5 - Law and the Metaphysics of Forgiveness

Summary

If Chapter 4 develops the ontology of guilt and forgiveness, this chapter explores its moral phenomenology as a practical engagement of love after violation. I argue first for an account of love based on Roy Bhaskar’s conception of its five circles: in terms of its relation to self, to the other, to the relation of self and other, to self, other and the wider community, and self and other in their ontological depth as unique individuals. These five forms of love are then explored in relation to the experiences of victims and perpetrators in The Forgiveness Project (Cantacuzino 2015). Forgiveness involves both a ‘giving to’ and a ‘giving up’, and this can lead to a profound sense of identification between a victim and a perpetrator. It is different for each person and how it develops also depends on the broader social setting in which it occurs. Forgiveness can be understood either as an ethical and metaphysical phenomenon (dispositive humility) or as a law-related institutional practice (an exchange relation). The latter recasts forgiveness in ways compatible with the criminal justice system and links it to the tendency to punish rather than reconcile those caught up in violation.