Colloquium: Sukaina Hirji (University of Pennsylvania)

Title: Empathy, Forgiveness, and the Limits of the Retributive Stance 

Abstract: It is often thought that cultivating empathy helps us give up our resentment against the person who has harmed us. But philosophers have puzzled over why empathetically taking up the point of view of someone who has wronged us should help us forgive them; indeed, many philosophers have regarded this route to forgiveness with suspicion. I argue that empathy can provide a route to forgiveness not by undermining one’s reasons to be angry nor by destabilizing the victim’s perspective on the harm done to them, but instead by shifting the victim’s evaluative outlook.