Forgiveness as a speech act in logic of action

Abstract

In this paper we study forgiveness as a speech act and as an action associated with a complex decision-making structure. In the first part of the paper, we make several critical remarks regarding the methodology of so-called “performative” approaches to forgiveness. We conclude that the theory of speech acts is not used by the authors of these approaches properly and if it is, then only nominally. We eliminate discovered methodological defects of two “performative” approaches to forgiveness (commissive and directive approaches) with the help of logical machinery, which is based on the semantic ideas of Belnapian logic of actions. We refute the statement of several authors who study forgiveness and practices of pardoning that a synthetic approach to these phenomena, combining the commissive and declarative interpretations of the phrase “I forgive you” is possible. In the second, constructive part of the article, we examine the possibilities of the classical logic of action concerning the analysis of the difference between cases of refusal to forgive and cases of forgiveness refraining. We show that this question can be solved decently via the logic of action via the usage of language, model structure, and syntactic definitions, designed so that they can grasp the two-level structure of the decision on forgiveness used by the victim. We assume that the form of decision making of this kind is associated not only with forgiveness but also with other similar actions. The former association contributes to the philosophy of forgiveness, while the latter contributes to the applied and theoretical aspects of the logic of action. Finally, we believe that the idea of agent domains that we proposed can be applied in the field of general logic of action in the analysis of problems analogous to the problem of distinguishing between cases of non-pardoning and refraining from doing so.