Bell ForgivingSomeoneAnd 2008

Forgiving Someone for Who They Are (And Not Just What They've Done)
Author(s): Macalester Bell

Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , Nov., 2008, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Nov.,
2008), pp. 625-658
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40041260
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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Vol. LXXVII No. 3, November 2008
© 2008 International Phenomenological Society
Forgiving Someone for Who They

Are (and Not Just What They've
Done)
MACALESTER BELL
Columbia University
"I was sexually abused by an old man when I was 6 years old ... he
was 60 ... i think I have forgiven him ... my father left when I was
13 ... i think i have forgiven him ... i do not forget what they have
done ... i do not forgive what they have done but i forgive them for
being the way they were that made them do the things they have
done ... and this makes no sense ... but it is what i think and what i
feel ... does anyone else understand?" - bluemoon1
In the passage above, "bluemoon" describes her ambivalent feelings

toward the man who sexually abused her and toward her absent father;
she takes herself to have forgiven these men even though she does not
forgive what they have done. This case is obviously under described,
but what bluemoon seems to be saying is that she forgives these two
men for being who they are (or were) as opposed to forgiving them for
what they have done. However, as she recognizes, there seems to be
something a bit odd about this stance: what does it mean to forgive
someone for who they are as opposed to simply what they have done?
Is such forgiveness coherent? If so, what sort of considerations would
justify forgiving someone for who they are? These are the questions
that I will consider in this paper.
While philosophers have become increasingly interested in forgive-
ness, there is little in the ever-growing forgiveness literature that would
be directly relevant to the issues raised by bluemoon's case. As I see it,
philosophers have not openly taken up the questions raised by blue-
moon because of a problem with the standard account of the nature of
forgiveness.
1 www.unsolvedmysteries.com (accessed February 6, 2006).
FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 625

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I. A Problem with the Standard Account of Forgiveness
Bishop Butler defined forgiveness as the overcoming of excessive resent-
ment.2 Influenced by Butler, many philosophers have understood for-
giveness exclusively as the overcoming of resentment on moral
grounds, and this Butlerian conception of forgiveness has become the
basis of the standard philosophical account of forgiveness.3
Although this description of forgiveness is intuitively plausible, some
have argued that the standard account of forgiveness is overly narrow.
In his paper "Forgiveness," Norvin Richards articulates this objection
as follows:4
... [Abandoning resentment does not constitute forgiving, because a

person can stop resenting and still have a hostile attitude of another
kind ... neither must it be resentment that one is forswearing: it
should also count as forgiveness to abandon contempt for someone or
disappointment in him. Taken together, these suggest that to forgive
someone for having wronged one is to abandon all negative feelings
toward this person, of whatever kind, insofar as such feelings are
based on the episode in question.5
2 See Joseph Butler, "Upon the Forgiveness of Injuries," The Whole Works of Joseph
Butler, (London: Thomas Tegg, 1835) pp. 78-89. In his paper, "Joseph Butler on
Forgiveness: A Presupposed Theory of Emotion," Journal of the History of Ideas,
62.2, 2001, pp. 233-244, Paul Newberry claims that Butler did not actually define
forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment. Newberry suggests that we should
instead read Butler as defining forgiveness as the checking of revenge. I do not com-
pletely agree with Newberry's reading of Butler, but a full discussion of this issue
would take me beyond the scope of this paper. However, even if it were true that
Butler did not himself define forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment, many of
Butler's followers have understood forgiveness in this way. I am concerned with the
views of these followers of Butler in what follows.
Philosophers who subscribe to a version of the standard account of forgiveness

include Jeffrie Murphy (Jean Hampton and Jeffrie Murphy, Forgiveness and Mercy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), Parrela Hieronymi ("Articulating
an Uncompromising Forgiveness," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 62.3,
2001, pp. 529-555), Elizabeth Beardsley ("Understanding and Forgiveness," in The
Philosophy of Brand Blanshard, ed. Paul Arthur Schiles, La Salle, 111.: Open Court,
1980), and H.J.N. Horsbrugh ("Forgiveness," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 4,
1974, pp. 269-282).
4 Norvin Richards is not the only philosopher to discuss which emotions are over-
come through forgiveness. In his paper "Forgivingness," American Philosophical
Quarterly, 32, 1995, pp. 289-306, Robert C. Roberts has a nice discussion of the
emotions that are possible to overcome through forgiveness. Ultimately, Roberts
argues that the emotion overcome in forgiveness is anger toward the offender. While
Roberts seems to appreciate the complexities of the issue, his claim that anger at the
offender is the only emotion which is overcome through forgiveness is open to coun-
ter-example. Suppose the victim of wrongdoing never feels anger at the wrongdoer,
only disgust at the wrong done. If this disgust was morally justified and the victim
were to overcome these feelings of disgust for the right sorts of reasons, I think we
would be inclined to say that this victim had forgiven her wrongdoer.
5 Richards, Norvin. "Forgiveness," Ethics, 99, 1988, pp. 77-97, p. 79.
626 MACALESTER BELL

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On Richards' account, to forgive someone is not simply to overcome
one's resentment toward the person to be forgiven. Instead, genuine
forgiveness requires that the forgiver overcome all of her negative feel-
ings towards the person that she forgives, insofar as these feelings are
based on the episode in question.6 Although he offers an important
challenge to the standard account of forgiveness, Richards retains two
central elements of the standard account: the belief that forgiveness is
appropriate only when someone has wronged you, and the insistence
that the feelings overcome through forgiveness must be based on a
specific act or particular episode. In later sections of this paper, I will
challenge both of these assumptions.
Other philosophers have begun to acknowledge that the standard
account of forgiveness is overly narrow. In his recent book, Getting
Even, Jeffrie Murphy recounts Butler's definition of forgiveness as the
overcoming of resentment on moral grounds but then goes on to offer
the following caveat:
I have now been persuaded by Norvin Richards and others, however,

that it is a mistake to define forgiveness so narrowly. It is more illumi-
nating - more loyal to the actual texture of our moral lives - to think
of forgiveness as overcoming a variety of negative feelings that one
might have toward a wrongdoer - resentment, yes, but also such feel-
ings as anger, hatred, loathing, contempt, indifference, disappoint-
ment, or even sadness. There is no reason to think that even this list
is complete.7
Despite the lip service paid to this expanded definition of forgiveness,

philosophers (including Murphy and Richards) have failed to fully jus-
tify the claim that we can extend the notion of forgiveness in this way,
nor do they seem to fully appreciate the ramifications of broadening
the standard account of forgiveness. In particular, they have not
acknowledged that expanding the definition of forgiveness in this way
ought to change what reasons should count as morally good reasons to
forgive.
As I see it, moral theorists have not recognized the need to revise
the standard account of morally good reasons to forgive because
they are reticent to accept as "moral emotions" the wide variety of
6 Given that Richards defines forgiveness as the overcoming of any negative emotion
arising from the episode in question, it is natural to wonder what distinguishes nega-
tive and positive emotions. Richards does not offer an account and instead seems
simply to rely on the reader's intuitions. However, it is not at all clear whether the
so-called negative emotions really do have anything explanatorily interesting in com-
mon. If nothing holds the so-called negative emotions together, Richards will need
to say more about which emotions are overcome through a process of forgiveness.
7 Murphy, Jeffrie. Getting Even, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) p. 59.

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negative attitudes and emotions that one might have toward immoral
persons. While Murphy cites hatred, loathing, and contempt as pos-
sible responses to wrongdoing, philosophers have traditionally
regarded these as immoral emotions that have no proper role in the
psychological life of the morally virtuous agent. Given this character-
ization of the negative emotions, moral agents should either: (i)
strive to extirpate these emotions as much as possible, regardless of
whether or not they have morally good reasons to do so, or (ii) sim-
ply ignore these emotions. I think this prejudice against the negative
emotions is unwarranted. Once we recognize what role these emo-
tions ought to play in our moral lives, we will be in a better posi-
tion to understand when these emotions should be overcome
through a process of forgiveness.
In this paper, I will conceptualize forgiveness as the overcomi
resentment and contempt and I will refer to this understanding o
giveness as "the expanded account." According to the expanded
account, for x to forgive y\ x must overcome her resentment and/or
contempt for y on moral grounds. Of course there may well be other
attitudes that can and should be overcome through a process of for-
giveness (e.g., anger, indifference, disappointment, sadness, and dis-
trust), and so my expanded account will remain overly narrow.
However, by conceptualizing forgiveness in this way, I hope to estab-
lish that if we accept the expanded account of forgiveness, then we
must overhaul the standard account of the morally good reasons to
forgive. In what follows, I will use the term "forgiveness-R" to denote
forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment and "forgiveness-C" to
denote forgiveness as the overcoming of contempt.
How will an investigation of the expanded account of forgiveness
help us answer bluemoon's concerns about forgiving someone for
who they are? As we will see in what follows, contempt is an atti-
tude that takes as its object the person as opposed to (simply) the
persons actions. In fact, it is contempt's person-focus that helps to
distinguish contempt from other negative emotions, such as resent-
ment, that typically take as their object a person's actions. Thus,
once we have established what it means to forgive on the expanded
account and determined when we have morally good reason to for-
give, we will be well-positioned to turn back to bluemoon and give
her some guidance about what it means to forgive someone for who
they are and what sort of considerations will give us morally good
reasons to do so.
As should be clear, part of my task in this paper is to convince the

reader that forgiveness-C ought to count as a form of forgiveness. In
discussions, I have found a good deal of resistance to this idea. I will
628 MACALESTER BELL

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discuss specific worries concerning the coherence of forgiveness-C in
section VI, but it may be worth pausing here to consider this objection
in its most general form. Why think that overcoming a negative emo-
tion other than resentment ought to count as a form of forgiveness?
Moreover, what explains the philosophical presumption that forgive-
ness must be directed towards actions and not towards an offender's
character as such?
Richards and Murphy offer one strategy for responding to those

skeptical of forgiveness-C: imagine someone who was insulted and
responded with contempt toward her offender but did not feel resent-
ment toward any of the offender's actions. Suppose this person eventu-
ally overcame her justified contempt for what looked like morally good
reasons.8 Would we really want to deny that this person had forgiven
her offender? Conversely, suppose that someone claimed to have for-
given her offender but still harbored contempt for the person in ques-
tion. Wouldn't we be skeptical of the claim that the person forgave the
offender? Reflecting on these types of cases may be sufficient to con-
vince some that forgiveness-C is a type of forgiveness, but I think we
can say even more in defense of the claim that forgiveness-C ought to
count as a form of forgiveness.
Recall Murphy's list of possible attitudes that can be overcome
through a process of forgiveness: resentment, anger, hatred, loathing,
contempt, indifference, disappointment, and sadness. Is there some-
thing special about resentment such that overcoming it, and it alone,
deserves to be called forgiveness? I think not. Consider what these
attitudes have in common. In addition to being described as
"negative," these are all attitudes that can serve to separate persons
from each other. The reason why overcoming resentment is a para-
digmatic case of forgiveness is because resentment functions as a
barrier between persons. If I resent you, I will resist spending time
in your company, I will not openly engage with you, or sympathize
with your plight. In short, my attention to what you have done will
drive a wedge between us. Resentment is an attitude that is com-
monly overcome through a process of forgiveness because resentment
separates us from one another, thereby making forgiveness possible.
But the other attitudes on Murphy's list also serve to separate us
from one another. Thus, insofar as these other attitudes serve to
separate us from one another, then these attitudes ought to be
included in the class of attitudes that one can overcome through a
process of forgiveness.
8 I will take up the issue of what sorts of reasons ought to count as morally good
reasons to forgive-C in section V

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To see this, it might be helpful to consider a case that everyone
would agree should not count as forgiveness. Suppose that, for some
unknown reason, Sam routinely experiences happiness rather than
resentment whenever he is wronged. Sam realizes that this is an
aberrant response and he attempts to overcome this feeling through
what he describes as a process of "forgiveness." While we all might
think Sam is right to try and overcome his feeling of happiness at
being wronged, I imagine that most people would deny that Sam's
activity should count as a case of forgiveness. Why? Happiness is
not the sort of attitude that can be overcome through a process of
forgiveness because happiness is not an attitude that constitutes a
barrier between the victim and the offender. In its most general
sense, forgiveness can be understood as a way of removing attitudi-
nal barriers between persons (or, in religious contexts, between per-
sons and God).
What then accounts for the tendency of philosophers to insist that
forgiveness must be directed toward a person's actions and not the per-
son herself? I suspect that the answer to this question has to do with
the theological roots of some of our intuitions about forgiveness.
Augustine's views concerning the attitudes we ought to take toward
wrongdoers are particularly relevant:
For this reason, the man who lives by God's standards, and not by
man's, must needs be a lover of the good, and it follows that he must
hate what is evil. Further, since no one is evil by nature, but anyone
who is evil is evil because of a perversion of nature, the man who lives
by God's standards has a duty of "perfect hatred" towards those who
are evil; that is to say, he should not hate the person because of the
fault, nor should he love the fault because of the person. He should
hate the fault, but love the man. And when the fault has been cured
there will remain only what he ought to love, nothing that he should
hate.9
Augustine argues that we ought to take up a certain attitudinal stance:

we should love what is good and hate what is evil. But since God
created persons, they cannot be evil in themselves. Rather, any evil
associated with persons must be the result of the person's freely chosen
actions. Augustine contends that we ought to hate the fault, but love
the person. Thus, according to Augustine's prescriptions, any negative
emotion that we have toward wrongdoers is properly directed toward
that person's actions. And, as the above passage suggests, when we
9 Augustine, City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin Books,

2003) p.556.
630 MACALESTER BELL

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forgive someone, our forgiveness must be for the individual's actions
rather than for who he or she is as such.
However, philosophical discussions of interpersonal forgiveness
should not be constrained by its theological roots. In fact, when we
look at our actual forgiveness practices and how we talk about forgive-
ness, the tendency for philosophers to treat forgiveness as an activity
directed at actions and not persons seems even more misplaced. We
typically say, for example, "I forgive you" or ask "please forgive me"
rather than "I forgive you for stepping on my toe last week" or "please
forgive me for borrowing your favorite shirt without asking on
Thursday."10
The remainder of this paper will proceed as follows: In section II,
I will offer an account of the nature of contempt, isolating features of
this attitude that differentiate it from other attitudes which may be
overcome through a process of forgiveness." In section III, I will set
forth two requirements that any instance of purported forgiveness must
meet, if it is to count as genuine forgiveness. In section IV, I will artic-
ulate what many regard as the two paradigmatic moral reasons to for-
give on the standard account of forgiveness and show how these
reasons must be reconceptualized if we accept the expanded account of
forgiveness. In section V, I will sketch out what sorts of reasons ought
to count as good reasons to forgive on the expanded account of for-
giveness. I will close by anticipating and responding to several objec-
tions to my argument.
II. The Nature of Contempt

For an act of forgiveness to merit high moral praise, the negative
emotions overcome through the forgiveness process must have initially
been fully morally justified. If these emotions were not fully morally
justified, the act of overcoming them may, perhaps, still count as for-
giveness, but it will not be a meritorious form of forgiveness. How-
ever, overcoming a morally objectionable*2 attitude cannot constitute
an act of forgiveness. Consider the racist who rids himself of his neg-
ative feelings toward a black colleague. While we would certainly
encourage racists to overcome their feelings of contempt for people of
10 I owe this observation about our forgiveness practices to an anonymous reviewer.

11 In what follows, I will use the terms "attitude" and "emotion" interchangeably.
While there are important differences between attitudes and emotions, these differ-
ences are irrelevant for my purposes in what follows.
12 As I am using the terms, a morally objectionable or immoral emotion is an emo-
tion that is incapable of ever being a morally good or apt response.

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other races, this process does not merit the honorific of forgiveness.
Forgiveness has traditionally been understood as the overcoming of
one's warranted or justified resentment and in the case of the racist,
his contempt and resentment toward blacks was never warranted.
Some may be hesitant to recognize forgiveness-C as a type of forgive-
ness because they view contempt as an immoral emotion that could
never be justified and that should simply be extirpated as much as
possible. According to these objectors, while we may have good,
pragmatic, reasons for overcoming our contempt, this activity does
not merit the honorific of "forgiveness." In this section, I will first
offer an account of the nature of contempt and then go on to argue
that contrary to what many philosophers have suggested, contempt
may be a morally justified and praiseworthy response to certain forms
of immorality. My aim is to show that contempt is not always a mor-
ally objectionable attitude and thus forgiveness-C can count as a form
of morally praiseworthy forgiveness.
As I will argue, there are four main characteristics of contempt that
distinguish it from other emotional responses to immorality.13 In what
follows, I will be assuming that emotions are at least partly cognitive
states. Although we may, perhaps, come to feel contempt for non-
persons as well as persons, I will focus my attention on the defining
characteristics of contempt for persons. Ultimately, I will argue that
given the nature of contempt, the reasons to forgive-C must be distinct
from the reasons to forgive-R.
First, and most importantly, contempt requires that the contemnor
have certain thoughts about the status or standing of the object of
contempt. In particular, contempt involves the idea that because of
some moral or personal failing or defect, the contemned person has
compromised his or her standing vis-a-vis an interpersonal standard
that the contemnor thinks is important.14 In many instances, the
object of contempt may not have done anything to open herself up
to being contemned; rather, she simply lacks the appropriate status
in the judgment of the contemnor. This lack of status admits of
degrees. The contemnor may judge that the object of contempt is
13 I also discuss these four conditions of contempt and the example of Camille's con-
tempt in my paper "A Woman's Scorn: Toward a Feminist Defense of Contempt
as a Moral Emotion," Hypatia 20.4, 2005. The analysis of contempt I give here is
identical to the analysis of contempt I provided in this previously published paper.
14 Not any imperfection will merit contempt. In most cases, the object of contempt
will not simply have failed to achieve excellence vis-a-vis some ideal. Instead, he or
she will have utterly failed to approximate the standard in question. But insofar as
someone has failed to live up to a standard that the contemnor cares about,
she will be vulnerable to what I will go on to describe as "moral" or "immoral"
contempt.
632 MACALESTER BELL

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
utterly worthless as a human being,15 or he may judge that the
object of contempt fails to meet a particular interpersonal standard.16
So, while resentment is a response to a perceived harm or injury,
contempt is a response to a perceived failure to meet a standard of
personhood}1
Second, contempt is not simply a judgment or belief that the object
of contempt ranks low vis-a-vis some interpersonal standard that the
contemnor holds important, but is also a way of regarding or attending
to the object of contempt. While this form of regard most often has an
unpleasant affective element, the affective element of contempt
can vary - contempt may be experienced as a highly visceral emotion
similar to disgust, or as cool disregard.18 Hence, we cannot individuate
contempt simply by its affective element.
A third characteristic of contempt is the psychological withdrawal
or disengagement one typically feels regarding the object of one's
contempt. While this psychological withdrawal may manifest itself in
a number of ways, this psychic distancing from the object of con-
tempt is an essential characteristic of contempt that helps to distin-
guish contempt from resentment and anger. By psychologically
distancing himself from the object of contempt, the contemptuous
15 Like Michelle Mason, I do not think contempt requires the judgment that the
object of contempt is utterly worthless as a human being. Instead, what is necessary
is that the object of contempt does not meet whatever standard of personhood the
contemnor values as important. See Mason's "Contempt as a Moral Attitude,"
Ethics, 113, 2003, pp. 234-272.
16 What it will mean to fail to meet a standard of personhood will vary. In some
cases, simply having a certain quality will be enough to count as failing to meet a
standard of personhood.
17 Mason points out that while both resentment and contempt may be directed at per-
sons, contempt more typically takes a person or persons (rather than acts) as its
intentional object. We typically resent that
some propositional content referring to an act performed

affairs brought about by the action of an agent. Conversely, we normally hold
in contempt, regard
blank is filled in by a particular per

we do sometimes say / resent
son (p. 246). But she claims that when persons are the in
resentment, they are normally the objects of our resentmen
tor of a particular action.
18 As William Ian Miller has pointed out, the style and affec
will be intimately connected to the social and cultural set
contempt arises. In societies with rigid hierarchies, cont
rather flat affective element. In egalitarian settings, contem
and closer to disgust. Miller also points out that contempt
with a wide range of other emotions, including pity, love
of Miller, Anatomy of Disgust, (Cambridge, Mass.: Har
1997).

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person is engaged in a process of active non-identification with the
object of contempt.
Finally, contempt has an important comparative element. David
Hume emphasizes this aspect of the emotion in his discussion of con-
tempt. He states that contempt involves regarding the "bad qualities"
and circumstances of others in a certain way. Specifically, contempt
essentially requires apprehending the bad qualities of someone "as they
really are" while simultaneously making a comparison between this
person and ourselves.19 Thus, for Hume, contempt has an essential
reflexive element, i.e., the contemptuous necessarily make a comparison
between their own qualities and circumstances and the qualities and
circumstances of the contemned, and find the object of their contempt
to be lacking.20
To summarize, in its clearest forms contempt for a person involves a
way of negatively and comparatively regarding or attending to some-
one who has failed to meet a basic standard that the contemnor treats
as important. This form of regard constitutes a psychological with-

drawal from the object of contempt.
Given this description of the nature of contempt it may be difficult
to see why anyone would think that contempt is ever an appropriate
response to immorality. Contempt is at the heart of racism, sexism and
heterosexism, and can motivate a wide variety of immoral acts.21 If
contempt were simply an immoral emotion then we may have reason
to purge ourselves of contempt as much as we possibly can, but it
would not be the kind of emotion that could be overcome through a
process of forgiveness.
To help us begin thinking about the important place for contempt in
our moral lives, I would like to turn to an example of contempt
19 Hume writes: "In considering the qualities and circumstances of others, we may
either regard them as they really are in themselves; or make a comparison betwixt
them and our own qualities and circumstances; or may join these two methods of
consideration. The good qualities of others, from the first point of view produce
love; from the second, humility; and from the third, respect; which is a mixture of
these two passions. Their bad qualities, after the same manner, cause either hatred,
or pride, or contempt, according to the light in which we survey them." David
Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, eds. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 250-51.
20 While I do think contempt has this reflexive element, 1 do not wish to deny the
possibility of self-contempt. In some cases, the contemnor compares the object of
contempt to some standard of excellence and finds the object of contempt lacking.
Or perhaps we can make sense of self-contempt as involving one's "better self
looking down on one's "actual self."
21 David Kim argues that feelings of contempt are at the heart of racism. See "Con-
tempt and Ordinary Inequality," in Racism and Philosophy, eds. Susan E. Babbitt
and Sue Campbell, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).
634 MACALESTER BELL

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
discussed recently by Michelle Mason in her thoughtful and stimulating
paper "Contempt as a Moral Attitude."22
Camille's Contempt
In his film Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard portrays the increasing con-

tempt Camille comes to feel for her husband Paul. As the film
opens, Camille and Paul appear very much in love. But their rela-
tionship is threatened when Paul begins writing the screenplay for
the unscrupulous producer Jeremiah. Jeremiah's untoward motives
regarding Camille are immediately obvious. For example, when Paul
asks why Jeremiah wants Paul to write the screenplay for his next
project Jeremiah replies, "I hear you have a beautiful wife." Most
troubling of all is the fact that Paul seems to encourage Jeremiah's
attention toward Camille. Despite her obvious apprehension, Paul
repeatedly suggests that Camille and Jeremiah spend time alone
together. On a trip to Jeremiah's home, Paul presses Camille to
ride alone with Jeremiah in his car, despite the fact that Camille
expressly declines the invitation. When she realizes that Paul is will-
ing to exploit her for his own professional success Camille responds
with contempt.
The example of Camille's contempt ought to cause us to rethink the

idea that contempt is an "immoral emotion." Camille's contempt for
Paul appears perfectly apt - we think that Camille ought to feel con-
tempt for Paul. But how are we to distinguish morally justified con-
tempt, such as Camille's contempt for Paul, from contempt that we
regard as morally abhorrent, such as the contempt that sexist men have
for women or racist whites have towards non-Caucasians? As I see it,
contempt is morally justified if it is a response to the moral character
of the contemned and not a response to some other feature of the per-
son such as her race or gender.23 In what follows, I will refer to the
morally justified forms of contempt as moral or appropriate and the
22 See Michelle Mason's "Contempt as a Moral Attitude," pp. 236-237. I closely

follow Mason's description of the example below.
23 Mason has a similar view concerning the distinction between morally justified and
unjustified contempt. It might be objected that the sexist could have contempt for
women based upon what he sees as their character flaws. But presumably this kind
of sexist comes to see women as having these character flaws because of his under-
lying contempt for women qua women. I acknowledge that there are a wide variety
of traits that contempt may take as its proximate object. For example, we may
come to have contempt for someone on aesthetic grounds. We might think that
contempt based on aesthetic considerations is less morally troubling than contempt
based on a person's race or gender. However, in what follows I'm concerned with
contempt that takes as its object a person's character; this is the only type of con-
tempt that may be overcome through a process of forgiveness.

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
forms of contempt which are inappropriate and condemnable immoral
or inappropriate.24
A full articulation and defense of the conditions under which con-
tempt is fully morally justified is beyond the scope of this paper. Here I
am using the term "moral contempt" to refer only to instances of con-
tempt which track moral failings of character. There might well be
instances of morally permissible or fully morally justified contempt
which are not connected to the moral failings of the contemned, e.g.,
one might have morally justified contempt for one's colleague who has
bad personal hygiene yet not be committed to the view that bad per-
sonal hygiene is a moral failing of character.25 I concede that it is an
open question whether contempt for someone because of his or her
poor hygiene ought to count as fully morally justified. However, for
the purposes of this paper, I will restrict my discussion to what I have
termed "moral contempt." For even if we allowed that contempt for
one's malodorous colleague could be morally justified, the idea that we
could overcome this contempt through a process of forgiveness strikes
me as doing real violence to the concept of forgiveness. However,
nothing in what follows depends on this intuition.
Having reviewed the general structure of contempt and sketched out
a distinction between moral contempt and immoral contempt, I would
now like to return to the topic of forgiveness understood as the over-
coming of moral contempt.
III. Agential and Non-Complicit Forgiveness

In section I, I argued that Butler's account of forgiveness is unsatisfac-
tory insofar as he understands forgiveness exclusively as the overcom-
ing of resentment. Despite this flaw in Butler's account, I think he is
correct in understanding forgiveness in terms of the forgiver overcom-
ing her negative emotions toward the wrongdoer. Articulating precisely
what it is to "overcome" a negative emotion through forgiveness is dif-
ficult. Some have suggested that to overcome an emotion is to com-
pletely purge oneself of the emotion. This is not my view of what it
means to overcome a negative emotion through forgiveness. On my
24 While Mason has a similar view of moralized or what she terms "properly-focused"
contempt, I think more can be said in defense of contempt than Mason allows. In
my paper, "In Praise of Contempt," (unpublished manuscript) I argue for the
moral propriety of contempt at some length. On my analysis, contempt plays a cru-
cially important role in protesting others' flawed characters and motivating moral
action. I also argue that moral contempt is a non-instrumentally valuable response
to some forms of immorality.
25 I'd like to thank an anonymous referee for pressing this point and suggesting this
particular example.
636 MACALESTER BELL

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view, to overcome an emotion is to no longer be led or dominated by
the emotion.26 But genuine forgiveness requires more than simply over-
coming one's negative emotions. As several philosophers have noted,
for one person genuinely to forgive another, the forgiving agent must
overcome her negative emotions for the right sorts of reasons while
simultaneously maintaining her commitment to morality.27 In this sec-
tion I will argue that two conditions must be met if an instance of
overcoming moral contempt is to count as forgiveness-C.
First, to count as forgiveness, one must actively overcome one's neg-
ative emotions. For example, if someone overcomes her resentment or
contempt due to a head injury or pharmacological intervention, this
would not count as a case of forgiveness. In fact, it is not clear that we
should describe such an agent as having overcome her feelings at all
since to "overcome" one's feelings suggests an intentional act on the
part of an autonomous agent. Genuine forgiveness must be what I term
agential. Forgiveness is agential when an agent intentionally overcomes
her negative emotions for certain reasons.28
Additionally, many philosophers claim that for an act to count as
genuine forgiveness, the forgiver must maintain certain views about the
wrong done and the wrongdoer. Specifically, it is often held that the
forgiver must maintain her view that the act in question was a moral
wrong that the wrongdoer can legitimately be held responsible for and
that she, as a moral agent, should not have been wronged.29 An agent
who forgives yet who also wishes to retain her commitment to morality
must meet these conditions; her forgiveness must be what I term
non-complieit. Such an agent does not tacitly condone the wrong and
therefore is not complicit in it.
Since moral contempt is a response to what we might term badbeing
rather than wrongdoing, the conditions required for non-complicit
forgiveness-R will not be identical to the conditions required for
non-complicit forgiveness-C. An instance of non-complicit forgiveness-C
26 Jeffrie Murphy seems to have a similar view of what it is to "overcome" a negative

emotion through a process of forgiveness. See Hampton and Murphy, Forgiveness
and Mercy, chapters 1 and 3.
27 -See Hieronymi "Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness" and Hampton and
Murphy, Forgiveness and Mercy.
28 Hieronymi describes forgiving for good reasons as an "articulate account" of for-
giveness (p. 530). However, I think "agential" better captures the ideal that genuine
forgiveness must result from some activity on the part of the forgiver.
29 These conditions are very close to Hieronymfs conditions that must be met if an
instance of forgiveness is to be what Hieronymi terms "uncompromising" (pp.
530-531). As I will go on to argue, these conditions must be revised if we accept
the expanded account of forgiveness.

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
would require that the forgiver maintain the following three proposi-
tions:
1 . Because of a morally flawed character, the object of contempt

has failed to live up to an important standard.
2. The object of contempt is a member of the moral community

and is responsible for her character.
3. The contemnor can legitimately expect or demand that the con-

temned live up to the standard in question.
To forgive-C is to overcome one's non-objectionable contempt on moral

grounds and for one's appropriate contempt to be non-objectionable it
must be initially warranted. But to deny any of the above judgments is to
deny that the object of contempt actually warranted contempt in the first
place. If one's contempt is unwarranted and thereby morally inappropri-
ate, then overcoming this contempt cannot count as forgiveness.
To see this, let's consider each condition in turn: (1) to give up the
judgment that the object of contempt failed to live up to an important
interpersonal standard because of her flawed character is analogous to
completely excusing a wrongdoer or judging that no wrong was done at
all. You may have come to relinquish the first judgment above because
you have come to see that you were mistaken in believing the contem-
ned's character was flawed or you may come to see that the failure to
meet the relevant standard was completely excusable. In such cases, one's
contempt would be inappropriate and should be overcome. However, if
you overcome your contempt by relinquishing the first judgment you
cannot be said to have genuinely forgiven-C that person. (2) Suppose you
claim to have forgiven-C someone, but you relinquish the second judg-
ment above, i.e., you no longer judge the contemned to be a member of
the moral community who is responsible for her character. Perhaps you
have given up this judgment because you discover that (unbeknownst to
you) the individual in question grew up in an extremely abusive home. If
the abuse was really serious, you may decide that the former object of
your contempt was not at all responsible for the character trait you find
contemptible. But if you overcome your feelings of contempt by relin-
quishing this second judgment you have completely exonerated the object
of your contempt, not forgiven her. (3) Suppose you claim to have for-
given someone, but you relinquish the third judgment above, i.e., you no
longer judge that you were in a position to legitimately hold the object of
your contempt to the standard in question. Perhaps you realize that your
own character is so severely flawed that it is hypocritical of you to hold
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others to standards that you consistently fail to meet. But to overcome
your contempt by relinquishing this third judgment is not to forgive-C. If
you relinquish this judgment, your contempt is no longer appropriate,
but you have not forgiven the object of your contempt.
In this section, I have argued that if an instance of overcoming one's
contempt is to count as genuine forgiveness it must be both agential
and non-complicit. However, the requirements for an instance of non-
complicit forgiveness-C are distinct from the conditions required for an
instance of non-complicit forgiveness-R. In light of this, I have offered
my own three requirements that non-complicit forgiveness-C must
meet. But I have yet to consider what sorts of reasons ought to count
as good reasons to forgive on the expanded account of forgiveness.
Let's turn to this question now.
IV. Can Reasons to Forgive-R Provide Reasons to Forgive-C?

Reasons to forgive are considerations that call for or justify forgiveness.
As I see it, forgiveness is possible only in cases where the negative emo-
tion to be overcome is not morally objectionable, and forgiveness is mor-
ally praiseworthy only in cases where the negative emotions overcome
through the process of forgiveness were originally morally justified.
Given this, we always have prima facie reason not to overcome our mor-
ally appropriate negative emotions through a process of forgiveness.30 At
the very least, the negative emotion to be overcome through a process of
forgiveness was not morally objectionable, and, at most, the emotion was
fully morally appropriate. Thus, in saying that someone has a moral rea-
son to forgive, I do not mean to suggest that they therefore have an over-
riding reason to forgive - the agent may also have good moral reasons to
continue harboring negative emotions toward the offender. For example,
if the offence was particularly heinous, there may not be any other moral
consideration strong enough to trump considerations in favor of the
agent continuing to harbor negative emotions toward the offender. So in
judging someone to have good reasons to forgive, we are not thereby
claiming that the person in question has an obligation to forgive.31
However, in order to determine when forgiveness is morally praiseworthy
30 I don't mean to suggest anything particularly bold or controversial here. An analo-

gous point also seems to hold concerning our beliefs: if we are justified in believing
that p, then we have prima facie reason to continue to believe that p. Obviously in
the case of both attitudes and beliefs, these reasons can be overridden by other rea-
sons.
31 Thus, on my account, any duty we have to forgive is an imperfect d

is important to avoid thinking about forgiveness as obligatory in ord
the idea that forgiveness is always a "free gift." I will discuss this issue
what follows.

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(or even justified) and when it is not, we need an account of the morally
good reasons to forgive.
Oscar Wilde is reported to have said "Always forgive your enemies;
nothing annoys them so much." But forgiving someone simply in order
to irritate the offender is not a process that seems to merit high moral
praise. In fact, some might argue that such a stance is so far removed
from archetypal cases of forgiveness that we should deny that Wilde's
type of forgiveness is really forgiveness at all. I mention Wilde's quip to
motivate my claim that the moral evaluation of a particular token of for-
giveness requires an assessment of the reasons the forgiver forgives.
The reasons most often cited in the popular press as reasons to forgive
are what we might term prudential reasons to forgive. For example, the
forgiver might decide to forgive so that she is able to move on with her
life without the burden of harboring unpleasant emotions such as con-
tempt or resentment.32 To forgive someone for a prudential reason will
not necessarily be immoral. However, those who forgive for these reasons
do not, generally speaking, merit high moral praise. Forgiving merely for
prudential reasons seems too self-regarding to merit the high moral
praise we usually accord forgiveness. This is not to deny that there may
be cases of forgiveness which do merit high moral praise and for which
we have both self-regarding and other-regarding reasons to forgive.
However, if one forgives merely for prudential reasons, then the act of
forgiveness is (at least) morally suspect.33
32 The popular television therapist Dr. Phil advocates this type of reason to forgive in
his Life Law #9: There is Power in Forgiveness. Dr. Phil writes: "Hate, anger and
resentment are destructive, eating away at the heart and soul of the person who
carries them. They are absolutely incompatible with your own peace, joy and relax-
ation. Ugly emotions change who you are and contaminate every relationship you
have. They can also take a physical toll on your body, including sleep disturbance,
headaches, back spasms, and even heart attacks. Forgiveness sets you free from the
bonds of hatred, anger and resentment. ... Forgiveness is not about another person
who has transgressed against you; it is about you. Forgiveness is about doing what-
ever it takes to preserve the power to create your own emotional state. It is a gift
to yourself and it frees you. You don't have to have the other person's coopera-
tion, and they do not have to be sorry or admit the error of their ways. Do it for
yourself." (www.DrPhil.com; accessed August 11, 2004.) Given the ubiquity of pru-
dential reasons to forgive in the popular discourse concerning forgiveness, I think
it would be disingenuous to claim that those who overcome an emotion for these
sorts of reasons do not really forgive the offender. We can, with the folk, refer
to this activity as forgiveness. However, it is not the kind of morally exemplary
forgiveness that I am discussing in this paper.
I do not mean to suggest that forgiving for morally dubious reasons is the only
way for an act of forgiveness to go wrong. For example, someone's forgiveness
may be morally suspect because they forgave at the wrong time rather than for the
wrong reason. Nonetheless, in many cases, what distinguishes cases of forgiveness
which are morally commendable from cases which are not are the grounds of
forgiveness.
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In this section, I will argue that the two most commonly cited, non-
prudential, reasons to forgive-R cannot be morally good reasons to for-
give-C. For each reason, I will first consider the standard rationale for
why that particular reason is a good reason to forgive, and then go
on to show why that reason cannot serve as a morally good reason to
forgive-C.
(A) Repentance as a Reason to Forgive

The sincere repentance of the offender has traditionally been thought
of as a paradigmatic reason to forgive. According to Murphy's influen-
tial characterization, repentance involves the wrongdoer repudiating his
immoral behavior: "In having a sincere change of heart, he is with-
drawing his endorsement from his own immoral past behavior; he is
saying, 'I no longer stand behind the wrongdoing and I want to be sep-
arated from it. I stand with you in condemning it'."34
According to Murphy's analysis, repentance is the clearest way in
which a wrongdoer can separate himself from his past wrongdoing.
For Murphy, morally good reasons to forgive must not compromise
the agent's self-respect, respect for others, or respect for the moral
order.35 Murphy claims that wrongdoers send degrading messages to
their immediate victims and to society at large through their
actions.36 To forgive a wrongdoer who continued to endorse the
message sent by his wrongdoing would manifest a serious lack of
self-respect on the part of the victim. But the sincere repentance of
the wrongdoer serves to cleanly separate the repented wrongdoer
from the message sent by his wrongdoing. Given this separation
between the immoral act and the repented agent, the victim may for-
give the wrongdoer without thereby condoning the message sent by
the wrongdoing.
In short, Murphy suggests that sincere repentance severs the con-
nection between the wrongdoer and the message sent by his wrong-
doing and thereby allows the victim to forgive the wrongdoer
without condoning the message sent by the wrongdoer's actions. In
considering whether repentance so-construed can provide a reason to
forgive-C, some interpretive work is required. Murphy's characteriza-
tion of repentance as a reason to forgive depends upon a prior
assumption: that through their actions, wrongdoers send out degrad-
ing messages to the world at large. But morally appropriate
34 Hampton and Murphy, Forgiveness and Mercy, p. 26

35 Ibid., p. 24.
36 Ibid., p. 25.

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contempt is an attitude directed not toward a wrong action, but
toward a morally flawed character. Thus, if repentance, as he under-
stands it, is to serve as a reason to forgive-C, then it must be the
case that the character of the contemned agent is capable of sending
degrading messages. The suggestion that one's character is capable
of "sending messages" may strike us as rather forced - how could
one's character be capable of sending any messages at all? The odd-
ness of this suggestion may in fact be sufficient reason to reject
Murphy's analysis of repentance as a reason to forgive-C. If one's
character is not capable of sending degrading messages, then repen-
tance, as Murphy understands it, cannot serve as a reason to for-
give-C.
Even if we could make sense of the idea that our characters are
capable of sending degrading messages to our associates, an offender

who repented just his actions (and not his character) would give his
victim no reason to overcome her contempt for him. To see this,
let's briefly return to the example of Camille's contempt. Suppose
Paul came to realize that it was inappropriate to push Camille to
ride alone with the lecherous Jeremiah; he comes to feel remorse for
this action and expresses his sincere repentance to Camille. But while
Paul is genuinely sorry for this particular act, he has not paused to
consider whether his action exemplifies anything about his character.
In this case, Camille has no reason to overcome her contempt for
him.37
(B) Excuses and Good Intentions as Reasons to Forgive

In his sermon, "Upon the Forgiveness of Injuries," Bishop Butler
points out that it is very rare for one person to injure another out
of pure malice; we often injure each other out or carelessness or
ignorance.38 Butler insists that these mitigating circumstances or
An anonymous reviewer suggested that genuine repentance does not involve simply
rejecting one's act, but also involves rejecting the self that made such an act possi-
ble. However, I think we can distinguish between different kinds of repentance. I
will return to this issue in section V.
38 Joseph Butler, "Upon the Forgiveness of Injuries," pp. 85-86.
642 MACALESTER BELL

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excuses ought to count as reasons to forgive. On his account, the
fact that someone inadvertently hurt you gives you good reason to
overcome your resentment for that person through a process of for-
giveness.39
Butler argues for this claim as follows: legitimate excuses such as
mistakenness, inadvertence and carelessness are good reasons to forgive
offenders because we so often are prone to these very same liabilities
ourselves.40 Since we are all liable to these forms of human frailty, we
have two ways of regarding ourselves and others. We can stand firm
and commit ourselves to be intolerant of both our own minor mistakes
and inadvertencies and the mistakes and inadvertencies of others. This
intolerance of human limitations would lead one to be an impatient

and hostile person. Alternatively, we can be easy on ourselves for
minor mistakes, and only hard on others. In this case, we would be
guilty of making an exception of ourselves without any good reason.
Thus, not to forgive minor mistakes and inadvertencies to which we
are prone exhibits one of two equally bad character flaws: intolerance
of human frailty or hypocrisy.
It is sometimes suggested that the fact that the wrongdoer "meant
well" should also count as a reason to forgive. While Murphy insists
that excuses cannot ever function as reasons to forgive, he does allow
39 Many will object that excuses can never count as reasons to forgive since excuses
necessarily exculpate the so-called wrongdoer from moral responsibility. If the
apparent wrongdoer was not actually responsible for the act in question, then it
would seem that there is nothing for the supposed victim to forgive since no wrong
was done to her. On this view, excuses completely block the attribution of wrong-
doing and because of this cannot function as reasons to forgive another. Murphy
writes as if all excuses worked in precisely this way. In Forgiveness and Mercy he
explains what he takes to be the difference between excusing and forgiving as fol-
lows: 4k[W]e may forgive only what it is initially proper to resent; and, if a person
has done nothing wrong or was not responsible for what he did, there is nothing to
resent (though perhaps much to be sad about). Resentment - and thus forgive-
ness - is directed toward responsible wrongdoings; and therefore, if forgiveness and
resentment are to have an arena, it must be where such wrongdoing remains
intact - i.e., neither excused nor justified." p. 20. While some excuses operate in the
way Murphy suggests, many do not. If I say something hurtful to a friend and
later try and excuse my behavior by truthfully saying "Oh, I'm so sorry, I really
didn't know that comment would be so hurtful to you," it is not at all clear that
this excuse completely severs me from moral responsibility for what I said. At
most, this excuse mitigates the wrongfulness of my action by showing that I acted
a bit less badly than I may have appeared to. If many excuses mitigate rather than
absolve, then it looks as if there is nothing incoherent about the claim that excuses
can serve as reasons to forgive.
40 Butler, "On the Forgiveness of Injuries," p. 86.

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that in some cases, the fact that the agent meant well can serve as a
reason to forgive:
It is hard to view the friend who locks my liquor cabinet because he

knows I drink too much as on exactly the same moral level as the per-
son who embezzles my funds for his own benefit - even though both
are violating my rights. Thus the case for forgiving the former (at
least the first time) strikes me as having some merit.41
Thus, the fact that the offending agent acted out of paternalistic
motives gives the victim at least prima facie reason to forgive the offen-
der. However, as Murphy suggests in the passage above, not all acts of
paternalistic wrongdoing will merit forgiveness. If an act is excessively
paternalistic, especially heinous, or is done repeatedly, the wrongdoer's
paternalistic motives will not give the victim a reason to forgive the
offender.
While we might object to the idea that excuses and good motives
can count as morally good reasons to forgive-R,42 I would like to
bracket these issues and consider whether a legitimate excuse or the
offender's good motives could ever count as a reason to forgive-C. As
we have seen, moral contempt takes the character of the contemned as
its proximate object. If the character of the object of contempt does
not really deserve contempt, then the contempt cannot be warranted.
To review, for forgiveness-C to be non-complicit, the forgiver must be
committed to the following three propositions:
1 . Because of a morally flawed character, the object of contempt

has failed to live up to an important standard.
2. The object of contempt is a member of the moral community

and is responsible for her character.
3. The contemnor can legitimately expect or demand that the con-

temned live up to the standard in question.
41 Hampton and Murphy, Forgiveness and Mercy, p. 26.

42 Murphy's claim that the wrongdoer's good motives can count as a reason to for-
give is a bit puzzling. If the paternalist truly believed that he was acting in the
agent's best interest, it seems that this might fully excuse the paternalist. According
to Murphy's analysis in Forgiveness and Mercy, to excuse someone is to maintain
the following judgment: "What was done was morally wrong; but because of cer-
tain factors about the agent (e.g., insanity), it would be unfair to hold the wrong-
doer responsible or blame him for the wrong action." p. 20.
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Given that non-complicit forgiveness-C requires that the forgiver main-
tain these three judgments, the offender's good motives cannot count
as a reason to forgive-C. If the offender's motives really are good, then
the forgiver cannot maintain all three judgments. Specifically, it is diffi-
cult to see how one could maintain the judgment that someone has a
vicious character and is responsible for this vicious character and yet at
the same time judge that her motives were good. Although there is
nothing incoherent about the possibility of someone with a morally
flawed character occasionally acting from good motives, there is no
reason to think that the good motives of such an agent ought to serve
as a reason to forgive-C. Since moral contempt is a response to the
morally flawed character of another agent, her particular motives for
action (understood as distinct from her character) cannot be relevant
when determining whether or not there is reason to forgive-C her.
Can excuses serve as a good reason to forgive-C? As we have seen,
Butler argues that some excuses ought to count as reasons to forgive
since all of us are liable to human limitations. While it may be true
that all of us occasionally harm others through mistake or inadver-
tence, this is irrelevant to whether or not we have reason to overcome
our moral contempt for another. Suppose Paul responded to Camille's
contempt by citing all of the times she had inadvertently harmed him
during their marriage. Even if Paul's allegations were true, this would
not undermine Camille's standing to respond to Paul's morally base
character with contempt. Further, this reaction would not mark
Camille as a hypocrite unless Camille is nearly as morally base as Paul.
In short, we have no reason to suppose that excuses are morally good
reasons to forgive-C.
V. Reasons to Forgive-C
So far, I have reviewed the two most common reasons to forgive cited
in the literature and argued that these common reasons to forgive-R
are not morally good reasons to forgive-C. Having shown that the rea-
sons most commonly given to forgive-R cannot provide reasons to for-
give-C, I am now in a position to offer an account of what reasons we
do have to forgive-C.
I have argued that moral contempt presents its object as failing to
meet a standard of personhood due to some character flaw of the con-
temned. More than anything else, it is contempt's person-centered
focus that distinguishes contempt from other attitudes of negative judg-
mental regard of persons such as resentment. Since the object of what
I've called "moral contempt" is the character of the contemned, the best
reasons to forgive-C will involve the contemned taking responsibility

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for and acknowledging his character flaws and taking steps to trans-
form the negative aspect of his character. By taking responsibility for
his character flaws and attempting to correct them, the object of con-
tempt honors the standards he has failed to meet. The three required
judgments, which must be maintained if forgiveness-C is to be non-
complicit, would constrain what reasons will count as good reasons to
overcome one's contempt through forgiveness. A purported reason to
forgive-C that is inconsistent with any of the three required judgments
for non-complicit forgiveness-C cannot be a good reason to forgive-C.
In what follows, I will briefly consider what I take to be the two
main moral reasons to overcome one's contempt through a process of
forgiveness.
(A) Character Transformation as a Reason to Forgive-C

The first reason to forgive-C is that the object of contempt has taken
steps to transform the contemptible aspects of her character. Actual or
attempted character transformation is a morally good reason to for-
give-C because character transformation offers clear evidence that the
contemned has come to accept responsibility for her character flaws
and revile these deficits in character. If the contemned individual is able
to improve these deficits, then the contemnor can overcome her con-
tempt without condoning the flaws in character that gave rise to the
contempt. Further, forgiveness on these grounds indicates that the for-
giver is responsive to the fact that the object of her contempt is a moral
agent capable of change.
Some might object that if an agent truly transforms her character,
then it is simply no longer appropriate to feel contempt for her. Just as
some excuses totally exculpate the wrongdoer, a person who completely
transforms her character would seem to no longer merit contempt. This
description of the case suggests that forgiving someone who transforms
herself is no longer elective, but is obligatory. Insofar as we think that
forgiveness ought to be a "free gift" and not obligatory, it looks as if
forgiving someone because they have transformed their character can-
not count as a case of genuine forgiveness. Let's call this the free gift
objection.
It is important to note that this transformation of character cannot
be so radical that we feel pressure to judge that the transformed indi-
vidual is literally a new person. If this were the case, then non-complicit
forgiveness may not be possible because the contemnor might lack the
grounds for holding the "new" person responsible for her "old" char-
acter. Nonetheless, I suspect that the requisite transformation of char-
acter could be rather dramatic before we would need to worry about
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the personal identity of the transformed agent. However, even if we
put such cases to the side, there is still the possibility of what we might
term ''total moral transformation." Is it coherent to forgive someone
because they have undergone a total moral transformation or have
shown signs that they are on the road to such a transformation?
It is worth noting that the free gift objection does not pose a prob-
lem just for cases of forgiveness-C; this problem will arise for any
account of forgiveness which emphasizes the importance of forgiving
for reasons. For example, consider what Cheshire Calhoun says about
repentance as a reason to forgive-R:
Those who find repentance important do so because sincere repen-

tance makes forgiveness both risk free and rational. In undergoing a
repentant change of heart, the wrongdoer makes herself someone who
will not injure us this way again. In breaking the connection between
her wrongdoing and her true self, the reformed person ceases to be an
appropriate object of resentment. Only by refusing to accept either the
sincerity or sufficiency of repentance can resentment retain a legiti-
mate foothold. The point is this: to the extent that repentance is
allowed to count in favor of forgiving, to that extent the wrongdoer
ceases to be viewed under a damning description, and forgiving ceases to
be elective.4*
Calhoun's point is that insofar as the sincere repentance of the wrong-

doer is to count as a morally good reason to forgive, forgiving a person
who sincerely repents will be obligatory rather than elective. For if the
sincere repentance of the wrongdoer separates the wrongdoer from the
wrong done in such a way that continued resentment would be inappro-
priate, then it looks as if the victim ought to overcome her resentment
through a process of forgiveness. Thus, forgiving the repentant agent is
no longer a "free gift" but a moral obligation.
Calhoun is making a specific point about forgiveness-R, not forgive-
ness-C, but her general point is applicable to cases of overcoming one's
contempt for someone who has undergone a process of character trans-
formation: if someone has undergone a total moral transformation,
then it seems inappropriate to continue to harbor feelings of contempt
towards the transformed individual. If contempt would no longer be
appropriate, then it seems that we have an obligation to overcome our
contempt for that person. But overcoming our contempt for someone
because it is no longer appropriate does not look like a case of genuine
forgiveness; forgiveness in this case is no longer elective.
43 Cheshire Calhoun "Changing One's Heart" Ethics, 103.1, 1992, pp. 76-96, emphasis
added.

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I think this objection relies upon a controversial account of the
nature of character judgments. Specifically, it depends on the unde-
fended assumption that one's character is constituted solely by one's
current dispositions. If character judgments were nothing more than
evaluations of a person's current dispositions, then when those dispo-
sitions change (as in the case of total moral transformation), contin-
ued contempt would be inappropriate. But why accept the
assumption that one's character is constituted solely by one's current
dispositions? While I cannot argue for it here, the idea that our
character judgments ought to track only a person's current disposi-
tions strikes me as implausible. As I see it, our emotional responses
to another ought to track the whole person and not just the person's
present dispositions. While a person's present dispositions are impor-
tant, they are only meaningful when illuminated by the person's his-
tory and knowledge of her past dispositions and previous actions.44
If we insist that an individual's character is partially constituted by
her previous actions, dispositions, and commitments, then a total
moral transformation will not completely remove the grounds for
continued contempt, but it will provide a good reason to forgive-C
the person. Moreover, this would explain why forgiveness-C involves
forgiving a person for who she is, not simply for who she was. For
who a person now is cannot be completely separated from who that
person was.
(B) Shame as a Reason to Forgive-C

I have suggested that the best way for the contemned to honor the
standards they have failed to meet is for them to take responsibility
for their character flaws and attempt to change them. If this is cor-
rect, then the genuine moral shame of the offender is another impor-
tant reason to forgive-C. The offender's shame can provide a
powerful reason to overcome one's contempt because, through feeling
shame, the offender simultaneously takes responsibility for his char-
acter, acknowledges his character flaws, and shows some desire to
improve himself.
Unlike what we might term "simple repentance," which requires
that the repentant take responsibility only for what she has done,
44 Something like this idea seems to be behind Aristotle's discussion of the difficulty
of character change. See Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, Chapter 5. Some might
worry that my appeal to "previous actions" in this sentence suggests that what con-
tempt is really tracking is immoral actions and not bad character. As I have
argued, I think this is incorrect. In most cases, we come to have knowledge of
someone's character through her actions. But it doesn't follow from this that the
object of our contempt is simply a person's actions.
648 MACALESTER BELL

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
shame requires that she take responsibility for the person she is. We
may come to feel shame for a wide variety of personal attributes
and associations, such as our appearance, lineage or accent. How-
ever, we may also come to feel shame in response to our moral fail-
ings or blemished character; this is what John Rawls terms "moral"
shame. We are liable to what Rawls terms "natural shame" when
we fail to achieve excellence in personal characteristics we cannot
control, such as our appearance or intelligence, whereas we feel
moral shame when we fail to achieve a particular moral excellence,
such as self-command.45
We may have reason to reject Rawls' characterization of shame.46
Nonetheless, we should retain his central idea that moral shame tracks
failings of character rather than wrong action. While different agents
will experience shame in different ways, shame is typically experienced
as a deeply painful emotion. The psychological pain of this mode of
self-reflection creates a desire for some kind of relief. Shame can moti-
vate the agent to seek relief from these painful feelings by motivating
one to improve one's character.47 While guilt is typically associated
with a desire to make amends, shame is typically associated with a
desire to change who one is. Of course I do not mean to suggest that
all instances of shame have this feature, but insofar as an offender's
shame does include a desire to amend his character, this should count
as a reason to forgive-C him.48
45 Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice, (Cambridge Mass: Belknap Press, Revised Edi-
tion, 1999) pp. 444-46. For another helpful discussion of moral shame and the dis-
tinction between moral shame and guilt see Jeffrie Murphy, "Shame Creeps
Through Guilt and Feels like Retribution," Law and Philosophy, vol. 18, no. 11,
July, 1999, pp. 327-344.
46 Rawls' characterization of moral shame is too narrow. We can and do feel what
we might term "moral shame" for failing to achieve excellences of character but
also for failing to meet even minimal moral standards. We may be liable to feelings
of moral shame when we fail to be the very best persons we can be, but we also
may feel moral shame in response to being a complete moral failure. Further, as
John Deigh has pointed out, we may be liable to feelings of moral shame because
of who we are understood independently of what standards we may or may not
have lived up to. See John Deigh, The Sources of Moral Agency, (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1996) for more on this issue.
47 Many philosophers have suggested that shame motivates us to reform or rebuild
our damaged characters. See Allan Gibbard's Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory
of Normative Judgment, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1992) p. 293,
and Bernard Williams' Shame and Necessity, (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994), p. 94. Herbert Morris writes "[T]he steps that are appropriate to
relieve shame are becoming a person that is not shameful," On Guilt and Innocence:
Essays on Legal Philosophy and Moral Psychology, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1976) p. 62.
48 I will go on to qualify this claim further in what follows.

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An offender's desire to change his character ought to count as a
reason to forgive-C because this shift in attitude is partially constitu-
tive of many types of character transformation. For example, con-
sider a person who is miserly. Stinginess or miserliness is a character
flaw because the miser takes a particular attitude toward herself and
the world. The stingy person refuses to see that others' needs and
desires ought occasionally to override her own self-interested desire
to hoard whatever goods are at her disposal. The miser fails to
notice the harm occasioned by her stinginess, and in part, this is
what makes the miser's character abhorrent. But suppose the stingy
person comes to see that the needs and desires of others should
occasionally trump her own desires. This recognition and shift in
attitude is transformative even if her outward behavior does not
undergo an immediate change. If the miser recognizes her stingines
and has a genuine desire to change, she has ceased to have the att
tude characteristic of a complete miser, and this is moral progress.
Thus, insofar as moral shame includes a desire to transform one's
character flaws, the moral shame of the offender should serve as a
reason to forgive-C.
While the moral shame of the offender should count as a reason
to forgive-C, a further qualification is in order. If a person is regu-

larly filled with moral shame in response to her failings, but contin
ues to live her life in exactly the same way, then we have reason
not to treat her shame as a reason to forgive-C. However, if a for-
merly shameless person comes to feel moral shame concerning her
character flaws, this should count as a reason to forgive-C her. In
short, whether or not the shame of the offender should count as a
reason to forgive-C will partly depend upon the past history of the
offender. If the offender is regularly liable to feelings of shame but
continues to misbehave, then her shame should not count as a mor-
ally good reason to forgive-C her.
Taking the moral shame of the offender as a reason to forgive is not
incompatible with maintaining the three judgments necessary for an
uncompromising forgiveness-C. In fact, the moral shame of the offen-
der would presumably strengthen the forgiver's commitment to the first
two required judgments for an uncompromising forgiveness-C. More-
over, it is possible that the offender's moral shame could serve as
independent confirmation of the forgiver's judgment that the offender
650 MACALESTER BELL

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has failed to live up to an important standard due to a character flaw
for which he could appropriately be held responsible.49 Hence, there
seems to be no reason why the moral shame of the offender should not
count as a reason to forgive-C. More importantly, if I am right to
insist that the desire for moral growth or character transformation is
closely associated with feelings of shame, and if the moral growth of
the offender provides us with good reasons to forgive, then it looks as
if the genuine shame of the offender ought to provide us with a good
reason to forgive-C.
Some might wonder whether the kind of character transformation
Fve discussed in this section is really much different from repentance
(properly understood). Specifically, someone might insist that repen-
tance has force as a reason to forgive-R only if it involves a commit-
ment to repudiating and transforming the negative character trait from
which the wrongful action sprung.50 If this were correct, then there
would not be a salient difference between the sincere repentance of the
offender and the kind of character transformation I have been discuss-
ing in this section.
As we have seen, Murphy describes the repentant person as under-
going a change of heart which involves standing against his own
immoral past behavior. I submit that someone could undergo what
Murphy describes as a change of heart concerning her past behavior
without coming to see (let alone take responsibility for or attempt to
change) the underlying character flaws that her behavior revealed. If
this is correct, then this form of repentance could not serve as a reason
to forgive-C.
To see this, consider the following two cases:
The Case of Jane's Inconsiderate Behavior: Jane borrows Colleen's

favorite dress. While wearing it at a dinner party, Jane accidentally
knocks over her wine glass thereby leaving a red stain down the front
of the borrowed dress. Jane returns the dress wrinkled and soiled.
Colleen sees the stain and resents the fact that Jane would return the
dress in such a condition. Colleen confronts her, Jane realizes her
behavior was wrong, and repents. Colleen takes herself to have reason
to forgive Jane.
49 I do not mean to deny that the offender may become liable to feelings of moral
shame even when these feelings are inappropriate. In such a case, the shame of the
offender should not strengthen the victim's commitment to any of the judgments
required for non-complicit forgiveness. My point is simply that when the moral
shame of the offender is appropriate, it would give the victim some independent
confirmation that her judgments were correct.
50 I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue.

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The Case of Jane's Inconsiderateness: This case is identical to the one
described above, except that in this case, Jane is routinely self-
involved and careless with other people's belongings. Colleen responds
with anger about her dress, but what she most strongly feels is con-
tempt for Jane. "What kind of person," she thinks, "could regularly
show so little concern for others?" Colleen confronts Jane and Jane
repents and says that she is very sorry about the red wine stain. Jane's
repentance suggests that she has come to see that her actions were
wrong, but Jane does not seem to recognize what her actions reveal
about her as a person. Moreover, Jane does not take responsibility for
her character flaws or make any effort to ameliorate her character.
Colleen does not take herself to have a reason to forgive Jane.
These cases suggest that we can distinguish between simple and deep
repentance. Simple repentance involves feeling sorry about one's
actions while deep repentance involves feeling sorry for who one is as a
person and how one's character may have manifested itself in one's
actions. In each case described above, Jane repents. In the first exam-
ple, her simple repentance is accepted as a reason to forgive, but in the
second case it is not. What I wish to deny is my interlocutor's insis-
tence that only deep repentance can serve as a reason to forgive-R. In
some cases, wrong behavior is just wrong behavior, and does not impli-
cate any of the offender's character traits (as in the Case of Jane's
Inconsiderate Behavior). In these sorts of cases, simple repentance
might well provide a reason to forgive the wrongdoer. But, as I've been
arguing throughout this paper, sometimes what we care about is not
the action in isolation, but what the action expresses about the offen-
der's character. In the first case, Colleen does not think Jane's inconsid-
erate behavior expresses anything about Jane's character, Colleen is
simply angry about her dress. But in the second case, there is some-
thing else at stake: Jane's (resentment-worthy) behavior seems to
express a contemptible sort of inconsiderateness.
Despite what I see as the important differences between our reasons
to forgive-C and our reasons to forgive-R, there is something that these
reasons have in common: reasons to forgive-C and reasons to forgive-
R are both ways of standing against whatever gave rise to the negative
emotion which is to be overcome through a process of forgiveness. It
seems to me that what the repentant person, the transformed individ-
ual, and the person experiencing appropriate shame all have in com-
mon is a particular stance that they have taken toward their past
actions or characters. That is, all seem to repudiate who they were or
what they have done. Thus, despite the emphasis I would like to place
on the difference between forgiveness-C and forgiveness- R, I think it
may be possible to give a unified account of our reasons to forgive in
terms of repudiation of one's past character traits or past actions.
652 MACALESTER BELL

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VI. Is Forgiveness-C Really a Type of Forgiveness?
As I indicated in section I, I have found that many people resist my
claim that overcoming our contempt should be understood as a form of
forgiveness. In what follows, I will set forth three specific worries I've
encountered concerning the coherence of forgiveness-C. I will then go
on to consider whether or not forgiveness-C should be understood as a
precondition of forgiveness, rather than as a form of forgiveness itself.
(A) Asking for Forgiveness-C

Some people have suggested that forgiveness-C is not really a form of
forgiveness because it is difficult to see how one could ask for
forgiveness-C. Behind this objection lurks the assumption that asking
for (and granting) forgiveness is an essential aspect of interpersonal for-
giveness. Having a bad character trait, it is claimed, does not seem like
the kind of failure for which one could coherently ask forgiveness.51
These critics have pointed out that if the proper responsiveness to
being the object of contempt will involve the contemned ameliorating
his or her character or at least professing a genuine desire to change,
then asking for forgiveness-C seems to be beside the point. If asking
for forgiveness-C is somehow incoherent or pointless, and if it is true
that asking for forgiveness is central to our forgiveness practices, then
we may have some reason to conclude that forgiveness-C is not really a
type of forgiveness. I will return to this issue in what follows.
(B) What are we Forgiving Someone for When we Forgive-C?

Other critics have expressed concerns about what we forgive someone
for when we overcome our contempt for a person. When we forgive
someone for their immoral actions, it is perfectly clear what we are
forgiving them for. If you break a promise to me and I later come to
forgive you, it is clear that I have come to forgive you for the act of
breaking your promise. What then do we forgive someone for in cases
of forgiveness-C? As I have argued in previous sections, I think that
when we overcome our contempt for someone through a process of
forgiveness, we are forgiving the person for his or her character flaws.
But the suggestion that we may forgive someone for his or her char-
acter flaws may strike us as presumptuous or arrogant. How can we
claim to forgive someone for her character traits? If the idea of forgiv-
ing someone for her character traits is morally abhorrent, then we may
decide that forgiveness-C is not really a form of forgiveness after all.
51 In her helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, Andrea Westlund

raised this worry and the following worry about my proposal.

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Again, I think this worry is an important one and I will return to it
momentarily.
(C) Who Has Standing to Forgive- C?

When it comes to forgiveness-R, we have a pretty good idea whose
"business" it is to forgive and whose business it isn't. I have standing
to forgive-R if I am a victim of wrongdoing. As a third party to the
wrongdoing, I may well feel indignation toward the wrongdoer, but
not resentment, and I do not have standing to forgive a wrongdoer if I
am not his principle victim or a close relation. When then do I have
standing to forgive-C? It may be quite rare for someone to be in a
position - to have standing - to demand of someone else that they have
some character trait or meet some standard as opposed to meeting
some behavioral norm. This puts forgiveness-C on rather different foot-
ing than forgiveness-R, which seems to be the kind of moral project
for which there are relatively strict standing requirements. If we cannot
give a clear articulation of the standing requirements of forgiveness-C,
this may give us reason to conclude that forgiveness-C is not actually a
type of forgiveness.
(D) Is Overcoming Contempt a Precondition for Forgiveness

Rather Than a Form of Forgiveness?
In light of these worries about forgiveness-C, it might seem that over-
coming one's contempt for an offender should be understood not as a
mode of forgiveness, but as a precondition for entering into the type of
relationship in which forgiveness can be properly sought and granted. I
have argued that contempt involves a kind of withdrawal or
disengagement from the object of contempt. This form of disengage-
ment may be understood as a kind of withdrawal from the very sort of
engagement that repentance and forgiveness requires. If this is correct,
then overcoming our contempt for an offender should not be under-
stood as a form of forgiveness but as a precondition for the type of
interpersonal relationship that is itself a precondition for forgiveness.52
It is worth pointing out that even if my critic is correct, and we
should understand forgiveness-C as a precondition for forgiveness, we
would still need some way to distinguish between the kinds of reasons
that are good reasons to overcome our contempt for an offender and
the kinds of reasons that are bad reasons to overcome our contempt.
At the very least, I think I have shown that the standard account of
what reasons provide good reasons to forgive cannot help us determine
52 Andrea Westlund suggested just this possibility in her comments.
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131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
what sorts of reasons would be good reasons to overcome our con-
tempt for another. My arguments in this paper could be read as con-
tributing to the debate by offering an analysis of one, rarely discussed,
precondition for forgiveness.
But I do want to insist that overcoming one's contempt should
sometimes be characterized as part of a process of forgiveness rather
than as a precondition for forgiveness. Forgiveness has an especially
esteemed place in our catalog of possible responses to immorality, and
I think that in some cases, overcoming our moral contempt deserves
the honorific of "forgiveness." Moreover, while contempt is structurally
distinct from resentment and while the reasons to forgive-R are distinct
from the reasons to forgive-C, this is not sufficient to establish that for-
giveness-C is not a type of forgiveness. Our responses to immorality
are much more complex than philosophical discussions of forgiveness
would suggest. When confronting immorality it is not uncommon to
experience a multitude of attitudes and emotions. Those who maintain
that forgiveness must be defined solely in terms of the overcoming
of resentment, rather than contempt, ought to defend this claim. In the
absence of such a defense, I can think of no reason to accept the thesis
that forgiveness must be defined solely in terms of overcoming
resentment.
Moreover, I find nothing incoherent about the possibility that an

offender could ask for forgiveness-C. While asking for forgiveness-C
will certainly not replace the hard work of character transformation, it
seems possible that the victim may not immediately recognize that the
offender has transformed himself. In this case, asking for forgiveness is
not beside the point. Instead, it is a way to announce that one has
changed or is in the process of changing one's character.
As I have mentioned, some critics have argued that forgiveness is a
highly interpersonal activity that depends upon a special sort of rela-
tionship between the victim and the offender and that feeling contempt
for another makes this sort of relationship impossible. But it is impor-
tant to remember that when we forgive someone we seek to overcome
a negative emotion that was initially justified. As I see it, when our
contempt for another is justified, it presupposes some kind of relation-
ship between the contemnor and the contemned, rather than precluding
such a possibility. As we have seen, contempt involves holding a person
to a standard. For our contempt to be fully justified, we must be justi-
fied in holding the person to the standard in question. In many cases,
we will be justified in holding someone to a particular standard because
of our relationship with that person. Since moral contempt is such a
deeply interpersonal emotion, I think the activity of overcoming our
moral contempt will also be deeply interpersonal. Recognizing this

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helps to answer those who are worried that forgiving someone for his
or her bad character traits is arrogant or presumptuous. While forgiv-
ing a stranger for her character traits may be presumptuous, it is diffi-
cult to see why Camille ought to be considered arrogant or
presumptuous if she were to overcome her contempt for Paul through
a process of forgiveness.
In fact, it seems to me that forgiveness-C is a more deeply interper-
sonal activity than forgiveness-R. Accepting an expanded account of
forgiveness may require us to rethink what it means to overcome an
emotion through the process of forgiveness. While we can overcome
our resentment for another without any movement toward reconcilia-
tion, overcoming our contempt for a person will require us, at least in
many cases, to "reengage" the offender. This is because of the funda-
mental differences between resentment and contempt. As we have seen,
contempt essentially involves a kind of withdrawal or disengagement
from the object of contempt. This helps differentiate contempt from
resentment, which usually involves a hyper-attention to the object of
resentment. Hence, part of overcoming one's contempt will involve one
overcoming this disengagement and reengaging (or fully engaging for
the first time) with the former object of contempt.53 The point I wish to
emphasize is that what it means to overcome one's negative emotion
through a process of forgiveness will turn on the structure of the emo-
tion to be overcome.
Finally, let's turn to the question of the standing requirements for for-
giveness-C. When do I have standing to forgive-C? To answer this ques-
tion, I think we will need to look at the particular failure in question and
ask ourselves who could legitimately demand that the object of contempt
meet the standard in question. Whoever could legitimately demand that
the person meet the standard, has standing to forgive-C the person.
Those who could not legitimately make this demand would not have
standing to forgive-C. Many of us feel what we might term "third-person
contempt" for Paul. This third-person contempt is analogous to the
indignation we might feel as observers of wrongdoing. If Paul experiences
shame or reforms his character, then we should revise our third-person
contempt for him, but this should not count as a case of forgiveness-C.
As Paul's wife, only Camille has the standing to demand that Paul live up
to the standard in question. Because of her special relation to Paul, only
Camille has the standing to forgive-C him.
53 Of course I do not mean to suggest that every case of forgiveness-C will require us
to fully reconcile with the offender. There may well be cases of genuine forgiveness-
C where full reconciliation is either impossible or unreasonable.
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VII. Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that if we accept an expanded account of

forgiveness, then we will need to reevaluate some of the truisms about
forgiveness. Once we accept an expanded account of forgiveness, we
must also accept that there will be different reasons to forgive depend-
ing upon the particular attitude or emotion overcome through a pro-
cess of forgiveness. If, as moral agents, we are interested in forgiving
only when we have morally good reasons to do so, then we should
examine the strength of our reasons to forgive and perhaps change our
forgiveness practices. For example, as victims of wrongdoing or badbe-
ing we should be careful to articulate to ourselves and to our offenders
precisely what attitudes and emotions we experience as a result of the
offence. Both parties ought to have a clear understanding of precisely
what emotion or attitude is to be overcome through a process of for-
giveness in order to know what sort of considerations would count as
morally good reasons to forgive. But expanding the set of our reasons
to forgive need not lead to any worrisome theoretical or practical
implications. The set of attitudes overcome through forgiveness is
finite. Thus, while there will be more and different reasons to forgive
on the expanded account of forgiveness, there will not be an infinite
number of reasons to forgive. Expanding our conception of forgiveness
will make our moral lives more complex, but not impossible.
I began this paper by describing bluemoon's confusion about
whether it is possible to forgive someone for who they are and not sim-
ply what they have done. In this paper I have selected one person-
directed attitude, contempt, and argued that an agential and
non-complicit overcoming of one's contempt through forgiveness is a
coherent possibility. Further, I hope to have shown that there are mor-
ally good reasons to overcome one's contempt through a process of
forgiveness and that these reasons are often quite different from the
reasons we may have to overcome our resentment through a process of
forgiveness. If bluemoon's father and abuser attempt to transform their
characters, or, at the very least, express their genuine shame, bluemoon
may have reason to overcome any contempt she feels toward them
through a process of forgiveness. On the other hand, if these men have
not made any efforts to change their characters or have failed to recog-
nize that their characters are defective and in need of change, then I do
not see any morally salient reason for bluemoon to overcome her con-
tempt through a process of forgiveness.
If bluemoon does have good reasons to forgive-C, does this entail
that she also has good reasons to forgive-R? Yes, so long as the action
in question is expressive of the character trait at issue. It is difficult
to imagine an offender who undergoes a moral transformation or

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00
experiences appropriate shame but for whom there is no reason to for-
give-R. Good reasons to forgive-C require that the offender stand
against or repudiate his character flaws that gave rise to the initial con-
tempt. Presumably, such a person would also repudiate any past
actions that were expressive of his problematic character traits. Thus, if
it is the case that bluemoon has reason to forgive-C her abuser and her
absent father, then it looks like she also has reason to forgive-R these
men.
As bluemoon's lament suggests, forgiveness is a messy and

cated business. In offering a fine-grained analysis of overcom
tempt through a process of forgiveness I have thereby overs
what is often a complex process: we can (and should) resp
offenders with a wide variety of negative attitudes or emotio
ing resentment, contempt, disappointment, sadness and so on
correct, then forgiveness will often involve overcoming a com
of more or less troubling negative attitudes. These attitudes m
act in interesting and important ways that I have not discuss
paper. Nonetheless, I hope my reflections on overcoming con
serve as a starting point to a longer and richer discussion of
tofore neglected aspect of our moral lives.54
54 Many people provided extremely helpful feedback on earlier drafts of t

am especially grateful for the comments I received from Thomas Hill, Sus
Gerald Postema, Bernard Boxill, Ram Neta, Andrea Westlund, Nancy L
Elizabeth Harman, Nishi Shah, Matt Evans, Stephanie Baardman, Ka
Carol Rovane, and three anonymous reviewers. I began writing this pa
supported by a research grant from the Ford Foundation, and I am ver
for the support of the Ford Foundation and other Ford Fellows.
658 MACALESTER BELL

131.251.10.144 on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:29:36 +00:00

Bell ForgivingSomeoneAnd 2008

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Forgiving Someone for Who They Are (And Not Just What They've Done)

Author(s): Macalester Bell

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40041260

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Forgiving Someone for Who They

In the passage above, "bluemoon" describes her ambivalent feelings

1 www.unsolvedmysteries.com (accessed February 6, 2006).

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 625

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... [Abandoning resentment does not constitute forgiving, because a

Philosophers who subscribe to a version of the standard account of forgiveness

626 MACALESTER BELL

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I have now been persuaded by Norvin Richards and others, however,

Despite the lip service paid to this expanded definition of forgiveness,

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 627

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As should be clear, part of my task in this paper is to convince the

628 MACALESTER BELL

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Richards and Murphy offer one strategy for responding to those

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 629

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Augustine argues that we ought to take up a certain attitudinal stance:

9 Augustine, City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin Books,

630 MACALESTER BELL

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II. The Nature of Contempt

10 I owe this observation about our forgiveness practices to an anonymous reviewer.

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 631

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632 MACALESTER BELL

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some propositional content referring to an act performed

blank is filled in by a particular per

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 633

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as important. This form of regard constitutes a psychological with-

634 MACALESTER BELL

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In his film Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard portrays the increasing con-

The example of Camille's contempt ought to cause us to rethink the

22 See Michelle Mason's "Contempt as a Moral Attitude," pp. 236-237. I closely

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 635

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III. Agential and Non-Complicit Forgiveness

636 MACALESTER BELL

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26 Jeffrie Murphy seems to have a similar view of what it is to "overcome" a negative

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 637

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1 . Because of a morally flawed character, the object of contempt

2. The object of contempt is a member of the moral community

3. The contemnor can legitimately expect or demand that the con-

To forgive-C is to overcome one's non-objectionable contempt on moral

638 MACALESTER BELL

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IV. Can Reasons to Forgive-R Provide Reasons to Forgive-C?

30 I don't mean to suggest anything particularly bold or controversial here. An analo-

31 Thus, on my account, any duty we have to forgive is an imperfect d

FORGIVING SOMEONE FOR WHO THEY ARE 639

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640 MACALESTER BELL

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