Should radical evil be forgiven?

Abstract

Is evil an absolute difference that we must respond to with horror? Or is evil an aspect of humanity that we must approach with understanding? How we answer these questions partly determines how we should answer the question of whether we should forgive evil, particularly radical evil. Radical evil, as it is used it here, can be understood as evil that is not motivated by understandable human motives. Hannah Arendt argues that one cannot forgive radical evil because such acts completely transcend the human realm. Radical evil seems to be beyond our understanding. By contrast, Jacques Derrida argues that true forgiveness has nothing to do with measuring the extent of guilt, wrongdoing, remorse, apology, or healing. True forgiveness in this view involves forgiving the unforgivable, so forgiveness must be possible even in the most extreme cases, such as those of radical evil. © 2006 Humana Press Inc.