The Forgiveness of Others

The Forgiveness of Others explores how we can understand “change” in the practice of forgiveness.

The Forgiveness of Others claims that forgiveness is a complex and dynamic moral practice that raises metaphysical questions about the meaning of change and of personal identity. When we forgive, we are transformed from one state (resentment, say) and one identity (injured party) to another state and identity (someone forgiving). By looking closely at various accounts of forgiving and being forgiven, and of being unforgiving and unforgiven, this book explores how often we find cases in which we have substitutions as well as transformations. Rushdy focuses on two kinds of substitutions- cases in which we have survivors who forgive on behalf of the absent injured party and cases in which we have proxies who are forgiven on behalf of the wrongdoer. He contends that these substitutions help us more fully understand the dynamic conditions of forgiveness. What might seem to some to be violations of the protocols of forgiveness - being offered by and to “others” - is arguably the crux of forgiveness as a moral practice that transforms those who offer and receive it in a way that represents or effects their transformation. This volume advocates a pluralist approach that traces an alternative path between those who argue that forgiveness is meaningful only if it follows a particularly restrictive paradigm and those who argue that it is meaningless because it is either futile or impossible.