Forgiveness

The concept of forgiveness seems to involve a problem or a dilemma. The problem becomes
obvious once we ask the following question: Can forgiveness be taken back? (=can forgiveness
be withdrawn? = is forgiveness reversible? These are just different ways of asking the same
question.)

If the answer to the question is that forgiveness can be taken back, then forgiveness will no
longer be a commitment and hence becomes arbitrary.

If, however, the answer to the question is that forgiveness cannot be taken back then we will
be belittling the victim’s feelings of hurt. Ideally, in this moral situation we want to give the
advantage to the victim, but to say that forgiveness cannot be taken back implies that the victim
does not have the advantage.

The question “can forgiveness be taken back” is borderline between normative and descriptive.
What is the difference? The normative question asks whether it is ethical to take back
forgiveness, i.e., whether it is morally right to un-forgive (or take back forgiveness) once
someone has granted forgiveness. The descriptive question asks whether it is part of the
definition of forgiveness that one can take it back. In other words, is taking back forgiveness
part of the nature of forgiveness?

Scarre argues that if someone takes back forgiveness on the grounds that their feelings of hurt
have returned, this means that they haven’t forgiven the offender in the first place. His thesis
is descriptive; it is concerned with the nature of forgiveness not with whether it is ethical to
take back forgiveness.

Scarre’s thesis solves the above-mentioned problem because he says that forgiveness by nature
cannot be taken back, which means that forgiveness for him is still a commitment. Furthermore,
his position does not disregard the victim’s feelings of hurt because he is not saying that
forgiveness is an obligation. On the contrary, no one is obliged to forgive. Forgiveness is not a
moral duty. His claim is simply that the nature of forgiveness is such that you cannot take it
back. His position is not normative but descriptive!

The view Scarre is arguing against (rejecting) is the following: forgiveness can be taken back
if feelings of resentment and hurt return. If feelings of hurt are revived by certain incidents then
taking back your forgiveness is something excusable or justifiable. Scarre emphasizes that
cases where negative feelings return such that the person who previously forgave no longer
feels forgiving imply that they haven’t forgiven in the first place. He argues that not taking
back forgiveness is a necessary condition for forgiveness.

Mercy
What is mercy? Mercy is an act in the criminal court whereby the criminal’s sentence is either
reduced or completely waived. In other words, generally we say that a judge has granted mercy
to a criminal when they either reduce the criminal’s sentence (e.g. the criminal spends 5 years
in prison rather than 10) or when the criminal does not receive punishment. In short, mercy
mitigates justice in order to make it less strict.

It is important to note that:

a- Mercy is its own virtue, which means that it cannot be reduced to another virtue. For
example, mercy is not justice. To define mercy as justice is to reduce mercy to justice.

b- Mercy is not something that someone deserves. It is not owed as a right, it is not granted
on desert (= what someone deserves).

c- Normally, a person is merciful, in a way a merciful act is derived from a character-trait.

Mercy is not to be confused with justification. For example, the criminal has killed in self-
defense and does not receive punishment. This is not an act of mercy because the criminal is
justified in the killing. It would be justification in the criminal court and not mercy.

The paradox of mercy:

Now, let us move on to the philosophical problem around mercy as we have defined it here.
The problem becomes apparent once we ask the question: does mercy have a place within legal
justice?

On the one hand, mercy is supposed to be a virtue: merciful action might not be a matter of
duty or right, but is nonetheless admirable—and it seems natural to think that it sometimes has
a place in the criminal court.
On the other hand, if mercy involves imposing a sentence lighter than is required by justice
then mercy seems to involve injustice: how then can it be virtuous, or admirable?

Another way of explaining the problem is as follows:

If we define mercy as making justice more lenient then there is a sense in which the judge is
unjust when she/he is merciful. Being unjust is a vice, not a virtue. Mercy would then amount
to dangerous sentimentality. The thought is that we want to say that mercy is a moral virtue but
to be merciful is to be unjust and injustice is a vice not a virtue.

Murphy’s view is the following: if we say that mercy is part of justice then it ceases to be the
virtue it is because we will be reducing mercy to justice. Mercy is defined as a free gift and
therefore is optional and not mandatory whereas justice is mandatory. But then if mercy is a
free gift and as such optional then it is unjust and has no role to play in the criminal court.