The Atrocity Paradigm and the Concept of Forgiveness

Schott, Robin May

doi:10.1353/hyp.2004.0081

Cited by 3 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…I have never been a fan of forgiveness for survivors of domestic battering” (Card 2004, 211). Card does not seem to go so far as to agree with Schott's saying that in the face of the “ungraspable element of atrocity …, the proposal that one might either offer or withhold forgiveness may have little relevance” (Schott 2004, 207). Instead, Card offers a qualified and neutral defense of the possibility that one could forgive perpetrators of atrocity, saying that “elements of forgiveness may be possible and their wisdom debatable” (Card 2004, 212).…”

Section: Part Two: Recognition and Respectmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Card's view suggests that forgiveness may help mitigate this predicament, but as Robin May Schott observes, “Card rightly notes that we seldom have a choice of whether to live with evils and their legacies. The question is, rather, how to do it well and how to interrupt cycles of hostility generated by past evils” (Schott 2004, 204). On Card's account, victims and perpetrators have corresponding moral powers and obligations, which may ease their situations.…”

Section: Part One: Living With Evilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Robin May Schott has argued that the concept of witnessing may be more important than forgiveness in understanding the ethical implications of atrocities, saying, “The paradoxical structure of witnessing suggests that testimony is inadequate, that a gap always exists, an ungraspable dimension of atrocity, which, however, does not diminish the necessity of bearing witness. This gap confounds human power, as Arendt held, and in the face of it forgiveness is inadequate” (Schott 2004, 207). Judith Lewis Herman, in Trauma and Recovery , warns of a “fantasy of forgiveness,” which she sees as an attempt at personal empowerment (1997, 189–90).…”

Section: Part One: Living With Evilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…She considers empirical accounts of forgiveness for rape, including those provided by Judith Lewis Herman, which, as we note above, amount to “a fantasy of forgiveness,” and “remain out of reach for most ordinary humans”; Herman describes survivors' forgiveness as an “attempt to bypass” the “impossibility of getting even” (Herman 1992, 189; qtd. in Schott 2004, 204). “Although Herman notes that true forgiveness can only be granted if the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession and repentance, she adds that genuine contrition is a ‘rare miracle’” (Schott 2004, 204).…”

Section: Part Two: Recognition and Respectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…in Schott 2004, 204). “Although Herman notes that true forgiveness can only be granted if the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession and repentance, she adds that genuine contrition is a ‘rare miracle’” (Schott 2004, 204). Schott adds that “empirical accounts of how victims move on in their lives in fact do not give forgiveness a primary position in the process of recovery” (204).…”

Section: Part Two: Recognition and Respectmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

The Limits of Forgiveness

Norlock¹,

Rumsey²

2009

Hypatia

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In this paper, we contextualize Claudia Card's work on forgiveness within wider literatures on forgiveness. With Card, we emphasize the costs of forgiveness and the sufferings of victims, and suggest alternatives to forgiving evils. Women who live in particularly unsafe contexts require recognition more than reconciliation. We conclude that those who forgive evil also require recognition that respects the choices of forgiving agents, seeing their decisions as relevant to conceptual analysis about forgiveness.

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Section: Part Two: Recognition and Respectmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Part One: Living With Evilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Part One: Living With Evilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Part Two: Recognition and Respectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Part Two: Recognition and Respectmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Limits of Forgiveness

Norlock¹,

Rumsey²

2009

Hypatia

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Climate Change and the Need for Intergenerational Reparative Justice

Almassi

2017

J Agric Environ Ethics

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Kantian Forgiveness: Fallibility, Guilt and the need to become a Better Person: Reply to Blöser

Satne

2020

Philosophia

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In 'Human Fallibility and the Need for Forgiveness', Claudia Blöser (2019) has proposed a Kantian account of our reasons to forgive that situates our moral fallibility as their ultimate ground. Blöser argues that Kant's duty to be forgiving is grounded on the need to be relieved from the burden of our moral failure (guilt), a need that we all have in virtue of our moral fallible nature, regardless of whether or not we have repented. Blöser claims that Kant's proposal yields a plausible account of the normative status of forgiveness. Kant classifies the duty to be forgiving as a wide (imperfect) duty of virtue, and according to Blöser, this means that Kantian forgiveness is elective in the sense that forgiveness is good in general (i.e. an attitude that we have moral reason to adopt) but without being obligatory in each particular case. In the course of presenting her own reconstruction of Kant's account, Blöser also objects to some aspects of an interpretation of Kant's theory of forgiveness which I had previously defended in my paper 'Forgiveness and Moral Development' (2016). Although there are a lot of points of agreement between our interpretations, the aim of this article is to highlight four key points of disagreement. These issues are worth discussing because they have implications not only for a plausible interpretation of a recognisable Kantian account of forgiveness but also for wider debates in the contemporary literature on forgiveness. First, I show that Kant is not committed to a form of weak situationism as suggested by Blöser and that Kant's grounding of the duty to be forgiving does not appeal to moral luck. Second, I argue that although Kant's duty to be forgiving is elective in one sense of the term, it is not elective in another important sense of the term, and that it is in fact better not to interpret Kantian imperfect duties as being elective. Third, I show that awareness of moral fallibility per se does not provide a morally appropriate ground for forgiveness and offer an alternative reconstruction of Kant's account-in which fallibility plays a role, but it is not the main reason to forgive. Finally, I argue that Blöser's account of the need to be forgiven is not recognisable Kantian because, from a Kantian perspective, repentance is a necessary condition for the desirability and, in fact, the very possibility of ameliorating our own guilt.

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The Atrocity Paradigm and the Concept of Forgiveness

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

The Limits of Forgiveness

The Limits of Forgiveness

Climate Change and the Need for Intergenerational Reparative Justice

Kantian Forgiveness: Fallibility, Guilt and the need to become a Better Person: Reply to Blöser

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