1st Annual KTS Center Lecture: Miranda Fricker (CUNY)

Department: Center for Knowledge, Technology & Society

Post Date: November 19, 2020

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The first annual KTS Center Lecture will be given by Miranda Fricker (CUNY) on Friday January 29th, 3-5pm. 

TITLE: ”Forgive me!” Why you can’t always get what you deserve

ABSTRACT: There are many different kinds of reasons to forgive—that the wrongdoer has apologized, that not forgiving is destroying a valued friendship, that you don’t even want to be this angry person any more …-- and yet no matter how many such reasons may accumulate in a given case, and no matter how much the wrongdoer may deserve to be forgiven, still these reasons can never generate a rights-claim on their part that you forgive them. Why not? I compare the case of gratitude, and ultimately offer an explanation in terms of the pragmatic self-refutation involved in the very idea of being forgiven under requirement.​