Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T16:47:03.470Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Limits of Forgiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Kathryn J. Norlock and
Jean Rumsey
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, we contextualize Claudia Card's work on forgiveness within wider literatures on forgiveness. With Card, we emphasize the costs of forgiveness and the sufferings of victims, and suggest alternatives to forgiving evils. Women who live in particularly unsafe contexts require recognition more than reconciliation. We conclude that those who forgive evil also require recognition that respects the choices of forgiving agents, seeing their decisions as relevant to conceptual analysis about forgiveness.

Information

Type
Oppression and Moral Agency: Essays in Honor of Claudia Card
Information
Hypatia , Volume 24 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Oppression and Moral Agency: Essays in Honor of Claudia Card , Winter 2009, pp. 100 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn J. Norlock and Jean Rumsey

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Akerman, Pia and Roberts, Jeremy. 2008. Test for Stolen Generations payout. The Australian (Australia), February 29, 2008.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette. 1994. Moral prejudices: Essays on ethics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Biehl, Linda. 2008. Stories: Linda Biehl & Easy Nofemela, from The Forgiveness Project. http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories/linda‐biehl‐easy‐nofemela (accessed February 19, 2008).Google Scholar
Boss, Judith. 1997. Throwing pearls to the swine: Women, forgiveness, and the unrepentant abuser. In Philosophical perspectives on power and domination, ed. Kaplan, Laura Duhan and Bove, Lawrence F.Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 235–46.Google Scholar
Butler, Bishop Joseph. Fifteen sermons preached at Rolls Chapel. 2nd ed. 1729; reprint, London: G. Belland Sons. 1967.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Cheshire. 1992. Changing one's heart. Ethics 103:76–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cantacuzino, Marina. 2007. The Forgiveness Project: A journalist's storytelling experiment. From the Storyteller and the Listener online: Essays on the role of story and narrative in peacemaking, bridge building, healing and reconciliation. http://storyteller‐and‐listener.blog‐city.com/marina_cantacuzino.htm (accessed February 19, 2008).Google Scholar
Cantacuzino, Marina. Stories of Forgiveness. From Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma: Personal Stories. http://www.dartcenter.org/articles/personal_stories/cantacuzino_marina.html (accessed February 19, 2008).Google Scholar
Card, Claudia. 2002. The atrocity paradigm. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, Claudia. 2004. The Atrocity Paradigm Revisited. Hypatia 19 (4): 210–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Climbié, BertheStories: Francis & Berthe Climbié, from The Forgiveness Project. http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories/francis‐berthe‐climbie (accessed February 19, 2008).Google Scholar
Darwall, Stephen. 1977. Two kinds of respect. Ethics 88 (1): 36–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eaton, Judy, Wilfrid, Laurier, Struthers, C. Ward and Santelli, Alexander G. 2006. The mediating role of perceptual validation in the repentance‐forgiveness process. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32 (10): 1389–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Enright, Robert D. 2001. Personal communication, August 24.Google Scholar
Enright, Robert D. and North, Joanna, eds. 1998. Exploring forgiveness. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Fleishauer, Judge Frederic W. 2004. Justiceworks. Lecture at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Wisconsin‐Stevens Point, May 4.Google Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 1993. What are friends for? Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Govier, Trudy. 2002. Forgiveness and revenge. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Haber, Joram. 1998. Forgiveness and feminism. In Norms and values: Essays on the work of Virginia held, ed. Haber, Joram Graf and Halfon, Mark S.Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 141–50.Google Scholar
Herman, Judith Lewis. 1997. Trauma and recovery. London: Pandora.Google Scholar
James, Kerrie. 2007. The interactional process of forgiveness and responsibility: A critical assessment of the family therapy literature. In Hope and despair in narrative and family therapy: Adversity, forgiveness and reconciliation, ed. Flaskas, Carmel, McCarthy, Imelda and Sheehan, Jim. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 127–38.Google Scholar
Kaminer, Debra. 2006. Forgiveness attitudes of truth commission deponents: Relation to commission response during testimony. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 12 (2): 175–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaminer, Debra, Stein, Dan J., Mbanga, Irene and Zungu‐Dirwayi, Nompumelelo. 2001. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa: Relation to psychiatric status and forgiveness among survivors of human rights abuses. British Journal of Psychiatry 178:373–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kellaway, Kate. 2006. Could you forgive the unforgivable? The Observer, June 25.Google Scholar
Konstam, Varda, Chernoff, Miriam and Deveney, Sara. 2001. Toward forgiveness: The role of shame, guilt, anger, and empathy. Counseling and Values 46 (1): 26–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laitinen, Arto. 2002. Interpersonal recognition: A response to value or a precondition of personhood? Inquiry 45 (4): 463–48. [Symposium on Axel Honneth and Recognition].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Janet L. 2005. Forgiveness and psychotherapy: The prepersonal, the personal, and the transpersonal. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 37 (2): 1–24.Google Scholar
Luskin, Frederic. 2003. Forgive for good. New York/San Francisco: Harper Collins/Harper San Francisco.Google Scholar
McMahon, Barbara. 2007. Aborigine wins payout for lost childhood. The Guardian Weekly, October 8, 2007, p. 60.Google Scholar
Minow, Martha. 1998. Between vengeance and forgiveness. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Morris, Allison. 2006. How could you ever forgive the evil killers?; As grieving vicar quits, we ask other victims’ relatives. The Mirror, March 13.Google Scholar
Murphy, Jeffrie. 1988. Forgiveness and mercy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nofemela, EasyStories: Linda Biehl & Easy Nofemela, from The Forgiveness Project. http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories/linda‐biehl‐easy‐nofemela (accessed February 19, 2008).Google Scholar
Norlock, Kathryn. 2008. Forgiveness from a feminist perspective. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
North, Joanna. 1998. The ‘ideal’ of forgiveness. In Exploring forgiveness, ed. Enright, Robert and North, Joanna. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 15–34.Google Scholar
Schott, Robin May. 2004. The Atrocity Paradigm and the concept of forgiveness. Hypatia 19 (4): 204–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scobie, E.D. and Scobie, G.E.W. 1998. Damaging events: The perceived need for forgiveness. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 28 (4): 373–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Stokkom, Bas. 2008. Forgiveness and reconciliation in restorative justice conferences. Presented at Forgiveness: Probing the Boundaries; Salzburg, Austria: March 7–9. Forthcoming in conference proceedings in 2009.Google Scholar
Walker, Margaret Urban. 2006. Moral repair: Reconstructing moral relations after wrongdoing. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Virginia. 1992. Feminist directions in medical ethics. In Feminist perspectives in medical ethics, ed. Holmes, Helen Bequart and Purdy, Laura M.Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 32–45.Google ScholarPubMed
Welch, Bud. Stories: Bud Welch, from The Forgiveness Project. http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories/bud‐welch (accessed February 19, 2008).Google Scholar
Worthington, Everett L. Jr., Sandage, Steven J. and Berry, Jack W. 2001. Group interventions to promote forgiveness. In Forgiveness: Theory, research, and practice, ed. McCullough, Michael E., et al. New York: Guilford Press, 228–53.Google Scholar