If someone hasn’t harmed me directly, can I still forgive them? As an illustration, one of my students was intentionally injured by another student. I work as a teacher. Can I forgive the person who mistreated a student I respect for his integrity and tenacity?

You speak of what some philosophers refer to as secondary forgiveness. Put another way, you have suffered more by someone else’s wrongdoing toward a significant other than from it personally. You have the ability to forgive if something unfair happens to you and causes you pain. This can even happen if you are injured even though you don’t know the victim or victims. This is an illustration of tertiary forgiveness: for example, your nation’s leader enters what you consider to be an unfair conflict with a another nation. If you choose to forgive the leader, then you can.

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