Session 4: Third-Party Forgiveness
Chair: Barbara Flood

Why Self-forgiveness Needs Third-Party Forgiveness
Kathryn Norlock
Department of Philosophy, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, USA

In this paper, I suggest that the possibility of self-forgiveness is only coherent in the presence of defense of third-party forgiveness (3PF).  By ‘third-party forgiveness’ I mean the act of forgiving a wrongdoer for wrongs done to someone other than the forgiving agent.  Philosophers of forgiveness who write about 3PF tend to reject it as, not just morally problematic, but illogical or incoherent.  Yet consider the case of someone who exclaims, “I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you!” Discussions of self-forgiveness often involve one’s refusal to forgive one’s own harming of another; that is, one refuses to forgive though someone else is the victim.  Self-forgiveness may be a form of third-party forgiveness which simultaneously supports the likelihood that 3PF is possible and benefits from its defense.  I consider reasons for the common rejection of 3PF, and suggest that most philosophers tend to cite ethical objections rather than logical problems.  Those ethical objections do not succeed in showing 3PF is impossible, but they convey the moral riskiness of 3PF in ways which accentuate the moral importance of self-forgiveness.  On my account, expression of 3PF is not intended metaphorically or as forgiveness by a victim. It is a distinct, though related, moral act with similar dimensions.  3PF and self-forgiveness serve in the defense of the victim, the community and the relationships between the wrongdoer and those who identify with the victims of wrongdoing.  As a speech act like victim-forgiveness, it communicates something to wrongdoers that sets similar moral machinery in motion. And as a moral choice to take up a certain attitude toward one’s wrongdoing, self-forgiveness is a kind of forgiveness with important applications of its own.

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Forgiveness and Moral Solidarity
Alice MacLachlan
Department of Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The categorical denial of third-party forgiveness represents an overly individualistic approach to moral repair. Such an approach fails to acknowledge the important roles played by witnesses, bystanders, beneficiaries, and others who stand in solidarity to the primary victim and perpetrator.  In this paper, I argue that the prerogative to forgive or withhold forgiveness is not universal, but neither is it restricted to victims alone. Not only can we make moral sense of some third-party acts and utterances of the form, “I can or cannot forgive…” but also, we ought to recognize them as legitimate instances of third party forgiveness. Concern for the primary victim’s autonomy tends to exaggerate a need for moral deference, while ignoring how others are called upon to support and mediate for victims of violence and oppression. I advocate a cautious extension of the victim’s prerogative to forgive, one that grounds forgiveness in a double relation of sympathetic identification and attentive care. Following Jean Harvey’s recent work, I call this relationship moral solidarity. Furthermore, I argue, there are important moral and political reasons to acknowledge third party forgiveness; these reasons are particularly evident in contexts of oppression. In fact, third party refusals to forgive may have particular moral significance.  In situations of abuse, oppression and damaged self-respect, third party refusals may protect the agency of victims who too easily forgive. 

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Financial and Moral Forgiveness
Justin Jeffrey
Duke University, USA

In this paper I compare moral forgiveness--forgiveness of a person in moral debt--and financial forgiveness--forgiveness of a person in financial debt.  I use this comparison to illuminate the shortcomings of various attempts within moral philosophy to characterize forgiveness; to develop my own account of forgiveness; and to clarify the kinds of considerations that can give one a reason to forgive.
In the first section of the paper I consider various well-known and prima facie attractive attempts to characterize forgiveness—starting with Butler’s justly celebrated account—and argue that these attempts are inadequate.  I propose that a satisfactory definition of moral forgiveness ought to incorporate various structural features of financial forgiveness. Most importantly, a satisfactory definition must instantiate a prominent feature of financial debt and forgiveness: namely, what I call the essentially interpersonal nature of debt and forgiveness.  A familiar thought is that financial debt cannot be eliminated by anyone other than the debtor, and cannot be forgiven by anyone but the creditor.  If I, the creditor, come into some unexpected money for instance, the money owed to me by my debtor is unaffected.   There is a relational or interpersonal account between creditors and debtors whose balance is seemingly determined by their financial actions alone.  I argue that moral debt and forgiveness is similarly interpersonal, and similarly insulated from various external circumstances typically thought to bear in important ways on the reasons one has to forgive.  The alternative accounts of moral forgiveness that I consider fail to recognize this central feature of moral forgiveness.  This failure exposes such accounts to various well-known criticisms, such as the charge that forgiveness is incompatible with self-respect.  These are charges to which my account, I claim, is immune. 
In the final section of my paper I offer an account of the reasons a person might have to forgive his or her wrongdoer(s), an account that is, obviously, informed by what I take to be important structural similarities between financial and moral forgiveness.