Metaphysical implications of forgiveness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Metaphysical implications of forgiveness - Essay Example Zaibert argues against Kolnai’s explanation.2 Although the author does not argue against Derrida’s explanation, Zaibert does agree with what Derrida supposedly had in mind. Thus, he goes beyond and argues that â€Å"to forgive is to deliberately refuse to punish† (Zaibert 368). We merely choose or decide whether or nor to forgive on the basis of deliberating on a guilty person’s punishment. If we choose to forgive the person, we thus avoid punishment. It is in this regard that Zaibert contends that forgiveness is a purely mental phenomenon.3 Given this mode of analysis, he contends that the paradox of forgiveness is not so much of a paradox after all. Or is it? In this essay, I shall provide a critique of Zaibert’s solution to the paradox in the light of the philosophy of action. In doing so, I shall focus on his definition of forgiveness as a pure mental act, in relation to his defense that to forgive a person is to intentionally refuse to punish that person. I will argue that his solution to the paradox begs the question and thus, fails to provide a sufficient analysis of the nature of forgiveness from a metaphysical point of view. In what follows, I will provide a summary of Zaibert’s views as discussed in his article. Zaibert presents two competing views that attempt to solve the paradoxical nature of forgiveness, i.e. Kolnai and Derrida’s solution. His motivation for contrasting these two views is to emphasize that â€Å"the opposition between these two views of forgiveness shall prove important for my purposes† (Zaibert 367). Indeed, his purpose was to develop his own position, which he thought was what Derrida had in mind when he associated forgiveness to the unforgivable. What was Zaibert’s position then? Zaibert’s position defends the view that to forgive a person is to intentionally refuse to punish that person. â€Å"There is, then, a purely analytic connection between punishment and forgiveness