Achieving Democratic Equality: Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Reparations

This paper provides an account of reparationsin general and then presents briefly oneexplanation of why many present day AfricanAmericans believe they are entitled toreparations from the U.S. Government.This explanation should not be seen as a finaljustification, but only as an indication whythe demand for reparations for AfricanAmericans might be seen a plausible. Next, ifit is reasonable to assume that reparations toAfrican Americans are plausible, I then go onto explain why reparations might be necessaryto fill the breech that is perceived to existbetween many African Americans and theirgovernment. This explanation will involve anexamination of the relationship between threeconcepts: forgiveness, reconciliation, andreparations. Then I explore why an apology orreparations for slavery and Jim Crow might benecessary for reconciliation between manyAfrican Americans and their government.Finally, I examine the contention that thelegislative process can be used to obtain anapology or reparations from the government.     

FORGIVENESS,COMMEMORATION, AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: THE ROLE OF MORAL EMOTIONS

Abstract: Forgiveness of wrongdoing in response to public apology and amends making seems, on the face of it, to leave little room for the continued commemoration of wrongdoing. This rests on a misunderstanding of forgiveness, however, and we can explain why there need be no incompatibility between them. To do this, I emphasize the role of what I call nonangry negative moral emotions in constituting memories of wrongdoing. Memories so constituted can persist after forgiveness and have important moral functions, and commemorations can elicit these emotions to preserve memories of this sort. Moreover, commemorations can be a restorative justice practice that promotes reconciliation, but only on condition that the memories they preserve are constituted by nonangry negative, not retributive, emotions.     

Reparations in Democratic Transitions

This article proposes a normative theory of reparations for political violence from the standpoint of contemporary critical theory debates on recognition and redistribution. I argue that any satisfactory reparations theory should aspire to ‘status parity’, a term coined by Nancy Fraser, and should include symbolic and material components for both individuals and groups. The essay argues that reparations can promote a number of worthy goals, including the reaffirmation of moral respect and dignity of victims.     

OFFICIAL APOLOGIES IN THE AFTERMATH OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Abstract: This article examines the uses of official apologies for massive human rights abuses in the context of democratic transitions. It sketches a normative model of apologies, highlighting how they serve to provide some moral and practical redress for past wrongs. It discusses a number of contributions apologies can make, including publicly confirming the status of victims as moral agents, fostering public reexamination and deliberation about social norms, and promoting critical understandings of history that undermine apologist historical accounts. The article then presents certain normative criteria that any official apology must satisfy, and concludes with a discussion of several theoretical and practical challenges that apologies face in transitional contexts. It draws on Chilean President Patricio Aylwin's apology for his predecessor's crimes as an illustration of some of the promises and challenges that apologies face.     

An emerging theory of apology

There is no consensus in the psychological literature regarding the operational definition of an apology, nor is there a comprehensive theory of apology. The object of this study was to use a hermeneutic phenomenological approach and grounded theory methodology to develop a theory of apology based on lay people's interpretation of apologetic responses. Data were methodically gathered by interviewing 23 people who had been wronged by an intimate partner. The analysis of the data suggests that there is not a single discrete definition of an apology, but that it is more appropriate to conceptualise apology as a process that consists of one or more of three components: affect, affirmation, and action. Each of these components has two categories; one that reflects a self‐focus on the part of the wrongdoer, and the other a self–other focus. What will be accepted as a good enough apology appears to depend on the severity of the consequences of the wrong, the level of responsibility attributed to the wrongdoer, and the perceived wrongfulness of the behaviour.     

Perceived Racism as Moderator Between Self‐Esteem/Shyness and Psychological Distress Among African Americans

In the spirit of the mission of social justice in counseling, this study examined perceived racism as a moderator on the association between self‐concept (i.e., self‐esteem, shyness) and distress among African Americans. The authors examined whether perceived racism changed the relationship between self‐esteem/shyness and psychological distress by investigating a sample of 394 African Americans. With a moderation analysis, the authors found significant interaction effects of Self‐Esteem × Perceived Racism and Shyness × Perceived Racism on distress.     

FORGIVENESS WITHOUT GOD?

Of the many forgiveness‐related questions that she takes up in her novels, the one with which Iris Murdoch wrestles most often is the question, “Is forgiveness possible without God?” The aim of this essay is to show, in the first instance, why the question Murdoch persistently raises is a question worth asking. Alongside this primary aim stands a secondary one, which is to consider how one might glean moral insights from the Christian tradition even if one does not (any longer) endorse its theological commitments.     

A Therapeutic Model of Self‐Forgiveness With Intervention Strategies for Counselors

Self‐forgiveness is associated with psychological and relational well‐being and may be a worthwhile treatment goal for clients who have hurt others. The authors utilized theoretical and empirical literature to describe a 4‐component therapeutic model of self‐forgiveness—responsibility, remorse, restoration, and renewal—and offer suggestions for promoting each component with clients. Finally, the authors explore potential contraindications and the applicability of self‐forgiveness for military veterans, clients in substance abuse treatment, and clients convicted of a crime.     

Collectivistic Self‐Construal and Forgiveness

This study tested a theoretical model of the relationship between collectivism and forgiveness. Participants (N= 298) completed measures of collectivistic self‐construal, forgiveness, and forgiveness‐related constructs. A collectivistic self‐construal was related to understanding forgiveness as an interpersonal process that involved reconciliation. Individuals with more collectivistic views reported higher trait forgivingness, which predicted the tendency to respond to specific offenses with decisional rather than emotional forgiveness. Individuals with a more collectivistic self‐construal may place more value on interpersonal harmony, reconciliation, and decisions to forgive rather than emotional peace. Implications suggest that counselors understand issues of conflict, hurts, and forgiveness within an assessment of clients’ self‐construal.     

Reparations and the Rectification of Race

Positive law and problems with identifyingbeneficiaries confine reparations for U.S.slavery to the level of discourse. Within thediscourse, the broader topic of rectificationcan be addressed. The rectification of slaveryincludes restoring full humanity to our ideasof the slaves and their descendants and itrequires disabuse of the false biological ideaof race. This is not racial eliminativism,because biological race never existed, but moreimportantly because African American racialidentities and redress of present racism arebased on lifeworlds of race in contrast withwhich the biological idea has been an externalimposition.     

The Self‐Ambivalence Measure: A psychometric investigation

The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Self‐Ambivalence Measure and its subscales developed by Bhar and Kyrios. The factor structure, reliability, and validity of the measure were examined utilising a non‐clinical sample of 415 participants who completed self‐report measures of aspects of the self. Results indicated that the Self‐Ambivalence Measure exhibited levels of internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity, warranting its use in further research. In contrast to earlier research finding a two‐factor structure, a three‐factor structure was found to best fit the current sample and the factors were labelled Self‐Worth Ambivalence, Moral Ambivalence, and Public Self‐consciousness. This solution separated internal aspects of self‐ambivalence from social aspects which were conceptualised as an aspect of lovability. A discussion of implications is provided.     

Aligning inside and outside perspectives of the self: A cross‐cultural difference in self‐perception

Past research shows that European Americans tend to take a first‐person perspective to understand the self and are unlikely to align the inside look with the outside gaze, whereas Asians tend to take a third‐person perspective and are likely to shift their inside look in the direction of the outsize gaze. In three experiments, we compared Asians and European Americans' self‐perceptions when the presence of their parents in the background of self‐perception was primed or otherwise. Without the priming, both European Americans and Asians viewed themselves more positively from their own perspective than from their parents' perspective. With the priming, only Asians lowered the positivity of their self‐perceptions to match the perceived positivity of the self in the parents' perspective. These results suggest that Asians do not have a static, passive tendency to assimilate their self‐views into the perceived external assessments of the self. Rather, their self‐views are fluid and flexible.     

More than just a pretty face and a hot body: multiple cues in mate-choice

Mate preferences have been well studied in social and evolutionary psychology. In two studies (N = 490), using two different measurement techniques, we examined mate preferences for the body and the face in the context of other traits. Results replicated prior research on mate preferences across the sex of the participant and mating duration but clarified the nature of preferences for physical attractiveness. Generally, physical attractiveness was a necessity in short-term mating and for men and traits like kindness were a necessity in long-term mating and for women. Men wanted a short-term mate who had a good body, likely because that body advertises fertility whereas both sexes wanted a mate with a nice face for a long-term mate, which is likely because the face is a cue based on structural properties related to health. Sex and mating-duration differences on preferences for attractive faces and bodies were robust to differences in measurement technique.     

Addressing Guilt within the Religious Community: Cyprian of Carthage,Reconciliation, and the Science of Emotion

This article looks at guilt, forgiveness, and “in-group” behavior using Cyprian of Carthage’s response to the third-century persecutions in dialogue with modern psychology and the science of guilt. Using Cyprian’s writings, we see the foundation of much of Christian behavior in regard to inclusion in a Christian community and the theology of penance. The broader issue of inclusivity and forgiveness connects to what evolutionary science presents on the issue regarding guilt and shame, and recent psychological work on achieving reconciliation and forgiveness between persons or in a community. By placing the Christian tradition into dialogue with these modern scientific studies, we find that a fruitful dialogue is possible which enriches both the religious and scientific communities.     

MOURNING IN THE PSYCHOANALYTIC SITUATION AND IN SHAKESPEARE'S THE TEMPEST

Recognizing that mourning builds psychic structure, the author highlights the ubiquitous and essential nature of mourning in the psychoanalytic situation. Reality testing is intimately connected to mourning and is the warp on which psychic structure is woven in the analytic situation. Reality testing necessarily involves opportunities for mourning and thus will be present in every analytic hour. The confrontation with reality is the basis for all processes of mourning, or for creating defenses against this painful experience. The author views mourning as fundamentally a transformational process, and Shakespeare's The Tempest is used to illustrate this aspect of mourning.     

The BDNF Val66Met polymorphism impacts victim's moral emotions following interpersonal transgression

Immoral behaviors make individuals abominate and punish transgressors. Inspired by the associations between the Val66Met polymorphism of brain‐derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) gene and emotional responses following negative events, we investigated whether this polymorphism was also associated moral emotions such as punishment and forgiveness following interpersonal transgression. To do so, we categorized 340 individuals according to the BDNF Val66Met and assessed moral emotions by using 12 hypothetic scenarios in different conditions of intention and interpersonal consequence. The results indicated that this polymorphism was significantly associated with moral aversion and punishment towards transgressors. Victims with the Val/Val genotype expressed less aversion and punishment than the Met carriers, regardless of intention and interpersonal consequence. Moreover, this polymorphism was associated with forgiveness. Victims with the Val/Val genotype expressed more forgiveness than the Met carriers. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of the BDNF Val66Met to moral emotions.     

Neighborhood Disorder and Children’s Antisocial Behavior: The Protective Effect of Family Support Among Mexican American and African American Families

Using data from a sample of 673 Mexican Origin families, the current investigation examined the degree to which family supportiveness acted as a protective buffer between neighborhood disorder and antisocial behavior during late childhood (i.e. intent to use controlled substances, externalizing, and association with deviant peers). Children's perceptions of neighborhood disorder fully mediated associations between census and observer measures of neighborhood disorder and their antisocial behavior. Family support buffered children from the higher rates of antisocial behavior generally associated with living in disorderly neighborhoods. An additional goal of the current study was to replicate these findings in a second sample of 897 African American families, and that replication was successful. These findings suggest that family support may play a protective role for children living in dangerous or disadvantaged neighborhoods. They also suggest that neighborhood interventions should consider several points of entry including structural changes, resident perceptions of their neighborhood and family support.     

A new moral sentimentalism

This paper argues for a novel sentimentalist realist metaethical theory, according to which moral wrongness is analyzed in terms of the sentiments one has most reason to have. As opposed to standard sentimentalist views, the theory does not employ sentiments that are had in response to morally wrong action, but rather sentiments that antecedently dispose people to refrain from immoral behavior, specifically the sentiments of compassion and respect.     

Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu

This article explores how mission, forgiveness, and reconciliation have shaped the ministry and work of Desmond Tutu. As much as space permits, it tries to glean the ways in which Tutu has lived out his understanding of mission, forgiveness, and reconciliation in his various roles as lecturer of theology, as Africa director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, as the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, as president of the All Africa Conference of Churches, as archbishop of Cape Town, and more recently as chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Through a close reading of seminal publications, the article will attempt to draw as complete a picture as possible of his views on forgiveness and reconciliation. To conclude, the essay shall refer to the work of Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice.