Ask Dr. Forgiveness
I have confidence in forgiveness when I think I have 100% confidence that the other person will “shape up.” I have less confidence in forgiveness if I think my forgiving will not lead to a good change in the other person. What do you think about this?
When we forgive, we decide to be good to someone (or more than one person) who was unfair to us. There is no guarantee that the other person will change as we offer this mercy. So, I would encourage you to change your thinking about what forgiveness is. It is freely given to the other person(s) even when there is no guarantee that the other will gladly accept your generous offering and then change for the better.
What is the difference between accepting and forgiving?
The major difference between forgiving and acceptance is that forgiving always and without exception is a merciful response toward other people who behaved badly (and its highest form is loving the other) while acceptance can occur when there is no injustice from other people and can include refraining from the negative without a response of love. I have a blog essay on this website from 2018 that gives further details of this difference between acceptance and forgiveness here:
What Is the Difference Between Acceptance and Forgiveness?
What is the difference between forgiveness and what is all over the news lately as “student loan forgiveness”?
Forgiveness is a moral virtue in which a person is good to those who are not good to the forgiver. This is a free-will decision and done for the one who was unfair. “Student loan forgiveness” is very different because the students who took out a loan did not act unjustly. Therefore, this is more like a legal pardon from a stated obligation rather than anything to do with the moral virtue of forgiving people who acted unjustly.
Forgiveness in the published literature seems to imply that it is done for the self and not for the person who acted unfairly. Am I correct?
The scientific literature often examines the effects of forgiveness on the one who forgives. This does not at all mean from a philosophical perspective that this is what forgiveness is. Forgiveness actually is a moral virtue of goodness toward those who acted unfairly. Even if one of the effects of this self-giving is that the forgiver experiences much psychological relief, this does not equate to what forgiveness is. We have to distinguish the essence of forgiveness (what it is) from some of the effects of this process (which can be emotional relief by those who forgive).
Forgiving others is being indifferent to those who act unfairly. I say that because if you forgive, what are you asking of the other in terms of growing as a fair person? It seems to me that you are asking nothing, which leads me to think that forgiving is an act of indifference.
Forgiving others for unjust behavior does not mean that you then ignore issues of justice or issues of the other growing in fairness. You can forgive and ask something of the other person. Therefore, forgiving others does not equate to being indifferent toward them.
