Forgiveness and Remembrance: Remembering Wrongdoing in Personal and Public Life

Forgiveness and Remembrance examines the complex moral psychology of forgiving, remembering, and forgetting in personal and political contexts. It challenges a number of entrenched ideas that pervade standard philosophical approaches to interpersonal forgiveness and offers an original account of its moral psychology and the emotions involved in it. The volume also uses this account to illuminate the relationship of forgiveness to political reconciliation and restorative political practices in post-conflict societies.

Memory is another central concern that flows from this, since forgiveness is tied to memory and to emotions associated with the memory of injury and injustice. In its political function, memory of wrongdoing -- and of its victims -- is embodied in processes of memorialization, such as the creation of monuments, commemorative ceremonies, and museums. The book casts light on the underexplored relationship of memorialization to transitional justice and politically consequential interpersonal forgiveness. It examines the symbolism and the symbolic moral significance of memorialization as a political practice, reflects on its relationship to forgiveness, and, finally, argues that there are moral responsibilities associated with memorialization that belong to international actors as well as to states.


Author: Jeffrey M. Blustein
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 06/02/2014
Pages: 354
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.22h x 6.25w x 0.92d
ISBN: 9780199329403

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2015 pg. 984

About the Author

Jeffrey Blustein is Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics at City College and Professor of Philosophy at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He publishes in the areas of memory studies, bioethics, the ethics of parents and children, and moral psychology.