Author: Marinus Schoeman
Affiliation: Associate professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, South
Africa
Email address: marinus.schoeman@up.ac.za
Title: Overcoming resentment. Hannah Arendt on the virtue of forgiveness.
Abstract:
This paper explores Hannah Arendt’s view on the virtue of forgiveness. For Arendt a truly
ethical or virtuous life is one that displays strength of character and greatness or generosity of
spirit (magnanimity). As such it is the exact opposite of resentment and meanness of spirit.
Forgiveness, together with trustworthiness (the capacity to make and to keep promises),
constitute for Arendt the highest “principles” of action. The capacities of promising and
forgiving do not only impart stability and durability to our actions, but they give us, in the
first place, the confidence to act at all. Cultivating the capacities of promising and forgiving
can thus be viewed as the highest expression of (and the most fundamental precondition for)
virtue. According to Arendt, nothing on earth can be more ethical or more virtuous than
helping to create a situation in which it becomes possible for people to go on with their lives,
to make a fresh start in all candidness without being constantly plagued by feelings of guilt
and remorse. For Arendt revengefulness is the opposite of forgiveness. It represents the worst
of all vices, mainly because it is purely reactive, unable to initiate anything new or creative.
Hence, the basic concern of Arendt is to devise strategies towards overcoming resentment and
revengefulness. These strategies will be discussed in some detail, with particular attention to
Arendt’s criticism of moral sentiments such as pity and compassion, as well as the egalitarian
view of social justice.
Keywords: Hannah Arendt, virtue, action, forgiveness, moralism, pity, compassion,
resentment, revengefulness.
------------------This paper is about the German-Jewish born philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt
(1906-1975) and her views on the virtue of forgiveness. For Arendt the term “virtue” applies
only to the domain of action (in contrast to social behaviour and inner motives or
dispositions). Virtuous actions are “great” in the sense that they are unique or extraordinary.
Their meaning (ethical relevance) must also be understood in a performative (a-teleological)
sense: it lies in the performance of the action itself, and not in its motives or consequences.
Virtuous actions have their value or meaning in themselves, thus they should not be judged
according to external norms such as moral prescriptions or utility. An action is virtuous if it is
performed in a virtuosic fashion, hence it can manifest itself only in the public sphere, i.e.
where others are present as spectators, as an audience, or as co-actors, and for Arendt this is
the political sphere par excellence. This implies that no uniform or universal prescriptions for
1
virtuous actions can apply, because they are accomplished every time in a unique way (and
within ever changing contexts) by exceptional individuals.1
According to Arendt, passions or sentiments of pity and compassion should never be taken as
the spring or fountainhead of virtue, because they are too strongly associated with the
moralistic view of virtue. This also applies to related passions or dispositions such as “love”,
beneficence, kindness and brotherliness. Arendt insists that there can be no greater tyranny,
no more serious a perversion of virtue, and hence nothing more unethical than the moralistic
ethos of a forced brotherhood based upon compassion and “love of thy neighbour”. As Arendt
showed so effectively through the figures of Billy Budd and Robespierre (in her book On
Revolution), absolute goodness (in a moral sense) can lead to the most atrocious deeds and
terror. And this is so because it destroys the public space – the space of freedom, plurality and
worldliness – and along with that also the basic conditions for a truly virtuous, ethical
existence.
Arendt differs radically from traditional political theory (classical as well as modern), which
always presupposed an identity between the political and the social, or between politics and
morality, or a combination of both. For Arendt it is of utmost importance to maintain or to reinstate the autonomous status of the public sphere, the sphere of (political) action. Thus she
fully agrees with Machiavelli when he insists that people who entered politics should first
11 Arendt’s position is particularly clear in this respect: “Excellence itself, areté as the Greeks, virtus
as the Romans would have called it, has always been assigned to the public realm where one could
excel, could distinguish oneself from all others. Every activity performed in public can attain an
excellence never matched in privacy; for excellence by definition, the presence of others is always
required, and the presence needs the formality of the public... [N]o activity can become excellent if
the world does not provide a proper space for its exercise. Neither education nor ingenuity nor talent
can replace the constituent elements of the public realm, which make it the proper place for human
excellence.” (HC 48-49) “Unlike human behavior – which the Greeks, like all civilized people, judged
according to “moral standards,” taking into account motives and intentions on the one hand and aims
and consequences on the other – action can be judged only by the criterion of greatness because it is
in its nature to break through the commonly accepted and reach into the extraordinary, where
whatever is true in common and everyday life no longer applies because everything that exists is
unique and sui generis... The art of politics teaches men how to bring forth what is great and radiant
…; as long as the polis is there to inspire men to dare the extraordinary, all things are safe; if it
perishes, everything is lost. Motives and aims, no matter how pure or grandiose, are never unique; like
psychological qualities, they are typical, characteristic of different types of persons. Greatness,
therefore, or the specific meaning of its deed, can lie only in the performance itself and neither in its
motivation nor its achievement.” (HC 205-6; cf. BPF 153-54). For an excellent account of “action,
freedom and performance” in Arendt and Nietzsche, see Siemens 2005.
learn “how not to be good,”2 that is, how not to act according to Christian precepts or moral
standards transcending the sphere of human action.3
According to Arendt, moral “goodness” is not fit to be shown in public; it is irrelevant within
the sphere of political action where one must always reckon with the possibility of harmful or
deleterious consequences. No action can ever pretend to be good in an absolute sense, and the
desire to be good above anything else in the public sphere is totally misplaced. In fact, as
Arendt states, “absolute goodness is hardly any less dangerous than absolute evil” (OR 82).
Not (moral) goodness, but virtue is what we must try to achieve in political life: “Virtue –
which perhaps is less than goodness but still alone is capable ‘of embodiment in lasting
institutions’ – must prevail at the expense of the good man...” (OR 84). Virtues and vices are
relevant in the sphere of the “worldly affairs of men”, but the same cannot be said of
“goodness beyond virtue” and “evil beyond vice”, because they constantly wage war against
the world. “[T]he absolute ... spells doom to everyone when it is introduced into the political
realm” (OR 84). Absolute, uncompromising morality tends to become violent. It wants to
eradicate all evil in this world, irrespective of what it costs (fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus!).4
That is why it is, like violence in general, essentially anti-political in nature: it has no respect
for plurality and difference of opinion. It wants to overrule difference and plurality by
22 See Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 15.
33 See OR 36, as well as Arendt’s remarks in HC 73-78, particularly the following: “The well-known
antagonism between early Christianity and the res publica, so admirably summed up in Tertullian’s
formula ‘no matter is more alien to us than what matters publicly’, is usually and rightly understood
as a consequence of early eschatological expectations ... Yet the otherworldliness of Christianity has
still another root, perhaps even more intimately related to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth ... The
one activity taught by Jesus in word and deed is the activity of goodness, and goodness obviously
harbors a tendency to hide from being seen and heard... For it is manifest that the moment a good
work becomes known and public, it loses its special character of goodness, of being done for nothing
but goodness’ sake. When goodness appears openly, it is no longer goodness... Therefore: ‘Take heed
that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.’ Goodness can exist only when it is not
perceived, not even by its author... Therefore: ‘Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
doeth’… Only goodness must go into absolute hiding and flee all appearance if it is not to be
destroyed... Good works, because they must be forgotten instantly, can never become part of the
world; they come and go, leaving no trace. They truly are not of this world... Goodness, therefore, as a
consistent way of life, is not only impossible within the confines of the public realm, it is even
destructive of it...” Cf. also OR 98 and BPF 137.
44 See Arendt’s critical remarks in this regard in BPF 228 and 245 passim.
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proclaiming a single, univocal truth. It wants to establish a regime of moral perfection in a
domain that can never satisfy such a demand.
The (aristocratic) virtue of generosity (Greek: megalopsychia, Latin: magnanimitas) plays a
pivotal role in the tradition of virtue ethics. Generosity is primarily associated with
magnanimity, greatness and generosity of spirit. As the exact opposite of resentment and
meanness of spirit, it can be viewed as the most basic virtue underlying a supra-moral
(“außermoralische”) ethic. This also applies by implication to Arendt, although she never
uses the term generosity as such. However, one can reasonably accept this, especially in light
of her views on forgiveness, which together with trustworthiness (the capacity to make and to
keep promises) constitute for Arendt the highest “principles”5 of action. The capacities for
promising and forgiving do not only impart stability and durability to our actions, but they
give us, in the first place, the confidence to act at all. Cultivating the capacities of promising
and forgiving can thus be viewed as the highest expression of (and the most fundamental
precondition for) virtue. According to Arendt, nothing on earth can be more ethical or more
virtuous than helping to create a situation in which it becomes possible for people to go on
with their lives, to make a fresh start in all frankness and without being constantly plagued by
feelings of guilt and remorse.6 For Arendt revengefulness is the opposite of forgiveness and
thus, by implication, it is the supreme vice. It represents the worst of all vices, mainly
because it is purely reactive, unable to initiate anything new or creative. Hence, the basic
concern of Arendt is to devise strategies towards overcoming resentment. Overcoming
resentment means first and foremost to free oneself from the grip of moralism and the
egalitarian view of social justice that usually goes hand in hand with it.
In conclusion, I should like to consider briefly some of the criticisms levelled against Arendt.
She is frequently portrayed by some of her critics as an elitist and an advocate of meritocracy
rather than democracy. They suggest that this is mainly due to Arendt’s sharp distinctions
55 The principles governing action must, according to Arendt, be understood in a supra-moral sense.
They have nothing in common with moral prescriptions or values. They are genuinely ethical
principles because they are, unlike ordinary moral principles, immanent to action and not applied
“from without” (HC 246).
66 “Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act
would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we can never recover; we would remain
the victims of its consequences forever...” (HC 237).
between the public and the private sphere, and between (political) action and (social)
behaviour. However, it seems quite obvious that, by making these rigorous distinctions,
Arendt did not intend to exclude certain individuals or groups from the public sphere. Rather,
she wanted to point out the dangers inherent to certain mentalities or dispositions with regard
to the public sphere. Where peoples’ actions are driven by the immediacy of, for instance,
unbearable oppression or deprivation, they will lack the necessary freedom and “impersonal
sociability” (civil friendship) which characterise genuine (political) action. The strong
feelings and needs that motivate such desperate, often violent behaviour have very little in
common with what Arendt calls “care for the world” – taking care for maintaining and
securing the public space, that artificial space which is constituted by mutual political
association. Care for this “space in between”, for the network of institutions with their
respective rules and habits of association, is the benchmark of genuine (ethico-political)
action. It is in this “worldliness” of human action that our freedom manifests itself, not in our
“free will” or “self-expression”.7 This is precisely why Arendt insists on the worlddirectedness of the virtue of forgiveness. She takes it out of the “narrowly circumscribed
sphere” of sentiments such as love, relating it rather to something like respect:
Respect, not unlike the Aristotelian philia politiké, is a kind of “friendship” without
intimacy and without closeness; it is a regard for the person from the distance which
the space of the world puts between us, and this regard is independent of qualities
which we may admire or of achievements which we may highly esteem. (HC 243)
Arendt’s insists that in principle nobody should be excluded from participating in the public
life of politics. But when persons indeed make their appearance in the public sphere, they are
expected to demonstrate certain qualities, and quite rightly so. They are judged in terms of
“their trustworthiness, their personal integrity, their capacity of judgement, often their
physical courage”, as well as their commitment to matters of public concern (the res publica)
and to excellence, “regardless not only of social status and administrative office but even of
achievement and congratulation” (OR 274-75). Thus, participating in politics necessarily has
77 Both the voluntarist and the expressivist views of freedom (which lie at the root of the moralistic
ethos) make the common, public world into a mere extension of the self, thereby destroying the
integrity and relative permanence of the world. That is precisely why this is basically such a
dangerous (unethical, defective) view, for the preservation of a common, public world and everything
that Arendt associates with it is indeed a sine qua non for a genuinely virtuous (ethical) existence.
Dana Villa very eloquently explains the anti-expressivist stance in Arendt’s work, especially in his
excellent chapter on “Theatricality and the public realm” (in Villa 1999).
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an “elitist” (i.e. “aristocratic” or self-perfectionist) dimension: Only those who exhibit
exceptional qualities and a passion for public life should be “allowed” to appear in the public
sphere. The demand that everybody must be allowed to participate, irrespective of their
capabilities or commitment to the public interest, will eventually lead to the degeneration of
political action and its corruption by extra-political issues and interests.8
These views of Arendt must nevertheless be seen together with her plea for the “right to have
rights”, i.e. the right to belong to a political community where one can be seen and heard. This
is the most basic, the most fundamental human right. It finds its purpose and legitimacy in
itself, in the human condition of worldliness, natality and plurality.
From an Arendtian perspective, a political community can only claim recognition and
legitimacy if its members themselves respect the human conditions of natality and plurality.
This, in turn, is what makes possible and sustains the public sphere, which is for Arendt the
best guarantee for a dignified, genuinely human existence, fragile as it may be. Violating
these conditions amounts for Arendt to a “law against humanity”. Genuine democracy
requires a belief in equality and, where necessary, measures to maintain it. But this does not
at all imply uniformity or homogenising of differences, which basically follows the logic of
fabrication (social engineering). According to Arendt, this would lead to the destruction of
the public sphere and genuine politics, leaving the door wide open for totalitarian rule or new
forms of despotism.
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88 For Arendt’s remarks about elitism, see OR 275-280. She is adamant that “the political way of life
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