Tagged: “Justice”
Doesn’t forgiveness flow from the moral virtue of justice? As a person strives for justice, then it may be safer to try forgiving.
Justice in its modern sense is to give people their due, to give them what is owed to them. For example, if you are a carpenter and build a table for me, justice requires that I pay you because I owe you the money. With forgiveness, the one who forgives does not exact a price of any kind from the one who acted badly. The one who forgives demands nothing from the other person. Instead, the one who forgives offers mercy, which actually is not deserved by the one who acted badly. If forgiving was equated with any kind of justice, then it follows that the forgiver cannot forgive at all until the other pays some kind of price such as an apology or some kind of recompense. Therefore, forgiving cannot be seen, in a philosophical sense, to flow from justice.
If a person continuously forgives an insensitive partner, does this enable the partner’s bad behavior?
No, forgiving does not enable bad behavior. A lack of justice-seeking can enable that behavior. As a person forgives, it is important to bring justice alongside the forgiveness and ask for fairness. In this way, the partner has the opportunity to examine and change the behavior that is causing the problem.
What is more important, justice or forgiveness?
I do not think you should choose between them. Plato placed justice at the top of the moral virtue hierarchy in this book, The Republic. I think agape love (in service to others even when it is painful to do so) is the highest because it includes being just to others and forgiving others. We need both justice and forgiveness under the umbrella of agape to have the best world and in the case of justice and forgiveness, the best of both worlds of these virtues.
In your most recent response to me, you said that when my partner asks me to forgive and to just forget all about his behavior, he is asking me to acquiesce or just give in to his nonsense. If forgiveness is not acquiescence, then what, exactly is forgiveness?
Forgiveness is a moral virtue in which you willing choose to get rid of resentment toward an unjustly acting person and to offer as best you can goodness toward that person. The goodness can take the form of kindness, respect, generosity, and even moral love.
I knew it. Forgiveness is a weakness of giving in to the other person’s unreasonable demands. The one who is hurting me insists on my “forgiveness” so that we both can just forget all about his behavior. It is a game of power. Convince me that this is not true that forgiveness is a sign of weakness.
What you describe, indeed, is a power play by the other person. He is trying to get you to acquiesce to his behavior that you find unacceptable. This is not forgiveness. When you forgive, you bring justice alongside the forgiveness. In other words, you ask the person to change that which is hurting you.
