Grayson Hunt

ABSTRACT This article develops an Arendtian conception of resentment and shows that resentment as a response to injustice is in fact only possible within a community of persons engaged in moral and recognitive relations. While Arendt is better known for her work on forgiveness—characterized as a creative rather than vindictive response to injury—this article suggests that Arendt provides a unique way of thinking about resentment as essentially a response to another human's subjectivity. But when injury is massive, so beyond the pale that the possibility of face-to-face human interaction is annihilated, the space for resentment is thereby destroyed. Ironically, while the absence of resentment might at first seem to be an unproblematically good thing, Arendt shows us that the loss of resentment actually signals the loss of the properly human realm.

—Grayson Hunt1In 2015, I visited Lake Cumberland in Kentucky for a day of boating and swimming with friends. At one end of the lake was an amazing waterfall. As I was swimming near it, I looked up and saw a man thirty feet above in the bushes on top of the falls. He waved. I waved back. Only he wasn’t boating; he was just standing there. So I stared at him, wondering what he was doing up there. Then I realized he was masturbating. Stunned, I turned away to swim back to the boat, and I could feel shame sneaking into my chest and face. I began to feel responsible for what was happening to me, which was the very message I internalized after being sexually assaulted as a teen. This time, however, I decided that I...

With the common goal of clarifying some of the theoretical profiles of transitional justice strategies, the study is organized along crucial intersections evaluating aspects connected to the genealogy, the nature, the scope and the most appropriate methodology for the study of transitional justice. The specific transitional instruments of war crime tribunals, truth commissions, administrative purges, reparations, and historical commissions are considered. The book brings together some of the most original writings from established experts as well as from promising young scholars in the field.

My thesis offers a philosophical and psychological examination of our ability to forgive strangers post-atrocity. Forgiveness is often considered impossible because atrocities involve unforgivable violations of moral values. Viewed through the lens of deconstruction, however, it is precisely where forgiveness seems impossible that it becomes possible, and more importantly, necessary in order to curb the desire for vengeance. Granting this radical understanding of the value of forgiveness---the ability to forgive the unforgivable---what hinders our ability to forgive? My work focuses on public vindictiveness towards Karla Homolka, who was released in 2005, having served her 12-year sentence for her role in the rape and murder of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy and 15-year-old Kristen French. My thesis aims to show how reflective engagement with forgiveness can tell us something about ourselves as ethical persons by demonstrating how and why our ongoing resentment towards others is often morally unjustified.