First I want to thankCharles Griswoldfor being our guest. It was, I thought, a verythought-provokingconversation about a philosophically under-explored, but interesting and rich topic. I look forward to what I gather will be a two volume set - one about forgiveness and sympathy and the other about imperfection -- from Charles. I know that I personally exemplify the latter and that I need a lot of the former.

I admit to still being puzzled by the question why, when forgiveness is deserved, one can only request forgiveness and aren't really in a position to demand it. I thought I'd ponder that question just a little bit more in this post. My hunch is that what's wrong with demanding forgiveness, even when it's morally deserved, has to do with what I'll call the dialectical character of the relation between the forgiver and the to be forgiven.

It seems to me that the wrong-doer always has the burden of proof, that the "weight" of the burden carried by the wrong-doer is determined by the victim alone, and that it's the victim that gets to determine whether the burden has been adequately discharged. For the wrong-doer to "demand" rather than "request" forgiveness would misrepresent the "dialectical situation" between victim and wrong-doer. In demanding, rather than requesting, forgiveness, the wrong-doer would thereby represent himself as usurping one or more of the perogatives that are morally reserved for the victim alone.

为了证明这一点，我们至少需要假设格里斯沃尔德是对的，而佩里是错的。我们需要假设，宽恕从来不是完全单方面的事情，只对受害者一方有利，至少在核心或典型的案例中是这样。虽然我认为约翰指出的是正确的，例如，一个成年的孩子最终原谅了他/她的父母在童年时所做的错误，而父母没有任何悔过或改变，我确实认为我们可能会跟随查尔斯的想法，把这当作一个非典型的案例。Indeed, even if we allow that there are such one-sided instances of forgiveness, still when it comes to ademandorrequest关于宽恕，我们回到格里斯沃尔德关于宽恕的相关概念。

因此，为了便于讨论，我们姑且承认宽恕在道德上是适当的，只有当做错事的人满足某些条件时。我记得格里斯沃尔德认为有六种情况。我现在记不全了。现在让我印象深刻的是，做错事的人需要果断地否认所做的错事，他需要同情地站在受害者的角度，他需要承诺成为一个不同的人。

Imagine a scenario in which the wrong-doer has done everything necessary to make forgiveness morally appropriate and consider a conversation between a reformed, committed, contrite and sympathetic wrong-doer and his still resentful victim. W = the wrong-doer. V = the victim

女:请原谅我!

V: I can't forgive you! You hurt me, betrayed me! You are a wicked, wicked man!

女:但是我已经不是以前的我了。我已经改变了。我保证。

V: I don't trust you! If I forgive you, you'll eventually go back to your old ways.

W: I understand your feelings. What I did to you was awful. I know I hurt you. I know I was being selfish. I understand your resentment and I can understand your reluctance to trust me. But it's been [years, months, weeks, days, hours]. I've changed. I've grown a lot. Can't you see that?

V:我看你确实变了。我真的。你现在意识到你伤我有多深，这对我很有帮助。我希望你能改过自新，即使不是为了我，也是为了你自己。但是，抱歉，我就是放不下，现在还放不下，也许永远也放不下。

W: Don't do it just for my sake. Do it for your own sake as well. We can start over.

V: No we can't start over, not yet anyway. I can't yet bring myself to forgive you.

In this imagined conversation, it seems to me that the victim grants everything argued by the wrong-doer, yet ends by withholding forgiveness. Perhaps partly out of a lack of complete confidence that the wrong-doer has really and truly reformed, but also partly out of a present inability to completely let go of anger and resentment. Is that inability a "moral failing" for which the victim could rightly be criticized in light of the wrong-doer's having fully met his side of the forgiveness bargain?

I am pulled both ways. On the one hand, if she could let go then given that the wrong-doer does fully merit forgiveness, her letting go would, it seems, be morally good and appropriate. Moreover, it seems that letting go would be morally preferable to not letting go if she in fact has the ability to let go. So how can we not criticize her for her inability to let go?

The answer, I think, is that we recognize that letting go is a psychologically complex undertaking, possibly involving a very wrenching journey. None of us, but especially not even the fully contrite and sympathetic wrong-doer -- precisely because he is the cause of the very need for that wrenching journey, -- has standing to "demand" that the victim have already completed the journey at any given point. That, I think, is why we cannot morally criticize an inability to grant even morally deserved forgiveness.

Similarly, I now think that I was wrong to be tempted by the conclusion that forgiveness must therefore be a freely given gift on the part of the victim, never fully deserved by the victim. I do still believe the part about it being a freely given gift. But I'm no longer tempted to the conclusion that forgiveness consequently cannot be deserved. It can be deserved but nonetheless not be the kind of thing that can be demanded. "Demanding" forgiveness is a certain kind of "dialectical move" a move in a "language game" as Wittgensteinians would say. And certain conditions have to obtain before such a move counts as dialectically permissible. It is not obvious that mere desert is enough to make a demand a dialectically appropriate move between victim and wrong-doer. Indeed, it seems obvious now that desert is insufficient to make a demand rather than a request dialectically appropriate.

Here's what I mean by that. In requesting forgiveness, the truly reformed wrong-doer is, I think, offering a gift of his own to the victim. By explicitly requesting forgiveness, the reformed, contrite, and sympathetic wrong-doer issues to the victim an invitation, an invitation to closure and renewal. But by asking or begging rather than demanding, he represents this invitation as a mere invitation, not as a command or imperative, not as something thatmustbe accepted. He leaves it entirely to the discretion of the victim to accept or reject and represents himself as so doing. He thereby respects and represents himself as respecting the freedom and autonomy of the victim. That is a way of repudiating his past wrong-doing. On the other hand a demand for forgiveness would convey none of this respect and sympathy. Indeed, it would express a kind of impatience and lack of sympathy for the possibly wrenching journey still needed by the victim.