Abstract

Assuming a social world in which punishment for wrongdoing is considered legitimate, does or may forgiveness of the wrongdoing also cancel any punishment that may be due? Philosophers are divided on the issue. This chapter provides some explanations for the division, critiques views that consider punishment to be incompatible with forgiveness, and suggests circumstances in which punishment is compatible with forgiveness—particularly, those in which people with standing to punish differ from people with standing to forgive, or, because the forswearing of resentment is the key to forgiveness, resentment may be forsworn without punishment being canceled.