Apology not accepted
The times this weekend had an interesting column by Professor Anthony Grayling. He was writing about apologies and what they mean. He observed that an effective apology is one shows true regret not just for the consequences of ones actions but also the motivation for those actions. An apology that is only made due to being caught is a hollow one.
This is an interesting point and it occurred to me that gratitude works in a slightly different way. To show that you are truly sorry you must be sorry for the consequences of your actions (a first order event) and also that you are sorry for having done something which you recognize as bad (a second order event).
But gratitude appears only to work at a first order level. When I thank you for, say, helping me lift something I am only grateful for the action and consequences. We have little concern of whether the action or help was motivated by the right intentions. Why is this? Why do we only care about intentions and motivations when things go wrong?
That said, it is not uncommon to thanks someone who is incapable of helping but is not in a position to fulfill their intention. For example, I ask you for help lifting something and the response is yes, I would love to but my back will not allow it. In that case the normal polite response is to thank the helper anyway. I.e. we recognize their motivation and desire to help even if it cannot be fulfilled.
This appears to contradict my earlier claim that we are not concerned with their motivations for helping, only the consequences. Their seems to be an order of precedent appearing in the way these things work.
1) If you do good and help me (actually perform the action) I will thank you for your first order event and leave it at that.
2) If you are unable to help but willing only then will I look at your second order motivation to do good and help and recognize that (and thank you).
But apologies do seem to work this way. One does not tend to have a second chance at apologizing. If an apology is deemed hollow then a repeat of the apology tends not to be accepted. You have to get it right first time. You have to show regret for the second order event as well as the first order event whereas in gratitude you accept the first order thanks and leave it at that.
This fits nicely with the views outlined in Plato's Republic. There was a debate about the being good and bad. A bad person does not want to get caught at being bad and the best way to do this is to appear good while achieving your evil aims. In fact the better you are at being bad, the more good you appear. So the really bad people in the world can appear to be really really good. Why does this work? Well we do not look into the second order motivations behind good actions. We take them at face value. We do not tend to question the moral character of the people who do us good. But we do for the people who do bad.
And so the truly bad amongst us rise to power all the while appearing to do good and achieving their terrible aims.
Maybe we should rebalance the world and start looking more carefully at the motivations of the good for it is there that the bad men hide.
This is an interesting point and it occurred to me that gratitude works in a slightly different way. To show that you are truly sorry you must be sorry for the consequences of your actions (a first order event) and also that you are sorry for having done something which you recognize as bad (a second order event).
But gratitude appears only to work at a first order level. When I thank you for, say, helping me lift something I am only grateful for the action and consequences. We have little concern of whether the action or help was motivated by the right intentions. Why is this? Why do we only care about intentions and motivations when things go wrong?
That said, it is not uncommon to thanks someone who is incapable of helping but is not in a position to fulfill their intention. For example, I ask you for help lifting something and the response is yes, I would love to but my back will not allow it. In that case the normal polite response is to thank the helper anyway. I.e. we recognize their motivation and desire to help even if it cannot be fulfilled.
This appears to contradict my earlier claim that we are not concerned with their motivations for helping, only the consequences. Their seems to be an order of precedent appearing in the way these things work.
1) If you do good and help me (actually perform the action) I will thank you for your first order event and leave it at that.
2) If you are unable to help but willing only then will I look at your second order motivation to do good and help and recognize that (and thank you).
But apologies do seem to work this way. One does not tend to have a second chance at apologizing. If an apology is deemed hollow then a repeat of the apology tends not to be accepted. You have to get it right first time. You have to show regret for the second order event as well as the first order event whereas in gratitude you accept the first order thanks and leave it at that.
This fits nicely with the views outlined in Plato's Republic. There was a debate about the being good and bad. A bad person does not want to get caught at being bad and the best way to do this is to appear good while achieving your evil aims. In fact the better you are at being bad, the more good you appear. So the really bad people in the world can appear to be really really good. Why does this work? Well we do not look into the second order motivations behind good actions. We take them at face value. We do not tend to question the moral character of the people who do us good. But we do for the people who do bad.
And so the truly bad amongst us rise to power all the while appearing to do good and achieving their terrible aims.
Maybe we should rebalance the world and start looking more carefully at the motivations of the good for it is there that the bad men hide.
posted by So long and thanks for all the fish at
12:36 pm
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