Survivors of the Nazi atrocities, of the sufferings of apartheid in South Africa, and of the Rwandan genocide are often asked if they should, and indeed if they can, forgive those who persecuted and assaulted them. Forgiveness can, of course, be a mundane and common occurrence, but the most visible and dramatic cases of it are of this type. They involve survivors or relatives of survivors; the perpetrators are conceived of collectively or, on occasion, as individuals; the injuries and suffering are extreme; the victims may or may not have been compensated, and the perpetrator typically was punished or is undergoing punishment; culpability is not in question; and the offender most likely has not expressed remorse or regret or asked for forgiveness. The most publicized cases have these features. Numerous discussions of these types of cases are available.

I want to set aside the question of collective forgiveness – that is, of whether we can make sense of a notion of forgiveness for collective entities such as states or nations or peoples – and focus on the interpersonal case. In these modern situations, and in much of the literature on forgiveness of the past few decades, the emphasis has been on the individual victim. Commentators ask when forgiveness is justified; whether it is morally obligatory or supererogatory; if it is an emotion or attitude or something akin to both; whether the disposition to forgive is a virtue; and whether the highest form of forgiveness – what Calhoun calls “aspirational forgiveness” – is not best expressed by unconditional forgiveness, when it is granted by the victim without the offender asking for it, showing regret, or possibly even knowing about it. The way these questions have been discussed in recent literature certainly indicates an individualist and, in some cases, a voluntaristic tendency. Moreover, the locus of interest in recent discussion is by and large on the victim of harm and injury. The focus is on the decision of that victim to forgive, the self-respect exemplified by the choice, and that of the sinner acknowledged in the choice.