In principle and probably also in practice you know what an apology is. And you know what an apology does. As Kwame Anthony Appiah once noted in his Ethicist column in the New York Times, an apology is intended to repair a relationship. It is ritualized behavior, involving the admission of fault, the taking of responsibility for said fault, and the vow not to repeat the error. Or the slight.
I think this is entirely correct, and reconciliation is the ultimate goal, yet there is a further point. We apologise for our own good, even if the apology is not accepted. I wrote three posts on this in May; this is the first
If it is permissible to consider the source before accepting or rejecting proferred information or advice, I submit that Mx. Callard is a poisoned well from which nothing good can flow. As proof, I offer her personal history, which includes cuckolding her first husband, with whom she had children, with a much younger graduate student, whom she later married after divorcing said husband, whereupon the three of them started living together. Would anyone think it a good idea to follow her example or her advice, or rely on anything she said? If so, I have some beachfront property in South Dakota I would love to sell you.
There are a ton of thought-provoking concepts in that article, some explicitly mentioned and some not.
An apology may be informal or formal depending on circumstance and may range from a "My Bad" to a well-crafted letter expressing sincere remorse and begging forgiveness. Much of that depends on the offending act itself and whether the act was motivated by malice or thoughtlessness.
The sincerity of the apology is a major factor in its acceptance. False apologies with self-serving statements and motives are usually but not always quite transparent and will factor into the acceptance of the apology whether verbally expressed or not.
Which brings us to transcendence. True acceptance of an apology requires a certain amount of transcendence. One can either totally forgive and forget or forgive but not forget. I suspect the latter is far mor common.
I think this is entirely correct, and reconciliation is the ultimate goal, yet there is a further point. We apologise for our own good, even if the apology is not accepted. I wrote three posts on this in May; this is the first
https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2023/05/apology-and-forgiveness-reversing.html
There are not enough analyses of apologies as "ritualised behaviour to repair relationships". Ben Ho has proposed a game theoretic explanation of apologies as signals to repair relationship. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1410?casa_token=FZtw07O-t5kAAAAA:QyqFkVlsfDPExn3R7rALhkoM4Yt1MiKZH5gUq5VbBzjXzjXsCC7SzkTPQUuHy0BfQLI_fy7X9Ccfzg
Read it but still have no idea where Callard's coming from or going.
Sorry about that...
If it is permissible to consider the source before accepting or rejecting proferred information or advice, I submit that Mx. Callard is a poisoned well from which nothing good can flow. As proof, I offer her personal history, which includes cuckolding her first husband, with whom she had children, with a much younger graduate student, whom she later married after divorcing said husband, whereupon the three of them started living together. Would anyone think it a good idea to follow her example or her advice, or rely on anything she said? If so, I have some beachfront property in South Dakota I would love to sell you.
There are a ton of thought-provoking concepts in that article, some explicitly mentioned and some not.
An apology may be informal or formal depending on circumstance and may range from a "My Bad" to a well-crafted letter expressing sincere remorse and begging forgiveness. Much of that depends on the offending act itself and whether the act was motivated by malice or thoughtlessness.
The sincerity of the apology is a major factor in its acceptance. False apologies with self-serving statements and motives are usually but not always quite transparent and will factor into the acceptance of the apology whether verbally expressed or not.
Which brings us to transcendence. True acceptance of an apology requires a certain amount of transcendence. One can either totally forgive and forget or forgive but not forget. I suspect the latter is far mor common.