Topics Justice

Question I was brought up with lots of christian ideas about forgiveness and mercy and charity and stuff, "regardless of the bad stuff someone does to you or of their merit, treat them with kindness and generosity." I reckon there is something deeply virtuous about this attitude. Now I look at the effect of a system of charity on global inequality (that is, depressingly little effect) and at the justice system and it seems to me that it is in everyone's best interests for a sense of justice, even retribution, and rewards to be in human nature. In fact, I'd suggest that the fact that those attitudes are so common is precisely because they are socially beneficial and so evolved (in the loose sense of the word). So my question is, if someone punches me in the face do I turn the other cheek or put them in prison? If a nation is poor, do we offer support with lots of strings attached and hoops to jump or just give money?

Accepted:
June 27, 2006

Comments

Christianity emphasizes foregiveness, mercy, and charity as a much-needed counterweight to human selfishness (the wide-spread human tendency to give much more weight to one's own perspective and interests than to those of other people).

As your question brings out, this Christian emphasis on foregiveness, mercy, and charity can have morally dubious effects when third parties enter the picture. If a rape victim, rather than press charges, forgives her rapist, she may well thereby be increasing the risk other women will face from the same man. If (to use your example) we continue to channel foreign aid moneys through a ruler who has embezzled lots of such aid before, we are harming the poor in his country whom we ought to protect from poverty and disease. Yes, one should be sensitive to the perspective and interests of the rapist and the ruler. But one should certainly also be sensitive -- much more sensitive, in fact -- to the perspective and interests of potential future rape victims and of those whom the corrupt ruler helps impoverish.

Practicing magnanimity in foregiveness and charity can be a wonderful thing. It frees the agent from the usual myopia that makes people magnify beyond all proportion the tiny pains and injustices suffered by themselves and their loved ones. And it may also transform the recipient, and others, through the power of example. Still, magnanimity must not be practiced blindly and not at unreasonable cost or risk to third parties. There's no general rule here, and no way to split the difference. To decide well, case by case, you need experience and good judgment.