In current debates about coming to terms with individual and collective wrongdoing, the concept of forgiveness has played an important but controversial role. For a long time, the idea was widespread that a forgiving attitude — overcoming feelings of resentment and the desire for revenge — was always virtuous. Recently, however, this idea has been questioned. The contributors to this volume do not take sides for or against forgiveness but rather examine its meaning and function against the backdrop of a more complex understanding of moral repair in a variety of social, circumstantial, and cultural contexts. The book aims to gain a differentiated understanding of the European traditions regarding forgiveness, revenge, and moral repair that have shaped our moral intuitions today whilst also examining examples from other cultural contexts (Asia and Africa, in particular) to explore how different cultural traditions deal with the need for moral repair after wrongdoing.
Table of Content
Chapter 1: Introduction: Forgiveness and other Elements of Moral Repair.- Chapter 2: Overview of Contributions.- Part I: Western Traditions of Conceptualizing Forgiveness.- Chapter 3: Forgiving Sin.- Chapter 4: Interrupting the Cycle of Violence without Forgiveness? The Story of Joseph in the Bible and Early Jewish Literature.- Chapter 5: “You are better than your deeds”: The Modern Theory of Forgiveness and Its Christian Background.- Chapter 6: A Christian View: Joseph Butler on Resentment and Forgiveness.- Chapter 7: Verzeihen but not Vergeben: A Distinction Drawn from German Language Usage.- Chapter 8: Amnesty — Amnesia — Anamnesis: Temporal Relations and Structural Antagonisms in the Moral Economy of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.- Chapter 9: Just another “Legend of the Forgiving Jew”? The Art of Coping with Wrongdoing and How Literature Can Assist.- Chapter 10: On Revenge: The Other of Forgiveness.- Part II: Cases and Concepts of Moral Repair and Forgiveness from Diverse Cultural Viewpoints.- Chapter 11: Karma in Buddhism and the Problems of Cross-Cultural and Cross-Religious Comparison of ‘Guilt’ and ‘Forgiveness’.- Chapter 12: Forgiveness in Neo-Confucianism.- Chapter 13: Practicing Forgiveness in Chosŏn Korea: With Some Observations on Confucian Normative Discourse.- Chapter 14: The Place of Forgiveness in Conflict Management: Scale-bound Institutional Arrangements in the Moroccan Nomosphere.- Chapter 15: Negotiating Truth-Seeking, Ritual Television, and Healing in Mozambique.- Chapter 16: Balancing Individual Dignity and Communal Indignation in African Religious Ethics of Forgiveness.
About the author
Maria-Sibylla Lotter, Professor of Philosophy, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and author of Scham, Schuld, Verantwortung.
Saskia Fischer, Research Associate in German Studies and Comparative Literature, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany, and author of Ritual und Ritualität im Drama nach 1945.
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