Online research in philosophy

Should we be concerned with, or alarmed or outraged by, the insincerity and hypocrisy of politicians who apologise for historical injustice? This paper argues that the correct reply to this question is: sometimes, but not always. In order to establish what types of insincerity must be avoided, Judith Shklar’s hierarchy of ordinary vices is critically revisited. Against Shklar’s overly benign account of hypocrisy, the paper then tries to demonstrate that only institutional and harmful forms of hypocrisy must be rejected in political apologies for historical injustice. Employing Melissa Nobles’s ‘membership theory’, this paper defends the claim that the sincerity standard for political apologies is, in stark contrast to apologies between individuals, agent-independent. This means that in political apologies, rather than focusing on the remorse and regret of the agent who apologises, we must primarily examine the apology’s consequences in terms of re-negotiating the legal, political, and affective dimensions of citizenship. In domestic affairs, the paper shows that apologies can only be considered sincere if they push the polity towards a more inclusive conception of membership in the political community.

Philosophical discussions of apologies have focused on apologizing for wrong actions. Such a focus overlooks an important dimension of moral failures, namely, failures of character. However, when one attempts to revise the standard account of apology to make room for failures of character, two objections emerge. The first is rooted in the psychology of shame. The second stems from the purported social function of apologies. This paper responds to these objections and, in so doing, sheds further light both on why we apologize (when we are in the wrong) and on why we accept apologies (when others are).

This study uses experimental methods to explore the role of apologies in legal settlement negotiation. Specifically, the study examines the influences of apologies on disputants' perceptions, and the effects of apologies on a number of judgments that influence negotiation outcomes--settlement levers such as reservation prices, aspirations, and judgments of fair settlement amounts. Five-hundred fifty-sex participants were asked to take the role of potential plaintiffs, to provide their reactions to an experimental scenario, and to indicate the values they would set for each settlement lever. The nature of the communication with the offender and the description of the evidentiary rule governing the admissibility of the offender's statement were manipulated. The data suggest that apologies can promote settlement by altering the injured parties' perceptions of the situation and the offender so as to make them more amenable to settlement discussions and by altering the values of the injured parties' settlement levers in ways that are likely to increase the chances of settlement. The results suggest further, however, that the nature of the apology itself as well as the factural circumstances surrounding the incident may play important roles in how apologies are understood.

In her study Fiction and Imagination: The Anthropological Function of Literature (2000), Margit Sutrop criticizes Gregory Currie’s theory of fiction-making, as presented in The Nature of Fiction (1990), for using an inappropriate conception of the author’s ‘fictive intention.’ As Sutrop sees it, Currie is mistaken in reducing the author’s fictive intention to that of achieving a certain response in the audience. In this paper, I shall discuss Sutrop’s theory of fiction-making and argue that although her view is insightful in distinguishing the illocutionary effect and the perlocutionary effect in the author’s fictive intention, there aren flaws in it. My aim is to show that, first, Sutrop’s critique of Currie’s view is misguided and, second, her own definition of fiction as an expression of the author’s imagination is problematic in not distinguishing literary fiction-making from other discursive functions and in dismissing the literary practice which regulates the production of literary fictions.

In this paper, I explore how theorists might navigate a course between the twin dangers of piety and excess cynicism when thinking critically about state apologies, by focusing on two government apologies to indigenous peoples: namely, those made by the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers in 2008. Both apologies are notable for several reasons: they were both issued by heads of government, and spoken on record within the space of government: the national parliaments of both countries. Furthermore, in each case, the object of the apology – that which was apologized for – comes closer to disrupting the idea both countries have of themselves, and their image in the global political community, than any previous apologies made by either government. Perhaps as a result, both apologies were surrounded by celebration and controversy alike, and tracing their consequences – even in the short term – is a difficult business. We avoid excessive piety or cynicism, I argue, when we take several things into account. First, apologies have multiple functions: they narrate particular histories of wrongdoing, they express disavowal of that wrongdoing, and they commit to appropriate forms of repair or renewal. Second, the significance and the success of each function must be assessed contextually. Third, when turning to official political apologies, in particular, appropriate assessment of their capacity to disavow or to commit requires that consider apologies both as performance and as political action. While there remain significant questions regarding the practice of political apology – in particular, its relationship to practices of reparation, forgiveness and reconciliation – this approach can provide a framework with which to best consider them.

Apologies in Law will consider apologies in various legal contexts, but in this commentary outline what I consider the most significant questions arising regarding expressions of contrition within criminal justice.

In 2008 I published I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies with Cambridge University Press. I Was Wrong provides a nuanced framework for the ethical meanings of apologies from individuals and collectives, considering along the way the historical and cultural traditions that inform modern acts of contrition. I have discussed I Was Wrong on NPR (an hour-long interview with Diane Rehm), CNN, BBC, CBC, Philosophy Talk, and various other national and international programs.I am now working on the follow-up book, tentatively titled Apologies in Law and also under contract with Cambridge University Press. Apologies in Law will apply the framework for the ethical meanings of apologies from I Was Wrong to acts of contrition in civil and criminal law. As a recently tenured J.D./Ph.D. experienced as a litigator in a major Manhattan law firm and as a staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals, I hope to use my upcoming sabbatical to complete a draft of Apologies in Law. I will revise and polish the draft during the summer of 2009.

Abstract: This article examines the uses of official apologies for massive human rights abuses in the context of democratic transitions. It sketches a normative model of apologies, highlighting how they serve to provide some moral and practical redress for past wrongs. It discusses a number of contributions apologies can make, including publicly confirming the status of victims as moral agents, fostering public reexamination and deliberation about social norms, and promoting critical understandings of history that undermine apologist historical accounts. The article then presents certain normative criteria that any official apology must satisfy, and concludes with a discussion of several theoretical and practical challenges that apologies face in transitional contexts. It draws on Chilean President Patricio Aylwin's apology for his predecessor's crimes as an illustration of some of the promises and challenges that apologies face.

Apologies pervade our news headlines and our private affairs, but how should we evaluate these often vague and deceptive rituals? Discussing numerous examples from ancient and recent history, I Was Wrong: On The Meanings of Apologies argues that we suffer from considerable confusion about the moral meanings and social functions of these complex interactions. Rather than asking whether a speech act "is or is not" an apology, Smith offers a nuanced theory of apologetic meaning. Smith leads us with a clear voice though a series of rich philosophical and interdisciplinary questions, arguing that apologies have evolved from a confluence of diverse cultural and religious practices that do not translate easily into pluralistic secular discourse. After describing several varieties of apologies between individuals, Smith turns to collectives. Although apologies from corporations, governments, and other groups can be profoundly significant, Smith guides readers to appreciate the kinds of meaning that collective apologies often do not convey and warns of the dangers of collective acts of contrition that allow individual wrongdoers to obscure their personal blame.The Introduction is available here.

There is a cognitive, an affective, a conative, and an attitudinal component to a genuine apology. In discussing these components, I address the following questions. Might apologies be due for non-culpable actions? Might apologies be due for choices in moral dilemmas? What is the link between sympathy, remorse and making amends? Is it meaningful for resilient akratics to apologize? How much moral renewal is required when one apologizes? Why should apologies be offered in a humble manner? And is there some truth to P. G. Wodehouse's dictum that 'the right sort of people do not want apologies'?