Is forgiveness basically getting rid of anger toward someone who treated you badly? I was told recently that many scholars see forgiveness this way.
Getting rid of anger is **part** of forgiveness, but it cannot be the whole story if forgiveness is a moral virtue centered on goodness toward those who offend. For example, you can reduce anger or even get rid of it by thinking that the offending person is less than human. That kind of condemnation of the other as a person could lead to you feeling sorry for this person. In other words, you may be distorting the reality of who this person actually is, not seeing him as possessing inherent worth despite some bad behavior. When someone defines forgiving only as getting rid of anger, this is philosophical reductionism or reducing forgiveness to less than what it actually is.
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