Martha Minow

Short book about law and forgiveness. Good but I guess I hoped for a little more. Forgiveness is not really a legal concept, although Minow makes a good case for how law could be better if it could better incorporate aspects of forgiveness. She had a very interesting discussion about “child soldiers” in conflict zones and compared them to very young gang members here at home. How do you respond to victimized and traumatized children who commit atrocities? And how do you respond to their victims?

I wish she had spent a bit more time fully defining forgiveness. I guess next up for me is to read this piece at my favorite philosophy reference site: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/forgiveness/

Minow ended her book with a beautiful quote from Paul Boese: “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”… (mehr)