Forgiveness & Mercy

A complete gift of self is problematic for temporal beings

A more inclusivistic, less divisive approach should be adopted in response to Chŏng's attack on Buddhism

A person should be absolved from attributable responsibility for the influence of implicit bias on their action.

A wise man does not remit a punishment which he ought to exact (i.e., a wise man does not pardon).

Abandoning the self as independent enables a nondual relation between self and others that issues in benevolence and compassion.

Accepting God's forgiveness sincerely and contritely opens a person to the possibility of beginning anew.

All forms of anger are inconsistent with the moral life.

Butler did not hold that resentment is a response to injury that is incompatible with good-will and therefore forgiveness.

Christ successfully discharges the debts and obligations that human beings owe to God.

Christian humility involves self-directed hatred for one's own faults, not the faults of others.

Controlling intense anger rather than its unfettered expression is closer to what a good life requires.

Defenders of performative accounts need not hold that acts of forgiveness qua performative must always function in the same way.

Defenders of performative accounts need not think that only speech acts can fulfill the performative functions of forgiving.

Divine forgiveness consists in God rejoicing in our repentance — that is, God ceases to suffer on our account when we repent.

For an act of forgiveness to have positive moral status, the victim must meet certain conditions, most importantly having the right kind of motivating reasons for forgiving.

Forgiveness and excuse are distinct concepts.

Forgiveness conventions play a strategic role in sustaining the cooperative commitment mechanism built around reputation and gossip

Forgiveness does not collapse into condonation.

Forgiveness is not always or necessarily a moral term.

Forgiveness is not the forswearing or overcoming of resentment.

Forgiveness may be located in a system of moral duties that allows for no supererogatory deeds at all.

Forgiveness must be defined so that it involves more than simply effecting certain psychological changes for moral reasons.

Forgiving is accomplished only when one successfully goes through both stages.

Forgiving is not equivalent to excusing.

Hospitality (metaphysical desire) cannot be grounded on dynamic forces of being or on the will as drives of self-preservation or self-expansion.

Hospitality does not presuppose an original social exchange, moral sentiments, or innate emotive capacities for empathy or compassion.

In order to forgive, one must overcome both hostile retributive feelings and moral anger (moderate emotionalism).

In paradigmatic cases, resentment is eliminated by revising the judgment that the wrongdoer's past action stands as a present threat.

It can be offensive when someone says that she forgives you when you have done nothing wrong.

Justification and forgiveness are distinct moral concepts and ought to be distinguished.