Abstract
Assuming a social world in which punishment for wrongdoing is considered legitimate, does or may forgiveness of the wrongdoing also cancel any punishment that may be due? Philosophers are divided on the issue. This chapter provides some explanations for the division, critiques views that consider punishment to be incompatible with forgiveness, and suggests circumstances in which punishment is compatible with forgiveness—particularly, those in which people with standing to punish differ from people with standing to forgive, or, because the forswearing of resentment is the key to forgiveness, resentment may be forsworn without punishment being canceled.
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Notes
- 1.
For some of that discussion, see Kleinig (1973, 90–92), North (1987), Corlett (2006), Griswold (2007, 32–33), Zaibert (2009, 2010, 2012), Warmke (2011, 2013), Pettigrove (2012, 117–21), Russell (2016), Tosi and Warmke (2017), and Lenta (2020). I leave to one side a number of studies dealing with divine forgiveness and punishment.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
On expanding the standing to forgive, see Pettigrove (2009), Zaragoza (2012), and Chaplin (2019). On the standing to punish, see Kleinig (1973, 72–77), Beade (2019), and Duus-Otterström and Kelly (2019). Debates about the standing to forgive frequently arise in the context of responses to the Holocaust.
- 5.
In section 3, I consider economic forgiveness, such as the forgiveness of student debt, and the analogical use made of it.
- 6.
Perhaps the major contemporary contributor has been Griswold (2007), though my own views differ from his in a number of ways.
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- 9.
There is a large sociological and psychological literature on forgiveness and reconciliation. See Worthington (2006). On its philosophical dimensions, see Warmke (2017b). A problem with the view that forgiveness primarily expresses a desire to move on or to patch up differences is that it is reduced to a self-help mechanism rather than a moral revamping.
- 10.
The passage may or may not advocate unconditional forgiveness, though Butler probably understands it that way.
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- 12.
Although this initially appears to be a case of unconditional forgiveness, the unfolding of the parable indicates that, although the servant is not required to repay the master, he is expected to display a similar forgiving spirit to another who owes him. The biblical parable presents its own challenges: see De Boer (1988).
- 13.
Zaibert’s account builds on conceptions that he developed at greater length in Zaibert (2006). In a later paper (Zaibert 2012), he responds to criticisms. The idea of forgiveness as the withholding of punishment is also common in much of the burgeoning social work and psychological literature. See, for example, Enright et al., where, in their account of forgiveness, they see “the casting off of deserved punishments” as “a consistency between ancient writings and modern philosophies,” along with “the abandonment of negative reactions, the imparting of love toward the other person, the self-sacrificial nature of forgiveness, the potential for restoration of relationship, and the positive benefits for the forgiver” (1991, 88).
- 14.
Tosi and Warmke (2017) offer three versions of this argument. I believe, however, that they can be effectively considered together.
- 15.
On this view, presumably, forgiveness is most likely to be seen as morally permissible or supererogatory, though stronger versions are possible. Where the forgiveness is tied to subsequent actions of the wrongdoer, the forgiveness is sometimes seen as obligatory.
- 16.
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Kleinig, J. (2023). Punishment and Forgiveness. In: Altman, M.C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment. Palgrave Handbooks in the Philosophy of Law. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11874-6_27
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