Should you forgive someone who isn't sorry?

Someone hurt you and is not sorry. Everything depends on what you think forgiving is, and two very different things have been given that name.

One version is release from the debt, granted by the person harmed, without any requirement on the other side. Arendt’s argument for this is unusually practical: without it, every act permanently fixes who you are. Do one terrible thing and you are that thing forever, with no way back. Forgiveness is what allows anybody, including you, to not be trapped by their worst hour.

The other version is closer to what people mean when they say “forgive and forget”, and it is worth separating off and rejecting. That version treats the wrong as not having been real. Butler got there first, in the 1700s: the initial sting of resentment is a legitimate response to being wronged, and it protects you. What goes too far is the demand for revenge, which is a lot more than the wrong itself required.

Which leaves the hardest question, and Wiesenthal’s book is the honest place to sit with it. He was asked by a dying soldier to forgive him for something done to other people — could he, on behalf of the dead? He never said. His book simply presents the question and dozens of responses, most of them disagreeing. That is the right shape for this one: not a rule, but a set of cases you have to work through yourself.

Try it

Think of something small that still stings. Write two letters you will not send: one forgiving, one refusing. Notice which one you would actually want read aloud.

What do you think?

Do you think there is a right answer to this question?

Talk about it

Does forgiving mean it didn't matter?
Can you forgive someone on their behalf?
Is staying angry ever the right thing?

Yes, but… — the arguments people actually make

Forgiving someone who isn't sorry is letting them win.
It depends what you think winning is. Holding the anger costs you something daily and costs them nothing, which is a strange kind of victory.
If you forgive, you're saying it was fine.
Then the word is being used wrongly. Forgiving is the opposite of excusing: it says the wrong was real and you are not going to keep collecting for it.
Some things shouldn't be forgiven.
Many people believe that about something. The difficult part is that the person carrying the refusal is the one who was harmed, and they carry it for the rest of their life.

What other philosophers think

Hannah ArendtArgued forgiveness is what stops people being trapped by what they have done — without it, every act binds you permanently to your past.
Joseph ButlerDistinguished resentment, which is a legitimate response to being wronged, from the desire for revenge, which is a lot more than the wrong requires.
Simon WiesenthalWrote about being asked, as a prisoner, to forgive a dying soldier — and left the question open rather than answering it for the reader.

If you want to go further

The Human Condition — Hannah Arendt1958. Where forgiveness is treated as a political capacity, not only a private feeling.
Fifteen Sermons — Joseph ButlerThe eighteenth-century analysis of resentment that most later writing depends on.
The Sunflower — Simon WiesenthalThe question of forgiveness with no right answer supplied, and dozens of responses appended.

Most of these were written for adults, which is why it is worth reading them with someone older.