Problem Of Forgiveness Research Articles

Editorial

Editorial

Which Ethics for Essex? Elizabeth Gaskell, Salem Witchcraft, and the Problem of Forgiveness

Abstract Hawthorne notwithstanding, the nineteenth-century literary response to the Salem witch hunt was not unilaterally unforgiving. There was an equally dominant response of compassion and forgiveness. A moral rationalization of resentment, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Lois the Witch articulates this debate and anticipates contemporary questions about the efficacy of forgiving crimes against humanity.

Aristotle and the Problem of Forgiveness

In recent decades, it has been argued that the modern concept of forgiveness is absent from Aristotle’s conception of συγγνώμη as it appears in his Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle’s view is more modern than it might appear. I defend the idea that Aristotle’s treatment of συγγνώμη, when seen in conjunction with his theory of ethical decision, involuntary action, and character alteration, commits him to a cognitive and emotional theory of forgiveness that is both well grounded, and thoroughly modern. I go on to claim that Aristotle’s view of συγγνώμη helps to solve at least four controversial problems about the nature of forgiveness raised by modern philosophers: how one can forgive a wrong without condoning it, whether forgiveness is a duty, whether moral luck requires us to forgive more widely, and whether forgiveness ought to be unconditional.

The Problem of Forgiveness: Jankélévitch, Deleuze, and Spinoza

ABSTRACT The problem of forgiveness may rightly be regarded as a perennial philosophical problem. Introducing his 1973 essay “Forgiveness,” Aurel Kolnai writes that, logically, forgiveness seems to be either “unjustified or pointless.” The logical and ethical problem of forgiveness acquired distinctive urgency in the 1960s when statutes of limitations on Nazi war crimes were set to expire. In the resulting debates, the ethicist Vladimir Jankélévitch occupies a central place. In his book Forgiveness and elsewhere, Jankélévitch singles out Spinoza as a philosopher with a particularly inadequate account of forgiveness. This article contextualizes Jankélévitch's argument and argues that Spinoza's conception of evil and forgiveness is essential for understanding why Jankélévitch himself cannot consistently account for his refusal to advocate forgiving the German people after the Holocaust. Drawing on Sylvain Zac's account of forgiveness in Spinoza, as well as Deleuze's account of the problem of evil as it arises in Spinoza's correspondence with Blyenburgh, this article argues that Spinoza offers an account of forgiveness that makes sense of what is ethically required in the face of what Carse and Tirrell call “world-shattering” wrongs such as the Holocaust.

ZAPOZNANE KWESTIE W TEORII PEDAGOGII OSOBY: CIELESNOŚĆ, PRZYGODNOŚĆ, PRZEBACZENIE

W tekście podjęto próbę odpowiedzi na pytania: czy teoria osoby oraz te- oria pedagogii osoby są adekwatne do ludzkiej kondycji i czy są teoriami wspierającymi pedagogię osoby, czy może ową pedagogię utrudniają, zachęcając do urzeczywistnienia nieosiągalnego dla człowieka modelu osoby? Odpowiadając na nie, rozważam problem przebaczenia jako jednego z elementów aktualizacji osobowego wymiaru człowieka oraz problem wad moralnych, które rozwijają się w ludzkiej naturze obok cnót moralnych. Z przeprowadzonej analizy wyprowadzam wniosek, że osiągnięcie osobowej pełni jest dla człowieka niemożliwe. W konsekwencji pytam, o jakie wymiary powinna zostać poszerzona pedagogia osoby, aby była adekwatna do ludzkiej kondycji. Identyfikuję dwie kwestie, które zostały zapoznane w teorii pedagogii osoby: wychowanie do akceptacji własnej cielesności i związanej z nią przygodności oraz wychowanie do przebaczenia sobie i innym. Swoje rozważania wspieram ponadto refleksją teologiczną.

Living Well is the Best Revenge: Rousseau’s Reveries and the (non) Problem of Forgiveness

This paper examines how, in the Reveries of a Solitary Walker , Rousseau presents his anger and the vengeance he claims to have achieved in his later years as a means of demonstrating his moral superiority over his alleged adversaries. It aims to describe the rhetorical mode that Rousseau utilized in this text so as to be able to claim to have been avenged and yet still be lauded as a paragon of virtue and, even, of philosophical calm. The text therefore represents a conceptual departure from the ideas regarding anger and acceptable manifestations thereof that Rousseau had expressed in his earlier works and that have recently been examined in detail by Rousseau scholars, most notably Patrick Coleman.

The morally-injured veteran: Some ethical considerations.

Currier, Drescher and Harris (2014) provide good empirical evidence for a linkage between diminished spiritual functioning and PTSD in their samples of combatants from the Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan Wars. The authors’ report lower spiritual functioning—measured broadly in terms of both personal and public spiritual/ religious experience and engagement—in veterans who seek treatment for combat-related PTSD versus those who do not seek treatment. Problems experiencing forgiveness (e.g., selfforgiveness, forgiveness of others, a sense of divine forgiveness) were particularly predictive of PTSD symptom severity. Currier and colleagues make the reasonable supposition that negative religious coping and forgiveness problems might have a prominent role in the severity and chronicity of PTSD. They recommend that clinicians appraise traumatic stress disorders in spiritual terms, exploring the spiritual significance of symptoms and perhaps working to strengthen spiritual/religious cognitions, emotions, and behaviors in the course of psychotherapy. This excellent study raises a number of intriguing clinical questions related to the role of spirituality in the assessment and treatment of combat veterans. For instance, it remains unclear what role depression might play in diminished spiritual functioning. PTSD is often accompanied by depression in some form. Do the hopelessness, social disengagement, and dysphoric mood that define clinical depression simply color spiritual experience blue? Exploring the mediating role of depression between spirituality and PTSD should be a high priority in subsequent research. This study further raises the interesting possibility of reducing rates of PTSD among veteran populations through a robust precombat program of spiritual inoculation. For instance, might the Building Spiritual Fitness program described by Pargament and Sweeney (2011) offer a strategy for boosting spiritual health prior to combat exposure? Although Currier and colleagues (2014) raise a number of rich clinical possibilities, I am most concerned about two of the ethical implications. First, the authors wisely discuss the potential linkage between moral injury and PTSD. Moral injury may occur when a combatant transgresses deeply held moral beliefs (Litz et al., 2009); often, these beliefs are reinforced by religious conviction. For instance, when a service member is unable to morally or spiritually justify his or her actions (e.g., killing another person), including actions required to stay alive, significant anxiety and guilt may ensue. Currier and colleagues (2014) wisely suggest that clinicians working with veterans should have the therapeutic skills to address the spiritual dimensions of PTSD, perhaps including spiritual/ religious solutions for moral injury. But clinicians in this context should be cautious about mere symptom relief when moral anguish is in play. For instance cognitive techniques aimed at softening client beliefs about right and wrong or disputing the validity of the client’s guilt might paradoxically deprive a religiously committed client of rituals such as the confession of sin as an avenue to grace. Writing about Christian clients, McMinn, Ruiz, Marx, Wright, and Gilbert (2006) warn that, “therapists who strip away the language of sin from Christian clients may unwittingly take away a source of peace and hope by foreclosing the possibility of grace and forgiveness” (p. 296). Religion and spirituality-integrative clinical work requires some special sophistication. The ethical point here is that practitioners must consider the boundaries Correspondence concerning this Commentary should be addressed to W. Brad Johnson, United States Naval Academy Leadership, Ethics & Law, 112 Cooper Road, Luce Hall, Stop 7B, Annapolis, MD 21402. E-mail: johnsonb@ usna.edu T hi s do cu m en t is co py ri gh te d by th e A m er ic an Ps yc ho lo gi ca l A ss oc ia tio n or on e of its al lie d pu bl is he rs .

The Impossibility of Forgiveness: Shame Fantasies as Instigators of Vengefulness in Euripides' Medea

Unforgivability in Euripides' Medea is explored in the context of intrapsychic forces favoring disruption and narcissistic withdrawal and precluding the influence of forces favoring repair of bonds, not necessarily to the betrayer, but to the social and moral order. The forces underlying disruption and withdrawal operate to such an extent that forgiveness and cooperation with the social order become impossible. Euripides' literary insights are explored with the purpose of deepening and extending the psychoanalytic understanding of shame, shame fantasies, projective identification, and vengefulness as they bear on the problem of forgiveness. Three types of shame fantasy are pertinent to the transformation of Medea's mental state from one of anguished and disjointed shame to diabolical vengefulness: anticipatory paranoid shame, the projective identification of shame, and withdrawal as a defense against shame.

Hidden Shame, Working Through, and the Problem of Forgiveness in the Tempest

The problem of forgiveness is considered in the light of an examination of The Tempest. The Tempest illustrates Prospero's struggles to forgive those who betrayed him. The forgiving of an intimate's betrayal is considered as an aspect of working through an antecedent state akin to holding a grudge, blaming, or resenting, or a sense of narcissistic injury due to the betrayal. Working through depends on giving up defenses of withdrawal, omnipotent control, and splitting. These defenses are, in essence, defenses against shame that is felt in fantasy to be unbearable. They are deployed through the workings of signal anxiety (signal shame). For that reason, underlying shame dynamics are central, although manifest shame is not evident in the struggle over forgiveness. Identification of the loving aspects of an object that has been controlled and possessed for a sufficient time, and then has been relinquished and mourned, makes this type of forgiveness possible.