On Forgiveness as Political

Roger Scruton writes about forgiveness as indicative of something about the human condition:

[W]hat kind of a being is it that can forgive? Dogs don’t forgive, because dogs don’t resent. Forgiveness is unique to rational beings, and is a gift of metaphysical freedom. Only the accountable being, able to take responsibility for his own actions and mental states, can forgive or be forgiven, ... The study of forgiveness would be a good starting point from which to roll back the tide of debunking, and show the distinctness and the spiritual richness of the human condition.

Hannah Arendt writes in The Human Condition about forgiveness and promising as redemption from the irreversibility and unpredictability of the process that is started by action. Forgiveness, an act of our free will, can remedy the problem of the unforeseen consequences of our actions. She writes,

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility--of being unable to undo what one has done though one did not, and could not, have known what he was doing--is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. The two faculties belong together in so far as one of them, forgiving, serves to undo the deeds of the past, ... and the other, binding oneself through promises, serves to set up in the ocean of uncertainty, ... islands of security.

These islands of security make continuity and durability possible in relationships. And while promises allow us to keep our identities, forgiveness allows us continued free will to act, and not be "confined to one single deed from which we could never recover."