Ask Dr. Forgiveness
To me, forgiveness is a sign of smug superiority. I can say, “I forgive you……see how moral I am and how immoral you are?” What do you think?
This is an example of false forgiveness. As the philosopher, Joanna North, says, when we forgive, we lower ourselves in humility so that the other and we as forgivers are seen as both people of worth. This certainly is not smugness.
Regarding my earlier question about people just doing the best that they can, might the environment play a big part in a person’s bad behavior? For example, let us suppose a person who grows up in poverty, oppressed, and hated by others. This fills him with dread and hatred. When he then acts badly (let us say he murders an innocent person), is he truly responsible for this misbehavior, given how the environment has beaten him down?
Your thinking is too narrow, what philosophers call reductionistic, by looking exclusively at the environment. I do not disagree that the environment played a part, even a large part, in this person’s rage. Yet, is there now one and only one response that can be made: murder? No. This person has many options including seeking therapy, talking with family members, approaching the person at whom he may be furious, and if a person of faith, he could pray for temperance and restraint. The environment does not automatically pull a string requiring hurtful behavior. He still has his free will to choose his responses to the environmental repression.
Some philosophers say that everyone is always doing the best that he or she can when acting badly. Do you agree or disagree and why?
I disagree because some people do say that they know what they are doing is wrong and they go ahead anyway. Consider a person who murders another. Often, when being sentenced in a court of law, convicted people admit severe wrongdoing that was willed. The person currently is sorry, but at the time, now self-admittedly, he admits to perpetrating a wrong that he knew was wrong. He was not doing “the best that he can when acting badly.”
Joram Haber has a book in which he argues in a philosophical way that it is a moral good to wait for an apology prior to forgiving. He makes logically deductive arguments for this. So, again, I ask: Might withholding forgiving be a moral response?
Haber does argue as you say, but he does not address the critical issue of being able to help the other change for the better after you have forgiven. Without addressing this, I would say that his argument is incomplete because it eliminates a reasonable pathway to helping the other person.
Regarding my earlier question about getting an apology from the one who hurt me, isn’t it important that I wait for an apology for this other person’s sake? After all, if I forgive, he might think all is fine and not change.
You can help this person to become more fair with you whether you first forgive or not. Why can’t you seek justice from the other after you have forgiven? As you forgive, ask something of the other.
