What goes on when one person forgives another? In this paper I argue for The Alteration Thesis. According to the Alteration Thesis, it is an essential feature of forgiveness that it alters the normative situation created by the wrongdoing by means of an act undertaken with the intention of bringing this alteration about. In this paper, I will explain this thesis, defend it against counterarguments and consider some of its implications. Thinking of forgiveness along the lines suggested by the Alteration Thesis means going against the tide of much recent writing on forgiveness, which has seen forgiveness as consisting essentially in a change of heart towards the wrongdoer. But I will argue that the Alteration Thesis has a number of explanatory advantages over the change of heart approach. What goes on when one person forgives another? In this paper I argue for The Alteration Thesis. According to the Alteration Thesis, it is an essential feature of forgiveness that it alters the normative situation created by the wrongdoing. In this paper, I will explain this thesis, defend it against counter-arguments and consider some of its implications. A theory of forgiveness should be able to explain the ways in which it matters to us to forgive and be forgiven. One way in which it matters to us to be forgiven is shown by the familiarity of the fact that repentant wrongdoers will sometimes seek out their victims and look for their forgiveness, often going to great lengths to do so. An illustration is found in the following scenario from Simon Wiesenthal’s memoir, The Sunflower. An SS officer, Karl, who participated in an atrocity in which Jewish men, women and children were massacred is seriously injured and approaching death. He is now an inmate in a field hospital in which Simon, the narrator, is working. Karl is apparently overcome with remorse when he thinks about what he did, and, as death grows near, he feels impelled to look for a Jewish victim of the Nazi Endlösung in which he took part, and ask for forgiveness. This scenario is complex in part because Simon is not a direct victim of Karl’s actions; nevertheless, it seems as though Karl’s asking for a Jewish victim of the Nazi project is not accidental – there is a connection to Simon that makes it morally intelligible to ask him for a kind of forgiveness that could not come from e.g. a German civilian. I take it, therefore, that the scenario illustrates one key point: the comprehensibility of a person feeling an urgent need, before he dies, to be forgiven by a person who can intelligibly be thought of as a victim of his wrongdoing. One sceptical character later in Wiesenthal’s narrative suggests that the SS officer would have been better to approach a priest if what he wanted was to gain absolution. Nevertheless, it seems that for many of us, perhaps including Karl himself, such absolution is not enough, and that the relation to the victim is central. What we want is not simply an authoritative verdict on our wrongs, but a particular relation to the people we have wronged. The way the Alteration Thesis explains this is to say that we want forgiveness because we want the normative situation to be altered in ways that only the victim can alter it. In order to make that compelling, we need to say something more about what the Alteration Thesis involves.

中文翻译：

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改变论点：宽恕作为一种规范力量

当一个人原谅另一个人时会发生什么？在这篇论文中，我为 The Alteration Thesis 辩护。根据改变论点，宽恕的一个基本特征是，它通过旨在引起这种改变的行为来改变由不法行为造成的规范情况。在这篇论文中，我将解释这个论点，为它辩护以防止反驳，并考虑它的一些含义。按照改变论点所建议的思路来思考宽恕意味着与最近关于宽恕的许多著作背道而驰，后者认为宽恕本质上在于改变对不法行为者的态度。但我会争辩说，与改变心脏方法相比，Alternation Thesis 具有许多解释性优势。当一个人原谅另一个人时会发生什么？在这篇论文中，我为 The Alteration Thesis 辩护。根据改变论点，宽恕的一个基本特征是它改变了由不法行为造成的规范情况。在这篇论文中，我将解释这个论点，为它辩护以防止反驳并考虑它的一些含义。宽恕理论应该能够解释宽恕和被宽恕对我们来说很重要的方式。对我们来说被宽恕很重要的一种方式是我们熟悉这样一个事实，即悔改的不法行为者有时会寻找受害者并寻求他们的宽恕，而且往往不遗余力地这样做。在西蒙·维森塔尔 (Simon Wiesenthal) 的回忆录《向日葵》(The Sunflower) 中的以下场景中可以找到一个插图。党卫军军官卡尔，参与屠杀犹太男人、女人和儿童的暴行的人受重伤，濒临死亡。他现在是叙述者西蒙工作的野战医院的囚犯。当卡尔回想自己的所作所为时，他显然懊悔不已，随着死亡的临近，他感到有必要寻找他参与的纳粹末日战争的一名犹太受害者，并请求宽恕。这种情况很复杂，部分原因是西蒙不是卡尔行为的直接受害者；尽管如此，似乎卡尔要求纳粹计划的一名犹太受害者并非偶然——与西蒙有某种联系，这使得向他请求某种宽恕，这在道德上是可以理解的，而这种宽恕不可能来自例如德国平民。因此，我认为该场景说明了一个关键点：一个人在死前感到迫切需要被一个可以理解地被认为是他的错误行为的受害者的人宽恕的可理解性。在 Wiesenthal 的叙述后面，一个持怀疑态度的角色表明，如果党卫军军官想要获得赦免，他最好接近一位牧师。然而，对于我们中的许多人，也许包括卡尔本人，这样的赦免似乎还不够，与受害者的关系才是核心。我们想要的不仅仅是对我们错误的权威判决，而是与我们所冤屈的人的特殊关系。改变命题解释这个的方式是说我们想要宽恕，因为我们希望以只有受害者才能改变的方式改变规范情况。为了使之引人注目，