a turn towards the moral community, and it places the notion of reconciliation, and the desire to restore human relations at the center of the concept. Reconciliation by itself is not, however, forgiveness, and any adequate analysis must recognize as crucial both judgments about, and attitudes toward, the offender’s character. Nonetheless, forgiveness is not simply a subjective story to be told in terms of an individual’s psychological strengths or weaknesses. We need to examine public and political acts of forgiveness also. An account of political acts of forgiveness might well help us to be clearer about the nature of individual forgiving. Keywords: public morality, public forgiveness, reconciliation, victim’s authority.