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.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Forgiveness and Memory in Personal Life Chapter 1: The Moral Psychology of Interpersonal Forgiveness Chapter 2: Forgiveness and Memory for Wrongdoing Chapter 3: Forgetting and Forgiving Revisited Part Two: Forgiveness and Memory in Public Life Chapter 4: Forgiveness, Commemoration, and Restorative Justice Chapter 5: Commemoration and the Moral Values of Remembrance Chapter 6: The Nature and Value of Memorialization as Symbolic Activity Chapter 7: Human Rights and the Internationalization of Memory Index

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.

Review :
"The result of Blustein's efforts is a truly formidable book: ambitious, important, and very well thought out... he makes an extraordinarily compelling case for the need to seriously reconsider crucial aspects of the way we think about forgiveness." --Social Theory and Practice