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Is forgiveness always the proper moral response to collective violence?
Resentment's Virtue
Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive
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Foreword by Jeffrie Murphy
Thomas Brudholm
"Resentment's Virtue represents an important counterpoint to the privileged status accorded to the logic of forgiveness in the transitional justice and reparations literatures. Brudholm illustrates nicely that 'negative emotions' are not only understandable in the aftermath of mass atrocity, but that they possess a moral component that is often ignored by the boosters of reconciliation."
—Andrew Woolford, co-author of Informal Reckonings: Conflict Resolution in Mediation, Restorative Justice and Reparations
Most current talk of forgiveness and reconciliation in the aftermath of collective violence proceeds from an assumption that forgiveness is always superior to resentment and refusal to forgive. Victims who demonstrate a willingness to forgive are often celebrated as virtuous moral models, while those who refuse to forgive are frequently seen as suffering from a pathology. Resentment is viewed as a negative state, held by victims who are not "ready" or "capable" of forgiving and healing.
Resentment's Virtue offers a new, more nuanced view. Building on the writings of Holocaust survivor Jean Améry and the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Thomas Brudholm argues that the preservation of resentment can be the reflex of a moral protest that might be as permissible, humane or honorable as the willingness to forgive. Taking into account the experiences of victims, the findings of truth commissions, and studies of mass atrocities, Brudholm seeks to enrich the philosophical understanding of resentment.
Reviews
"Resentment’s Virtue offers a much-needed corrective to the current fashionable enthusiasm for reconciliation and forgiveness as appropriate and desirable responses to unspeakable atrocities and the persons who authorized or committed them. It also provides a detailed analysis of Jean Améry’s contribution to the alternative argument that continuing outrage and refusal to forgive constitute justifiable moral reactions to such atrocities. It should stimulate renewed discourse on a troublesome subject."
—Lawrence L. Langer, author of Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory and, most recently, Using and Abusing the Holocaust
"Brudholm offers a philosophically brilliant reading of Jean Améry's defense of ressentiment as a morally worthy alternative to the forgiveness defended by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in response to atrocities. Like Améry, Brudholm resists the pathologizing of resentment that persists in the face of others' refusal to share in the passionate and ‘impossible’ wish that the past wrongs were never done. This take on resentment demonstrates magnificently what Bernard Williams meant by ‘moral remainders’ and the issues they bequeath."
—Claudia Card, Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin
"In retrieving the thought of Jean Améry, Thomas Brudholm sharpens criticism of the facile deployment of ‘forgiveness’ in too much contemporary discourse, and delivers a concept of fitting resentment that, far from wreaking vengeance, would make reconciliation honest. This is a lucid and substantial contribution to an important controversy."
—Nigel Biggar, Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, University of Oxford
"Brudholm provides a view that is likely to be controversial, namely, that resentment can be just as much of an acceptable outcome to collective violence…Brudholm makes the case that resentment might be just as permissible as the tendency to forgive."
—Contemporary Sociology
"Every now and then a book is published that makes you think – and rethink – the position you have on a specific issue. Danish philosopher Thomas Brudholm’s Resentment’s Virtue ranks among the candidates for becoming one of those books for theologians and philosophers of religion….[It] states its case clear and with a consistent and sufficient backing: it makes clear to the reader that to forgive others for atrocities and crimes might have severe consequences, and that it might even be in the interest of morality to refuse to forgive….Brudholm’s book will be regarded as an important contribution to these studies."
—Ars Disputandi
Contents
Foreward by Jefferie Murphy
Preface and Acknowledgements
1. Transitional Justice and the Ethics of Anger
Part I: Revisiting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa
2. Commissioning Anger
3. The Hearings
4. The Therapy of Anger
5. Desmond Tutu on Anger
6. Layers and Remainders
Part II: Jean Améry on Resentment and Reconciliation
7. Contextualizing "Ressentiments"
8. Opening Moves
9. Facing the Irreversible
10. Restoring Coexistance
11. Guilt and Responsibility
12. Wishful Thinking?
13. A Multifarious Reception
14. Epilogue: Between Resentment and Ressentiment
Appendix I: Overview of Jean Améry's "Ressentiments"
Appendix II: Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
Notes
Works Cited
Index
About the Author(s)
 | Thomas Brudholm is Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies. |
Subject Categories
Philosophy and Ethics
History
Sociology
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