Stoicisms Value of Forgiveness

I believe having forgiveness is a big part of being a stoic. You hear stories of people who are able to forgive their moms murderer and I think this is the strongest of stoic acts of forgiveness. In a stoic view being able to forgive having control over your emotions or opinion of a wrongdoing again you. Most of the stories like the one above I think the person who commits the murder has also had a change of heart and want to be forgiven and are truly sorry for what they have done, but what if they are not and do not seek forgiveness? Should we still forgive them? A stoic would most likely say that you should still eventually forgive them because if you are not able to forgive you do not have control of your emotion and are them emotion then has control over you.

Lets look at a less extreme example though, lets say someone stole your bike, I think that a stoic would tell you, you should forgive that person who stole your bike. If you are not able to forgive that person then it becomes a thing of too much admiration for the bike and not just a hate for that person who stole your bike. Your outlook should be to lessen your admiration of the bike and this will help to keep your anger in check because if you do not have too high of an admiration for the bike you won’t be as mad if someone steals it. I to some extent believe this but I don’t personally think you should apply it to all situations. As stated in Epictetus’ Discourses and Selected Readings like, “Cease to admire your wife’s beauty, and you cease to be angry with the adulterer.” In my personal opinion I don’t think you can truly be happy if you do not admire your wife’s beauty either inside or out. But maybe it is just taking it to an extreme to prove a point and really isn’t saying you shouldn’t admire her but just to not over admire. That’s another topic though, bottom line I think that stoicism values forgiveness but is something that they believe should start before the wrongdoing has been committed as opposed to it just happening after a wrongdoing has been committed against you like I think most people do.

Citation:

Epictetus, and William Abbott Oldfather.  The Discourses & Selected Readings as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments. London: W. Heinemann, 1926. Print.