The Process of Forgiving: An Inclusive Model
The bulk of philosophical/ethical discuss ion about forgiveness emphasizes the importance of narrowing down the concept by defining basic elements or characteristics, or specifying conditions or good reasons in support of the act of forgiveness. The goal is to determine when forgiveness is complete and ethical or not. Forgiveness has been portrayed as an either/or sort of phenomenon . Very little attention has been given to what has been called the process of forgiving. I I intend to develop the idea of a process by showing that forgiving may be best explained in terms of a range or continuum of forgiving. I will desc ribe forgiving as an attitude with a basic structure that allows for stages with different degrees of mastery of negative feelings and different levels of understanding of ethical reasons that justify the process, I will show that "'trying to forgive" may in fact constitute the first step, both logically and psychologically, in the forgiving process,2