1. A number of people have helped me enormously in the development of my ideas in this article. In particular, Michael Morris and Jonathan Westphal have repeatedly and generously given me extensive and extremely helpful comments, for which I thank them. For commenting on various versions of the material on which this article is based, I am also extremely grateful to the Editors ofPhilosophy & Public Affairs, Matthew Densley, Paul Davies, Imogen Dickie, Eve Garrard, Robert Hanna, David McNaughton, Lwandile Sisilana, John Tasioulas, Jens Timmerman, David Velleman, Jeremy Watkins, and members of the audience at the Pacific APA in Portland, the British Society for Ethical Theory in Bristol and seminars at Wits, Rhodes, and Sussex universities.
2. One is forgiven for awrong; here, a wrong is understood, as is standard, as a complex function of the harm caused and the culpability of the agent, where the harm includes not just such things as loss or damage suffered, but also the disrespect or ill will shown to the victim. Thus, the ‘culpable’ in ‘culpable wrongdoing’ is redundant, but I will use it sometimes for emphasis.
3. See Jacques Derrida,On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness(London and New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 34; Aurel Kolnai, "Forgiveness," in hisEthics, Value, and Reality(London: The Athlone Press, 1977), p. 217; Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton,Forgiveness and Mercy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 41.
4. Changing One's Heart