Fricker, M. (2018) Ambivalence about forgiveness. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 84. pp. 161-185. ISSN 1358-2461
Abstract
Our ideas about forgiveness seem to oscillate between idealization and scepticism. How should we make sense of this apparent conflict? This paper argues that we should learn something from each, seeing these views as representing opposing moments in a perennial and well-grounded moral ambivalence towards forgiveness. Once we are correctly positioned, we shall see an aspect of forgiveness that recommends precisely this ambivalence. For what will come into view will be certain key psychological mechanisms of moral-epistemic influence – other-addressed and self-addressed mechanisms of moral social construction – that enable forgiveness to function well when it is well-functioning, but which are also intrinsically prone to deterioration into one or another form of bad faith. Thus forgiveness is revealed as necessarily containing seeds of its own corruption, showing ambivalence to be a generically appropriate attitude. Moreover, it is emphasized that where forgiver and forgiven are relating to one another in the context of asymmetries of social power, the practice of forgiveness is likely to be further compromised, notably increasing the risk of negative influence on the moral-epistemic states of either the forgiver or the forgiven, or both.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Cambridge University Press. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number LEVERHULME TRUST (THE) MRF-2013-079 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Jul 2018 10:49 |
Last Modified: | 20 May 2020 13:54 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/S1358246118000590 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:133948 |
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