Obligation and Forgiveness

Abstract

Obligation compatibilism is the view that moral obligation is compatible with determinism. A competitor, obligation libertarianism, says that moral obligation is incompatible with determinism, and there are free actions that are morally obligatory for some people. A way to appreciate the importance of the obligation dilemma is to reflect on whether either of these rivals can accommodate forgiveness, something deemed central to interpersonal relationships. This chapter explores this issue by examining whether forgiveness presupposes our having free will owing to its putative essential ties to moral obligation. It proposes that forgiveness is conceptually associated not with obligation but with prima facie obligation. The chapter terminates with a discussion on whether prima facie obligation, and thus forgiveness, presupposes our having free will.