Abstract

My aim in this dissertation is to identify some of the discrepancies present in contemporary accounts of forgiveness and to argue that a Kierkegaardian account of the differing ethical and Christian obligations to forgive helps to resolve some of these discrepancies. To this end, I begin by explicating some of the differing contemporary accounts of forgiveness. I then show how some of the problems that exist in the contemporary debate are also present in Kant. Next I explain how, in appropriating some important aspects of Kant's ethics, Kierkegaard takes on these problems. Finally, I argue that Kierkegaard resolves these problems by acknowledging the way in which individuals with differing personal commitments, particularly ethical and Christian commitments, generate differing obligations to forgive. I contend that Kierkegaard understands the obligation to forgive to be generated by the obligation to love and that, as a result, he can explain the existence of differing obligations to forgive in terms of differing obligations to love. I suggest that this explanation of differing obligations to forgive resolves some of the discrepancies present in the contemporary literature