In the wake of the Dylann Roof church shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, forgiveness became a focus of the discussion. Within 48 hours of the shooting, several family members of the victims made personal offers of forgiveness to Dylann Roof. The flood of editorials and opinion pieces commenting on this offer of forgiveness revealed a deep division in public attitudes toward forgiveness, particularly in the context of racially motivated crimes. In this article, I explore the ethics of forgiveness, raising questions about the limits and possibilities of forgiveness in the broader context of social injustice. I defend the view that forgiveness can function as act of social resistance. Against some who think that forgiveness functions primarily as an interpersonal act, I will offer reasons to think that forgiveness can play a socially constructive role. And so I will argue for the value and practice of a social forgiveness, over and above whatever occurs at the interpersonal level.
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August 31 2017
Forgiveness after Charleston: The Ethics of an Unlikely Act
Larry M. Jorgensen
Larry M. Jorgensen
Larry M. Jorgensen is Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Skidmore College in upstate New York. He works on the history of philosophy, especially seventeenth-century European philosophy, as well as the ethics of forgiveness and reconciliation.
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The Good Society (2017) 26 (2-3): 338–353.
Citation
Larry M. Jorgensen; Forgiveness after Charleston: The Ethics of an Unlikely Act. The Good Society 31 August 2017; 26 (2-3): 338–353. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.26.2-3.0338
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