Tagged: “Why Forgive?”
Can forgiveness be too self-centered and therefore morally wrong? In other words, if a person is forgiving for the self—to feel better—it seems all about the self. Also, if a person forgives, isn’t he just letting the other person know that it is ok to engage in the unfairness?
The short answer is no, forgiving others never is overly self-centered or selfish when truly practiced as a moral virtue. Why? This is because forgiving is given to the other as a gift of mercy and love (even if the forgiver never reaches this difficult endpoint of love). Is forgiveness ever immoral because it enables bad behavior? No, it never is immoral precisely because it is a moral virtue and all moral virtues are good in and of themselves. Forgiving does not enable bad behavior because forgiveness and justice need to be a team.
Would people-pleasers forgive more easily than others?
If a person is forgiving only to please others, such as to please one’s parents who are encouraging an adult son to forgive his partner, then the forgiving may not be genuine. Genuine forgiveness comes from within the forgiver, who sees the goodness in forgiveness, is motivated to forgive, and then goes ahead with the forgiveness process.
In reflecting lately on forgiveness, I am left with a certain hopelessness and powerlessness regarding society. I feel this way because, in thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that those who have been brutalized by others, such as incest survivors, really have no other choice than to forgive if they are to save themselves from a life of deep resentment and all that negatively goes with that. What do you think about my thinking?
I agree that forgiveness can be a bold, courageous, and even controversial response to brutality. Yet, for those who choose to forgive, they can become much more psychologically resilient and the science supports that conclusion. I am wondering why this makes you hopeless. You, yourself, see one solution to the anger and even hopelessness of the victims. I agree that not all who are brutalized will forgive, but for those who do, they can reverse the psychological damage done even when it is impossible to reverse the offense itself. This, to me, is a cause of hope, not hopelessness.
One of my students asked me recently, ‘Why should I forgive? Doesn’t this just let the one who is hurting me see that I am weak?’ I did not know how to answer that. Can you help?
The student is confusing forgiveness with giving in to others’ demands. This is not forgiveness. To forgive is to know that what the other person did is wrong and yet mercy is offered nonetheless. When one forgives, one also asks for justice and so this idea of weakness or giving in is not correct. There are two basic ways of distorting forgiveness: to let the other have power over you or to seek power over the other because of his or her transgressions. True forgiveness avoids these extremes.
Can I forgive someone who has not directly hurt me? For example, I am a teacher and one of my students was deliberately hurt by another student. Can I forgive the one who acted badly to a student whom I admire for his honesty and perseverance?
You describe a situation which some philosophers call secondary forgiveness. In other words, you have been hurt indirectly rather than directly by a person’s injustice toward someone who is important to you. Whenever an injustice occurs which hurts you, then you are free to forgive. This can occur even when you do not know the victim(s) but experience hurt nonetheless. An example of this tertiary forgiveness is this: the leader of your country enters into what you consider to be an unjust war with another country. You can forgive the leader if that is your choice to do so.
