ISSUES AND ETHICS IN THE HELPING PROFESSIONS

Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions



Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions

Chapter Two: The Counselor as a Person and as a Professional

This chapter presents the published literature on interpersonal forgiveness now includes no fewer than 70 books, not all of which agree on what forgiveness is. Lakatos (1978) developed a challenging and provocative philosophy of science that allows us to cut through differences of opinion, resolve areas of doubt, and advance knowledge in a given field of inquiry. Advancement of knowledge rather than a relativistic contentment with differences of opinion is the goal of scientific inquiry as Peirce (1964) so clearly argued over a century ago. In general, Lakatos provided the following principles for critiquing theories that disagree with one another on a particular topic (in our case interpersonal forgiveness). Let us first examine the descriptions of the construct. Is one construct more complete than another? To be more complete, a description retains the important historical precedents in the construct whereas the less complete does not. The more complete also will distinguish forgiveness from related concepts (such as condonation or reconciliation). Such a construct is more complete because its greater specificity makes the construct less vulnerable to philosophical attack. Is one theory of forgiveness more advanced than another? To be more advanced; one theory would point out false premises or deductively invalid arguments in previous approaches and correct them (while retaining the valid from the old). Systems less useful for advance unwittingly retain the deficiencies. Is one theory more parsimonious than another? To be parsimonious a system of thought provides as simply as possible more complete definitions, descriptions of processes leading to forgiveness, and causes and consequences. The less parsimonious includes extraneous material that would be, but as of yet is not, discarded.

The Lakatosian philosophy of science is particularly useful in examining competing theories. For example, suppose a scientist asserts, "Interpersonal forgiveness is dangerous to clients." This Is one of perhaps many relationships postulated by the scientist regarding forgiveness. In this case, there is a relationship between practicing forgiveness and suffering negative consequences, thus placing it within the realm of theory. We can scrutinize this idea by first examining his or her construct of forgiveness for accuracy (i.e., is forgiveness being confused with another, similar construct?) and then by examining any contradictions in the theory (i.e., are there cases in which forgiveness--defined accurately--leads to positive outcomes?). With this in mind, we turn to the ancient ideas on forgiveness.

Ancient Conceptions

There are a number of ancient philosophical systems, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, that emphasize mercy and compassion but do not explicitly highlight forgiveness. Instead, forgiveness is embedded in discussions of compassion, magnanimity, and altruism without sharp or even subtle distinctions among them. Making such distinctions is sometimes considered a product of Western thinking, yet Islam's Koran, an Eastern system emerging 700 years after Christianity, makes such distinctions among similar, overlapping concepts. Confucianism will serve as our example ...