Relation to others· Bonds
Conditionalism
Axis: Forgiveness — Should forgiveness be unconditional, or does it depend on the wrongdoer's repentance?
Forgiveness presupposes that the wrongdoer acknowledges and regrets their fault: forgiving someone who asks for nothing betrays the victims and trivializes the wrong. Some crimes, met with no repentance, remain unforgivable.
Philosophers 2
Show inferred positions (2)
Benthamextrapolated
Since all punishment is an evil justified only by its utility, inflicting suffering with no net benefit is groundless; Bentham accordingly lists the cases where punishment is unmeet, notably where it would be inefficacious or unprofitable. One may infer that excusing or remitting a penalty obeys the same conditions of utility, tying any pardon or leniency to a conditional examination, though Bentham does not treat forgiveness as such explicitly.
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. XIII (cases unmeet for punishment)
Schopenhauerinferable
Since character is innate and unchanging, whoever has wronged you once carries within him the power to do it again: to forget would be imprudent. The forgiveness that erases hard-won experience squanders a dearly bought knowledge of men; one may cease to bear a grudge without erasing what the offence revealed of the character.
Parerga and Paralipomena, 'Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life'
- PrescriptiveMoral QuestionIs there anything unforgivable?
Are some wrongs, some crimes too great ever to be forgiven, or is nothing in principle beyond forgiveness?
the wrong