Aristotle and Virtue: How People View The Virtue of Forgiveness

After learning about Aristotle’s review of virtues, two of them stand out, justice and forgiveness. No one can touch justice or forgiveness, but you can see the outcomes when they are demonstrated. Justice and forgiveness are two different virtues that demand motion, with forgiveness it requires a deep feeling to let go, whereas with justice it requires an action a person takes. Forgiveness requires people to participate in a process of releasing bitterness, hate and anger toward someone or something. Aristotle would consider forgiveness to be the sphere of good temper and good temper “is a mean with respect to anger” (Curzer pg 3). When dealing with global issues, forgiveness would be more productive of the two. Reviewing the book The Sunflower brings light to the issue of forgiveness as does examining some of the world issues in the last fourteen years.

One of the main elements of forgiveness would be to let go of the hatred of someone or a group of people. For example, take the Christian faith, when someone has committed an act against a Christian, the Christian is required to forgive. The reason why Christians are required to forgive is so they can be a more like Jesus. “If the Kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere toy go, you ought to leave a little Heaven behind” (Cornel West pg 5). It is not just that, it is a matter of releasing a grudge that you have against someone and the offense that they have committed against you. Forgiveness helps the Christians and everyone else who forgives to heal from their wounds. There are global issues where forgiveness has a central place.

There have been stand out global issues in the last fourteen years that have had an impact on the United States. They are 9/11, the destruction of...

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...scinating to see how people view, the virtue of forgiveness in this world. Not only that, but how other people have been affected by the outcome of global issues and how those situations there is grace to forgive others. With global issues it is not really that easy because a lot of it deals with taking of one’s life. It’s also amazing to see how people that are in a high rank struggle with forgiving others. It shows that they are human and that they have the same struggles as everyone else.

Works Cited

• West, Cornel. The Moral Obligations of Living in a Democratic Society. The Good Citizen. Ed. David Batstone and Edvardo Mendieta. New York; Routledge, 1999. Print. 123-127

• Howard J. Curzer. Good Temper and Forgiveness. Aristotle and the Virtues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013. Print.

• Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower. New York: Schocken, 1997.print