Forgiveness According to Ricoeur

When we are confronted with senseless violence, we cannot help but feel indignant and

condemn what has occurred. Somehow, it seems hard to grasp how such evil occurs in this world

and yet it happens every day. We see this happening in the Connecticut massacre last December

14 when 20 kids were killed in cold blood. However, in the media frenzy that surrounded that

news event, one story stood out—the story of a victim’s father offering forgiveness to the

shooter’s family.

When we are faced with such evil, we find ourselves confronted with the reality of

forgiveness. How come despite what had happened, there is still forgiveness? Despite the

seeming impossibility of forgiveness, people still forgive. In order to understand this reality, this

paper seeks to frame it by answering the question “What does it really mean when we forgive?”

using Ricoeur’s concept on forgiveness.

The essay will be divided in three parts. Firstly, I will establish forgiveness as something

that is indeed possible. This will be done by discussing Ricoeur’s concept of Capable Human

Being and the reality of the fault. Secondly, a distinction must be made between real and false

forgiveness in order to address some misconceptions surrounding it, and address the issues that

impede its granting. Lastly, we analyze how forgiveness affects the one who forgives.

Forgiveness as a Possibility
Capable Human Being
In Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology, he speaks about the “capable human being”

with the basic powers of our humanity. 1 These capacities include the capacity to say or speak, to

act, to narrate, to feel responsible for one’s action, to promise, to forgive and to experience a

1
Paul Ricoeur of Happy Memory Leovino Ma. Garcia
happy memory2. The concept of the capable human being comes into play because it makes it

possible for us to speak of forgiveness in the first place.

For Ricoeur, forgiveness can only occur when we can accuse someone guilty of

something.3 This means that to talk about forgiveness in the first place, we must be able to take

responsibility for our actions. There must be an act traceable to an agent. This is what Ricoeur

calls imputability—“that capacity, that aptitude, by virtue of which actions can be held to

someone’s account 4 ” and this imputability is an integral part of the capable human being.

However it is also this imputability that raises the idea of the fault.

Ricoeur said: “It is in this region of imputability that fault, guilt, is to be sought. This is

the region of articulation between the act and the agent, between the “what” of the actions and

the “who” of the power to act—of agency. When we talk about imputability, the implication is

that there will always be an act that can be traceable to us and this act can be misused due to our

experience of the fault. Because of this experience of the fault, our capacity to act as “capable

human beings” gets wounded. For Ricoeur, it is only through forgiveness that the “capable

human being” can be restored. However, this presents another problem. Forgiveness restores the

capable human being by liberating the person from the act, essentially unbinding the act from the

agent. Therefore, isn’t this contradictory to the concept of imputability? Venema explains it very

well,

“On the one hand, forgiveness is supposed to unbind an action from an agent and no longer holds
her accountable for what he has done. On the other hand, however, If I am at fault for what I have
done, then I am faced with an impossible situation; namely, the separation of action from agency,
such that when forgiven my fault or action, it is no longer ascribed to who I am. If this is the case,
then as Ricoeur argues, forgiveness might very well be the destruction of selfhood, which for
Ricoeur is always a fundamental relation between who I am and what I do, between action and
agent5" (p.66)

2
Ibid.
3
Ricœur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2004. Print.) 460
4
Ricoeur, 460
5
Venema, 66.

2
 This presents a paradox in Ricoeur’s concept of forgiveness making this an “impossible

condition for unconditional forgiveness.6” If forgiveness unbinds the guilt from the person and

removes accountability, is it not a “moral evil in and of itself”? Therefore does this mean that

forgiveness is impossible7 and that “evil actions are simply unforgiveable?8” Ricoeur disagrees

and he says it simply: “There is forgiveness as there is joy, as there is wisdom, extravagance,

love9” He says that forgiveness is not impossible because it simply happens.10

Furthermore, it is possible to separate evil action from the self despite the fact that the

action and agents are bound together; because while evil is radical (we have the propensity to do

evil)11, it is not original. Ricoeur agrees with Kant’s idea that man has the “predisposition to do

the good12.” This ‘predisposition to do the good’ tells us that man is originally good, and is

therefore capable of turning away from evil actions. This possibility to do the good exists

because of the reality of the unconditional forgiveness. Therefore, “…while actions [sic] and

agent are always coupled together, evil action can be unbound from the heart of selfhood because

the heart is never completely incapable of beginning again…it is always possible…to repent and

turn away from a particular course of action, because forgiveness is unconditionally available13.”

Because of these, we can say that forgiveness is indeed possible.

Differentiating Real and False Forgiveness

After establishing that forgiveness is not an impossibility, but is indeed a possibility, we

now move on to the second part of this paper: What is forgiveness exactly?? In order to answer

6
Venema, 66
7
Garcia, Leovino Ma. “Interpreting the Story of My Life: Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of Narrative Identity.” Paul Ricoeur’s Selected Readings.
Ed. Leovino Ma. Garcia. 65
8
Venema, 69
9
Quoted in Garcia, Leovino Ma. “Interpreting the Story of My Life: Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of Narrative Identity.” Paul Ricoeur’s Selected
Readings. Ed. Leovino Ma. Garcia. 65
10
Venema, 69
11
Propensity of man to evil
12
Venema, 71
13
Erfani, 42

3
this question, three common misconceptions regarding forgiveness will be addressed to

determine true forgiveness.

Forgiveness is Not an Economy of Exchange, but a Gift Between Two Persons

“I forgive you…if…” Whether we realize it or not, we find ourselves uttering this phrase

when we think about forgiveness. The phrase “I forgive you…if…” makes it seem like the only

way we can grant forgiveness is if the person we are forgiving changes or corrects his or her

actions. However, if we consider the case of the Connecticut massacre where the shooter killed

himself, who can be forgiven when the person to forgive is incapable of changing himself? In

the experience of forgiveness, there always seems to be an element of reciprocity involved,

“there does exist something like a correlation between forgiveness requested and forgiveness

granted14.” It is as if forgiveness cannot help but enter into what Ricoeur calls “the sphere of

exchange15.”The primary characteristic of forgiveness is that it is unconditional; so it becomes

problematic when we place forgiveness into the “sphere of exchange” because we presuppose

that someone must first ask for forgiveness before it can be granted. This is why Ricoeur agreed

to Derrida’s statement that, “If there is forgiveness…then it has to be able to be granted without

the condition of a prior request.16” Thus, instead of associating forgiveness with the “sphere of

exchange”, he thought it would be more appropriate to see forgiveness as a gift.

Although Ricoeur sees that it is better to see forgiveness as a gift, he still raised several

problems with this notion. One problem with this perspective is that there is still a notion of a

gift being a form of market exchange: “A gift given always expects a gift in return17.” Somehow

there is a circularity involved here that compels us to give back to the one who gave to us, as if

we are obligated. Thus, there is only one proper way to respond to forgiveness, it is to radically

14
Ricoeur, 478
15
Ricoeur, 478
16
Ricoeur, 478
17
Ricoeur, 480

4
love our enemies unconditionally. 18 The so-called “impossible commandment” where “the

enemy has not asked for forgiveness: he must be loved as he is 19” Speaking of forgiveness as a

gift requires us to break free from the mindset of circularity and instead demand the

extraordinary. When we forgive someone, we do not forgive for the sake of the person changing

or correcting their behavior, but for the simple sake of forgiving.

Forgiveness is Not a Form of Forgetting but a Type of Remembering

Another prevalent notion of forgiveness is that we must “forgive and forget,”--the idea

that forgiveness is equated to forgetting. However, this is a misconception for Ricoeur because

he argues that we cannot forgive what we have forgotten. “It is in the accord with the logic of

remembering (as mourning) that ‘forgiveness heals20.’”

Forgiving someone does not mean forgetting what has happened. In fact, Ricoeur tells us

that in the political level we have a duty to tell21, and it is because of this duty to tell the past of

what really happened that “we must keep traces, traces of events, because there is a general trend

to destroy. 22 ” We also have a certain indebtedness to the past because history tends to

overshadow the stories of victims and it is through remembering where we “keep alive the

memory of suffering against the general tendency of history to celebrate the victors.”

It is here where Ricoeur, citing Arendt, adds that it is through forgiving and promising

that makes “continuation of action in spite of death, in spite of erosion of traces 23” possible. For

Arendt, the two obstacles to the continuation of action are the irreversibility and the

18
Ricoeur, 481
19
Ricoeur, 481
20
Duffy, 56
21
Ricoeur, Paul. “Memory and Forgetting“ Paul Ricoeur: Selected Readings. Comp. Leovino Ma Garcia, 90. Print.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.

5
unpredictability of actions.24 Irreversibility means that we cannot change what has happened in

the past; however we can change how this past affects us. This is where forgiveness comes in.

Forgiveness gives rise to the possibility that the burden of the past can be alleviated 25 because it

allows us to see things differently instead of finding ourselves stuck in a cycle of bitterness and

hate. At the same time, Arendt links forgiveness to promise. Promise, for her, is an act of binding

that address the unpredictability of the future. When forgiving and promise are taken together,

this, for Ricoeur leads to the main claim that in order for us to bind ourselves to the

unpredictability of the future (promise), we must be able to untie ourselves from the past

(forgiveness)26.

I would just like to point out that the type of forgetting Ricoeur presents here is a form of

denial that something happened in the first place. For Ricoeur, this is the wrong type of

forgetting. There is also a good type of forgetting in the same way we speak of a happy memory.

This kind of “good oblivion” is a type of remembering—a remembering in which it makes it

possible for a person to “project oneself in a creative way into the future. 27” What is forgotten

here is not what has happened, but it is the “haunting power” of what has happened28. It is

through remembering that allows the person to undergo the difficult process of mourning. It is by

mourning that the person learns “to narrate otherwise, what one has done, what one has suffered,

what one has gained and what one has lost 29 And it is only after undergoing the difficult process

of mourning that forgiveness and healing can occur.

24
Ricoeur, Paul. “The Difficulty to Forgive.” Memory, Narrativity, Self and the Challenge to Think God: The
Reception within Theology of Recent Work of Paul Ricoeur. Munster: LIT Verlag. 2004. 6-16. Google Books. Google.
Web. 26 Feb 2013., 14
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid.
27
Ibid.
28
Ricoeur (The Difficulty to Forgive), 14
29
http://www.janushead.org/8-1/ricoeur.pdf

6
Institutionalized Forgiveness such as Amnesty is Not Forgiveness
The last misconception is one of the present challenges the post-World War II era

brought about; Ricoeur presents to us the notion of institutionalized forgiveness such as amnesty.

For Ricoeur, amnesty is not forgiveness because it forgets what has happened as if it never

happened in the first place. Remembering is important to “safeguard the future.” Furthermore, in

a dialogue between Ricoeur and Antohi regarding Memory, History and Forgetting30, Ricoeur

shared that the main idea in the epilogue is the idea that “forgiveness is a personal act, an act

from person to person that does not concern juridical institutions.” The two persons involved

here are the aggressor and the victim. It is the victim, according to Ricoeur, who has the capacity

to forgive. The only thing that the trespasser can do is to beg for forgiveness; but even so, it is

the right of the victim31 to grant (or perhaps even not grant) the forgiveness because as he said,

“whoever asks forgiveness has to be prepared to meet with refusal because to enter into the realm

of forgiveness is to accept a confrontation with the possibility of the unforgivable 32” Therefore,

when we talk of forgiveness, it does not involve institutions, instead, we speak of it in terms of a

personal act between two people.

Now, after discussing all these things, we go back to the question posed at the beginning,

what does it really mean when we forgive?

Forgiveness and the Forgiver

Forgiveness is Unbinding—It Has the Capacity to Unbind.
Going back to the story of the father in the news article, while it is evident that

forgiveness is difficult, forgiveness was still granted by the father to the family of the shooter. By

30
"Memory, History, Forgiveness: A Dialogue Between Paul Ricoeur and Sorin Antohi." Janus Head. Trans. Gil Anidjar. Trivium Publications,
n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2013. <http://www.janushead.org/8-1/ricoeur.pdf>.
31
Duffy, Maria. Paul Ricoeur's Pedagogy of Pardon: A Narrative Theory of Memory and Forgetting. (London: Continuum, 2009.) Print. 81
32
Duffy, 55

7
granting the liberating word of forgiveness, the father neither changed the past nor did it bring

his child back. However, it made it possible for him to move on and celebrate the memory of his

child, instead of finding himself stuck in the cycle of bitterness and hate. This is what Ricoeur

meant when he said that there is still hope—hope that something will happen despite the present

situation that brought about the despair. This “something” is “that [which] cannot be fully

expressed in the transcendental or speculative language of philosophy33.”

In this sense, the act of forgiveness done has an unbinding aspect into it. Forgiveness is

the one that “shatters the past and makes possible the future.34” By forgiving, there is liberation

from the burden of the past." While it is already impossible to undo the damage that was done,

what forgiveness does it that it changes what the event had previously meant to the victim, and

makes them see it in a different light.35 Duffy says, “…Forgiveness does not abolish the past, but

it lifts the ‘burden of guilt’ which can paralyze the relationships between individuals and

communities who are ‘acting out and suffering’ their own history36.” Therefore when we say we

forgive someone, it is also “never to let the past have the final word on the other or oneself.37"

Garcia wraps it succinctly in his essay “Interpreting the story of my life”: “Forgiving consists in

holding the guilty person ‘capable of something other than his offenses and his faults’. To

forgive is to address a liberating word to the other: ‘You are better than our actions’.”

Conclusion
Forgiveness is a concept we find difficult to understand. We hear it every day, we see it

being practiced and granted. Forgiveness has a kind of universality to it. On an intellectual level,

or even in a linguistic level, we understand what the word “forgiveness” means. Despite some

33
34
Calano, Mark Joseph, Ph.D. Philosophy 103 Class. Ateneo De Manila University, Quezon City. 07 Jan. 2013. Lecture.
35
Duffy, 104
36
Duffy, 104
37
Duffy,124

8
misconceptions surrounding it, we know what it is about even when we do not talk about it. It’s a

present reality that is happening in this world. Yet, at the same time, forgiveness is so simple that

we take it for granted and we do not think about it that much anymore. In cases of violence and

injustice, our immediate response is to seek vengeance and retribution which just entangles

everyone in a cycle of hate.

In this essay, we see what forgiveness does to a person. We see its liberating capabilities.

By being able to forgive, we not only “unbind” the person from his/her actions, but at the same

time, we ourselves are finally liberated from the past. By undergoing the process of forgiveness,

we are able to look at the past differently, with a more renewed sense of hope for the future. In

spite of all the positive things forgiveness can bring to a person, at the very core of it, there is

still a kind of radicalism that no matter how hard we try to explain it, we cannot capture its

totality. Somehow, in spite of knowing (and even understanding) all the “positive” effects it can

bring to the person, there is still something impossible about the granting of forgiveness. In the

first place, the evil act committed cannot be justified. Something was shattered the moment that

evil act was committed, and something was broken to the point of irreparability. However, it is

precisely for this same reason of the radicalism of the evil that the only response to it can be

forgiveness because in order to “repair” something “irreparable”, it must be answered by

something even more radical—and this is forgiveness.

Arlene Jane T. Chang