Forgiveness and Its Moral Dimensions

Philosophical interest in forgiveness has seen a resurgence. This interest reflects, at least in part, a large body of new work in psychology, several newsworthy cases of institutional apology and forgiveness, and intense and increased attention to the practices surrounding responsibility, blame, and praise. In this book, some of the world's leading philosophers present twelve entirely new essays on forgiveness. Some contributors have been writing about forgiveness for decades. Others have taken the opportunity here to develop their thinking about forgiveness they broached in other work. For some contributors, this is their first time writing on forgiveness. While all the contributions address core questions about the nature and norms of forgiveness, they also collectively break new ground by raising entirely new questions, offering original proposals and arguments, and making connections to the topics of free will, moral responsibility, collective wrongdoing, apology, religion, and our emotions.

Brandon Warmke (Ph.D. Arizona) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He works in ethics, social philosophy, moral psychology, and political philosophy. He is the author of several philosophical and empirical papers on public discourse and moral responsibility, and over a dozen papers on forgiveness. With Justin Tosi, he is the author of Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk (2020, OUP). His work has been featured in The Atlantic, HuffPost, Scientific American, The Guardian, Slate, The New York Times Magazine, and Vox. Dana Kay Nelkin (Ph.D. UCLA) is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and an Affiliate Professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. Her areas of research include moral psychology, ethics, bioethics, and philosophy of law. She is the author of Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility (Oxford University Press), and a number of articles on a variety of topics, including self-deception, friendship, the lottery paradox, moral luck, psychopathy, forgiveness, and praise and blame. She is also a co-editor of the The Ethics and Law of Omissions and The Oxford Handbook of Moral Responsibility. Her work in moral psychology includes participation in an interdisciplinary research collaboration of philosophers and psychologists, The Moral Judgements Project, which brings together normative and descriptive enquiries about the use of moral principles such as the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing and the Doctrine of Double Effect. Michael McKenna (Ph.D. Virginia) is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. His areas of research are mostly devoted to free will and moral responsibility, but also include issues in moral psychology, action theory, ethics, and metaphysics. He is the author of Conversation and Responsibility (Oxford University Press), the co-author with Derk Pereboom of Free Will: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Press), and has also written numerous articles, most of which would impress you if you were to read them. He is also co-editor of Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities, Free Will and Reactive Attitudes, and The Nature of Moral Responsibility. He has a boundless lust for life, and he often drinks to excess.

1. Forgiveness: An Introduction - Brandon Warmke, Dana Kay Nelkin, and Michael McKenna 2. The Forgiven - David Shoemaker 3. Fitting Attitudes and Forgiveness - Glen Pettigrove 4. Forgiveness as the Renunciation of Protest - Derk Pereboom 5. Free Will and Forgiveness - Ishtiyaque Haji 6. Forgiveness as a Performative Utterance - Richard Swinburne 7. Institutional Apologies and Forgiveness - Angela M. Smith 8. The Sunflower: Guilt, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation - Eleonore Stump 9. Forgiving Evil - Eve Garrard and David McNaughton 10. Forgiveness, Self-Respect, and Humility - Margaret Holmgren 11. Forgiveness as a Duty of Universal Love - Christine Swanton 12. Frailty and Forgiveness: Forgiveness for Humans - Lucy Allais 13. Forgiveness and Consequences - Richard Arneson