Tagged: “Anger”
Is it possible to have too much forgiveness?
Like kindness, love, and justice, forgiveness is a moral virtue. Let’s rephrase the question: Is it ever possible to have too much justice? No, is the response. How can someone have too much fairness? Is it possible to be too brave? Once more, the response is no. By partaking in one of the vices linked to a certain virtue, we might skew courage—or any other virtue. Reckless bravado is one vice that is linked to courage. For instance, a person who is not able to swim might bravely jump into a wild sea to save a drowning puppy. This is reckless bravado, an unwise response, not courage. Therefore, just as we established with our example of justice that we cannot have too much of a true virtue, it would appear that we, too, cannot have too much forgiveness. Goodness in abundance is not a negative thing.
The vices connected to a certain virtue are what we need to avoid, as demonstrated by the courage example. Excessive submissiveness, where we allow others to take advantage of us, is one such vice associated with forgiveness. However, as we can see, the issue here is not forgiveness per se, but rather the way forgiveness is distorted.
Dr. Enright is sharing the good news of forgiveness in interviews across the world!
Dr. Robert Enright
Since our most recent post in May on this IFI News page, Dr. Robert Enright has had the following media interviews concerning different aspects of forgiveness:
Interview with Waldir Ochoa, ENTREVISTAS JIUMAN, Colombia, South America, on the topic of forgiveness, May 2, 2024.
Live interview with Dr. Michael Aronoff, Sirius XM, Doctor Radio, on the topic of forgiveness, June 25, 2024.
Interview with Gael Aitor and Kayla Suarez for Grown Kid podcast, July 12, 2024.
Interview with Malene Jensen, Weekendavisen newspaper, Denmark, on the topic of forgiveness, August 15, 2024.
Interview with Kari Knutson, University of Wisconsin-Madison Communications, on the topic of the Gallagher Brothers and the possibility of forgiveness, August 29, 2024.
Interview on the Radio Breakfast Show, Surrey, United Kingdom, on the topics of repentance and forgiveness, September 20, 2024.
Interview with Yowei Shaw, Proxy, an Apple podcast, on the topic of forgiveness, October 10, 2024.
IFI Researcher presents forgiveness intervention findings at recent New York conference
Dr. Nahlah Mandurah, who is a researcher at our International Forgiveness Institute, presented her forgiveness intervention research with post-divorced women in Saudi Arabia this October at the Association for Moral Education in New York:
Mandurah, N. & Enright, R.D. (2024, October 24). The effectiveness of a forgiveness intervention as a post-divorce program in Saudi Arabia. Paper presented at the Association for Moral Education annual meeting, Queens, New York.
My final question 10 out of 10: Different people have different views of what forgiveness is. Let them have the freedom to believe as they wish. How does that sound to you?
The Internet is a double-edged sword. It can enlighten and quickly, but at the same time, it can mislead. When I searched the Internet for the definition and some general issues on forgiveness, I was surprised by a rising consensus in up to 10 areas, each of which seems odd to me. May I ask you to consider each one of these “discoveries” so that you can help me to understand better? Thank you in advance for your time.
It sounds too relativistic to me. What if a person sees forgiveness as a form of punishing the offending person? Is this helpful to passively accept this without assisting the one who believes this to grow in a deeper understanding of what forgiveness is? If there is no objective definition of forgiveness, which can be expressed with nuances across different situations and cultures, then how could we ever do science on forgiveness? After all, it would be impossible to develop a standardized measure of forgiveness if everyone has a different view of what it is.
Question 9 of 10: Forgiveness might give the offending person an excuse to keep up with the unfairness. Therefore, forgiveness can be dangerous. What is your view on this one?
The Internet is a double-edged sword. It can enlighten and quickly, but at the same time, it can mislead. When I searched the Internet for the definition and some general issues on forgiveness, I was surprised by a rising consensus in up to 10 areas, each of which seems odd to me. May I ask you to consider each one of these “discoveries” so that you can help me to understand better? Thank you in advance for your time.
When people fail to make a distinction between forgiving and reconciling, this error is dangerous, not forgiveness itself. A person can forgive, by being good to the other even from a distance, but not reconcile. Here is one example: You might have a good word to say to others about the one who was unfair to you. Here is a second example: You could consider donating a little money to a charity that the other likes. These examples can be done as small acts of being good to the one who was not good to you without going back into a potentially harmful relationship.
