Resentment’s virtue: Jean Améry and the refusal to forgive

Abstract

Reviews the book, Resentment's virtue: Jean Amery and the refusal to forgive by Jeffrie Murphy and Thomas Brudholm (2008). The author is more than sceptical about the rhetoric of cathartic relief or closure for victims experiencing witnessing and truth-telling. The book surely is an important contribution to the discussion on the ethics of forgiveness, and it might be called a brilliant analysis. Nevertheless, depending on the perspective one takes, the book also has some weak points. It is actually not a very systematic philosophical investigation and there are many redundancies in the overall line of argument. Some of the crucial arguments could have been presented in a more direct and straightforward way. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)