The concept that forgiveness is a good thing. This is a bad concept because the word “forgive” suggests holding a grudge and then forgiving someone. It’s simpler and better to just never hold grudges in the first place.
Retracted my previous comment, because it was agreeing with your claim that it’s better to never hold grudges in the first place, which I quickly realized I also disagreed with.
A grudge is an act of retaliation against someone who has harmed you. They hurt you, so you now retract your cooperation—or even engage in active harm against them—until they have made sufficient amends. If they hurt you by accident or it was something minor, then yes, probably better not to hold a grudge. But if they did something sufficiently bad, then it is better to hold a grudge to show them that you will not accept such behavior, and that you will only engage in further cooperation once they have made some sign of being trustworthy. Otherwise you are encouraging them to do it again, since you’ve shown that they can do it with impunity—and by this you are also harming others, by not punishing untrustworthy people and making it more profitable to be untrustworthy. You do not forgive DefectBot, nor do you avoid developing a grudge in the first place, you hold a grudge against it and will no longer cooperate.
In this context, “forgiveness is a good thing” can be seen as a heuristic that encourages us to err on the side of punishing leniently, because too eager punishment will end up alienating people who would’ve otherwise been allies, because we tend to overestimate the chance of somebody having done a bad thing on purpose, because holding grudges is psychologically costly, or for some other reason.
Even worse: “Forgive and forget” as advice. It combines the problem with forgiveness with explicitly advising people not to update on the bad behavior of others.
Why blame forgiveness for the existence of grudges? The causal chain didn’t go: moral philosophers invent forgiveness → invention of resentment follows because everyone wants to give forgiveness a try.
It’s also cowardly or anti-social. Forgiving is the easy thing to do, forgive and you longer have to enact any reprisal and you can potentially keep an ally. You also allow a malefactor to get away with their transgression, which will enable them to continue to pull the same shit on other people.
The concept that forgiveness is a good thing. This is a bad concept because the word “forgive” suggests holding a grudge and then forgiving someone. It’s simpler and better to just never hold grudges in the first place.
Retracted my previous comment, because it was agreeing with your claim that it’s better to never hold grudges in the first place, which I quickly realized I also disagreed with.
A grudge is an act of retaliation against someone who has harmed you. They hurt you, so you now retract your cooperation—or even engage in active harm against them—until they have made sufficient amends. If they hurt you by accident or it was something minor, then yes, probably better not to hold a grudge. But if they did something sufficiently bad, then it is better to hold a grudge to show them that you will not accept such behavior, and that you will only engage in further cooperation once they have made some sign of being trustworthy. Otherwise you are encouraging them to do it again, since you’ve shown that they can do it with impunity—and by this you are also harming others, by not punishing untrustworthy people and making it more profitable to be untrustworthy. You do not forgive DefectBot, nor do you avoid developing a grudge in the first place, you hold a grudge against it and will no longer cooperate.
In this context, “forgiveness is a good thing” can be seen as a heuristic that encourages us to err on the side of punishing leniently, because too eager punishment will end up alienating people who would’ve otherwise been allies, because we tend to overestimate the chance of somebody having done a bad thing on purpose, because holding grudges is psychologically costly, or for some other reason.
Obligatory link to one of the highest-voted LW posts ever
Even worse: “Forgive and forget” as advice. It combines the problem with forgiveness with explicitly advising people not to update on the bad behavior of others.
Why blame forgiveness for the existence of grudges? The causal chain didn’t go: moral philosophers invent forgiveness → invention of resentment follows because everyone wants to give forgiveness a try.
It’s also cowardly or anti-social. Forgiving is the easy thing to do, forgive and you longer have to enact any reprisal and you can potentially keep an ally. You also allow a malefactor to get away with their transgression, which will enable them to continue to pull the same shit on other people.
sixes and sevens’s comment applies to this one as well, I think.