I am reminded of a close family member of mine who doesn’t see the need to apologise unless she knowingly meant to cause harm. And seeing as she never intended to cause any upset she never has to apologise. Ever.
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Out of curiosity, is it more in the spirit of blame deflection, preservation of belief in the inviolable territorial integrity of one’s ancestral ownership of the moral high ground; and not really wanting to apologize for things; or do they have a more sincere(if equally unhelpful and probably even more extreme and atypical) thing going on?
The position that intention is the relevant criterion isn’t terribly radical, it’s at least in the background whispering suggestions whenever you wander over into virtue ethics; and the people who accept those suggestions move into openly deontological positions quite readily.(Largely deontological positions are also implicit or explicit in common flavors of Christianity, since the alternative would involve actually endorsing “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” as a theological position; though in practice the non-asshole variants often do a fair amount of reminding on apology/repentance and forgiveness which can blunt the effect under routine circumstances.)
The really weird bit isn’t so much that as an abstract belief; but the lack of realization that apologies are only partially connected with ethical or moral transgressions and have a variety of other social-pragmatic purposes(perhaps the most obvious example is the tendency to use apology-phrases in situations where there’s not even a question of culpability but we wish to express that something is unfortunate: you don’t say you are sorry a friend has been ill because you had any role in the matter; even a hardcore deontologist could see apologizing for things they deem morally blameless by intention but whose outcome wasn’t good.)
Just kind of a jerk; or sufficiently far from the mainstream in social pragmatics to not understand the nuanced role of apology-form statements?
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Cool, we got ourselves a little philosophical discussion!
I really don’t know the answer and have asked myself the same thing many times. At a guess it is 70% the former and 30% the latter; You can just forget about your little tirade as I am morally irreproachable at all times, and while we are at it why are you accusing me of things I had no idea could be considered wrong?
Having recently completed a particularly arduous round of negotiations with this person I have started to think this person might genuinely have a very liberal view on mens rea. But I also suspect that if this is the case then this view has come about recently, and only in response to the pressure they have been under when their past sins have been brought up for closer inspection. I cannot recall them ever granting such leniency to anyone else in the past.
If I read you correctly, then your post also seems to question the usefulness of an apology if it comes from someone who sincerely does not see their actions as wrong? I have deliberated on the same and arrived at the conclusion that the apology still would serve a purpose as an act of atonement and restorative justice. One could restore the wrongdoings by asking for repayment of money lost or completing tasks that were left undone at the time. But knowing how much this person hates apologising it becomes, to me, the greatest sacrifice they can make and as such the most retribution I can ask for without, in the eyes of others, being seen to make excessive demands.
Bringing it back to the Fyre Festival example again, let’s say the unrepentant organiser realises he had insurance, and that this will pay out a pot of money. If distributed among the ticket holders, each get a measly 15% of their expenses back. Not much, but at least it’s something. However, we might also find out that the organiser is perfectly happy with this solution and feels that this absolves him completely. If so, a number of people, myself included, might forgo the money and ask for an apology instead, knowing that this would tax him infinitely more.
A friend who defends people on death row is always making the point that it is a common and dangerous misconception that the insanity defense absolves people of responsibility. It does not. It only changes how they are sentenced, not whether they are sentenced.
From my research there are a class of people who simply are unable to change their behavior based on predictable consequences. A high percentage of people on death row are in this category. If the goal of the justice system is to prevent bad behavior, increasing punishment does little to help that.
However in this case I am not sure it applies. I suspect most of the people I am talking about would have been muttering on street corners way before the shan hit the fit.
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