This chapter argues that Ishiguro’s novels frame ethical issues through questions of agency. Hannah Arendt’s ideas about agency and action provide a way to understand this in detail: for Arendt, speech and action reveal ‘who’ the speaker is, and shows their involvement with the ‘web of human relationships’ and the ramifications of their actions; the representation of action is inextricable from style and form. Using these ideas, the chapter demonstrates that there are significant changes over Ishiguro’s work: the first three novels concern reflections on past actions; the second three explore different conditions of agency in both content and in style; the two most recent novels deal with the impact and risks of actions and reactions. This also illuminates two recognizable literary devices used by Ishiguro: the way his characters ‘project’ themselves onto others, and what he calls the ‘dream grammar’ in relation to some aspects of his prose and plotting.

There is a tension in military culture between the growing acceptance of moral injury and an idealized view of Stoicism that leaves little room for the guilt and shame, mercy and forgiveness characteristic of moral injury and repair. Does that emotion-lean view do justice to ancient Stoic doctrine? I argue that it does not. The emotions of the Stoic moral aspirant, such as shame and moral distress, bear striking similarities to the negative self-reactive attitudes that P.F. Strawson famously discusses. Notions of mercy and forgiveness speak to the positive reactive attitudes. I develop my argument by turning to Seneca’s essay, On Mercy and his play, the Trojan Woman. Mercy, Seneca insists, makes good on the gentler side of Stoicism. Learning from the mercy others show us, and that we would show them, is one way that soldiers can begin to show mercy towards themselves.

This chapter presents the resolution to Hegel’s account of the problem of recognition by considering the “moral” self, that of “conscience” (Gewissen). It begins by showing that “morality” is the stance that adequately countenances the self-productive character of self-conscious beings, so that the self is understood to be constituted through activity. Only conscience, however, acknowledges the social character of this constitution of the self, the fact that, to count as a self, I must realize my moral knowledge both through my actions, and through participation in moral discourse along with others. For Hegel, successful recognition as a moral self requires the development of particular social practices, confession and forgiveness, through which we can respond to moral disagreement, and I demonstrate that recognizing one another as conscientious requires a continuing dependence on practices like these.

In this concluding chapter, I summarize the argument about the conditions for the achievement of recognition that Hegel sets out from Chapters IV-VI of the Phenomenology. I consider the ways in which the conclusions of this argument are significant for the project of the text as a whole, pointing to the role of the idea of the self both in the Phenomenology’s “Preface” and account of “Absolute Knowing,” and in the Science of Logic. At the same time, I also argue that the account of reciprocal recognition is completed in Hegel’s account of “spirit,” and so does not depend on the subsequent accounts of religion or philosophical science. I conclude by stressing the precarity of relations of reciprocal recognition which are dependent on the achievement of moral agreement.

This chapter explores the place of compromise in transitional justice. While all-pervasive in politics, compromise is a neglected topic, almost a non-topic, within the current transitional justice literature. The chapter is an attempt to reverse this tendency and rehabilitate the notion of compromise. If, as pluralists hold, we are often faced with cases of hard moral choices where, whatever we do, something of value is irreparably lost, then the best we can hope for is some kind of acceptable compromise between clashing goods. The question about the limits of compromise thus features centrally in this chapter. How far should transitional societies go in their willingness to compromise? When is a compromise acceptable, fair, guided by principle, and when is it rotten to the core, simply illegitimate? To what extent is it acceptable to compromise deeply held values such as justice and truth for the sake of other equally important values such as, say, civil peace and democracy? While doubtful that we can settle such issues once and for all, the chapter identifies a range of questions that should be part of the collective conversation about when a political compromise is acceptable and when it is not. The discussion begins, however, with a concrete historical figure, the communist leader Joe Slovo, who played a critical role in South Africa’s negotiated transition from apartheid to democracy. Slovo’s reflections on the nature and limits of compromise in the South African context serve as a central reference point for my discussion throughout this chapter.

Traditional Western science has had little interest in the concept of mind, and has only recently begun to recognise the relationship between spirituality and health. A better understanding of mind has allowed us to establish the scientific concepts behind the spiritual dimension of healing, and the close correlation between religious and spiritual practice and positive changes in a number of stress-related physiological systems. Meditation and prayer have both been shown to improve brain function, and together with practices such as forgiveness and positive thinking, and a supportive social structure, have been shown to benefit both mental and physical health. Meditation has particular clinical applications in those conditions where high arousal and anxiety are a part of the pathology. Controlled studies of prayer have produced mixed outcomes, but prayer is a widespread religious practice and may have positive effects on the person praying – for example, in terms of pain relief.

Forgiveness therapy is a relatively new approach to mental health treatment. It is applied when the patient presents with such psychological symptoms as persistent anger, anxiety and depression that can be associated with past injustices from others towards the patient. Such injustices, if not identified, can be a source of unhealthy anger or irritability that can then develop into other psychological symptoms. The chapter first discusses what forgiveness is and what it is not, because this concept of forgiveness is so often misunderstood. After this philosophical exploration of the definition of forgiveness, two models of forgiveness therapy are described – the process model and the REACH model. The ways in which forgiveness therapy differs from more traditional psychotherapies are examined, and the scientific evidence that forgiveness therapy is an empirically verified treatment is discussed. Cross-cultural evidence is also provided. The chapter concludes with a discussion of forgiveness in the context of spirituality.

Ought ageing people sometimes to be prepared to forgive old offences that it would not have been (so) appropriate for them to have forgiven at an earlier date? The question is tackled in the framework of a narrative conception of human life that focuses attention on the changing impact of offences on victims as they advance through their life-stories. While concerns can be raised regarding the intelligibility or point of forgiveness of long-past offences given the changes that occur to people (both victims and offenders) over time, it is argued that forgiveness has a valuable role to play in tying up the moral loose ends in a life-narrative. Finally, the question is asked whether an offender may forgive herself for an offence committed against someone who is now deceased. It is proposed that although this would be out of order, an offender may legitimately forgive herself for the harm she has done to herself through her wrongdoing.

One of the nagging uncertainties that besets the interpretation of The Sickness unto Death is the vagueness that attaches to the promised cure for the disease of despair – faith. Presented in algebraic form at the beginning, middle, and end of the book, it is otherwise left without much expatiation. This chapter reconstructs from the text what we might be able to claim confidently about faith as the cure for despair according to Anti-Climacus. Faith has a therapeutic function: It is meant to extirpate from the self the only genuine danger, which is persistence in unforgiven sin, while maturing the self to cope with the ordinary hazards of human life and to avoid its false consolations. This twofold function of faith – positively warning the self against its only real threat and negatively clearing away false consolations and imagined dangers – is grounded in the definition of faith Anti-Climacus supplies, which involves two distinct elements: willing to be yourself and resting transparently in God. This chapter explores the precise sense in which the faithful self relates to God and the therapeutic benefits that come from the faithful person’s ability to genuinely will to be themselves.

It is now recognized that important interpretative insights are to be gained from reading Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works in tandem with the upbuilding writings, especially where these are closely connected in time or subject matter. In the case of The Sickness unto Death, a journal entry by Kierkegaard (NB13:79) indicates that the Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (“The High Priest,” “The Tax Collector,” and “The Sinful Woman”), published in autumn 1849, “respond to” Anti-Climacus, pseudonymous author of The Sickness unto Death. How do they respond? Kierkegaard writes: “I must have a place of rest, but I cannot rest on a pseudonym; and they respond to Anti-Climacus, and [to] the situation. The discourses for the communion on Friday are once and for all envisaged as the authorship’s place of rest.” This comment invites us to see the discourses as offering a kind of dialectical counterpoint to the argument of The Sickness unto Death, and the chapter explores in detail what this means and, specifically, what Kierkegaard means by “a place of rest.” In addition to the Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays the chapter also draws on An Upbuilding Discourse (1850) and Two Upbuilding Discourses (1851) that are thematically connected with the discourses of autumn 1849.

The literature on moral responsibility is ripe with accounts of what it takes for an agent to become blameworthy. By contrast, very little has been written about what it takes for an agent’s blameworthiness to cease or diminish. It seems that there are certain things a wrongdoer can feel or do that might make her less blameworthy than she would otherwise have been. She might experience guilt, atone, apologize, and make reparations. In this chapter, I will argue that prominent accounts of blameworthiness are unable to explain how such actions and emotions can influence one’s blameworthiness. I will then present an alternative account. If we understand blameworthiness in terms of deserved guilt rather than fitting resentment, we can give a plausible account of how blameworthiness can change over time. The fact that a wrongdoer has already experienced guilt, atoned, or apologized will make her less deserving of guilt, and therefore less blameworthy.

Blame is multifarious. It can be passionate or dispassionate. It can be expressed or kept private. We blame both the living and the dead. And we blame ourselves as well as others. What’s more, we blame ourselves, not only for our moral failings, but also for our non-moral failings: for our aesthetic bad taste, gustatory self-indulgence, or poor athletic performance. And we blame ourselves both for things over which we exerted agential control (e.g., our voluntary acts) and for things over which we lacked such control (e.g., our desires, beliefs, and intentions). I argue that, despite this manifest diversity in our blaming practices, it’s possible to provide a comprehensive account of blame. Indeed, I propose a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that aims to specify blame’s extension in terms of its constitution as opposed to its function. And I argue that this proposal has a number of advantages beyond accounting for blame in all its disparate forms.

Chapter 5 examines the dynamics in veterans’ meeting with Vietnamese. A common goal of returnees was to meet “the enemy,” and the solidarity they found with fellow soldiers in Việt Nam became a key theme in veterans’ narratives. This chapter unpacks a near-uniform claim made by veterans that the Vietnamese bore no grudge for the war and welcomed veterans back to Việt Nam wholeheartedly. Because many American veterans positioned themselves as atoning for wartime participation, they viewed this reaction as forgiveness. Australian veterans, conversely, drew from Australia’s national mythology to argue that the Vietnamese welcomed them back because they loved and respected Australian soldiers. This chapter situates veterans’ claims about forgiveness, solidarity, and belonging in Việt Nam in the context of Vietnamese diplomacy, examines the inclusion and exclusion of different Vietnamese groups from veterans’ solidarity narratives, and explores concealed hostility on both sides.

This chapter discusses a series of high-profile cases in which significant disputes arose involving the application of ecclesiastical law. It begins with Parliament’s debates on its role and authority in this area as it attempted more than once to frame legislation for clergy discipline and the discussions in Convocation. It considers the Gompertz case, raising questions about the role of the bishop; the contrasting churchmanships of Evangelicals and Tractarians; and the controversy about biblical interpretation prompted by the publication of Essays and Reviews. The case of James Shore tested the law on the effect of a clergyman’s finding his opinions had changed to such an extent that he was no longer a member of the Church of England, while still effectively retaining his Anglican priesthood. The chapter also covers the cases of William Bennett and the ‘real presence’, and George Denison’s lengthy dispute with the Bishop of Exeter on the effect of baptism. It ends with the case of Alexander Mackonochie and controversy over the regulation of public worship.