Nick Smith, “Justice through Apologies: Remorse, Reform, and Punishment” (Cambridge UP, 2014)

New Books in Law · Jul 2, 2014 · 1h 14m

Most people say “I’m sorry” a lot. After all, we make a lot of mistakes, most of them minor, so we don’t mind apologizing and expect our apologies to be accepted or at least acknowledged. But how many of our apologies are what might be called “strategic,” that is, designed to do nothing more than placate the person we have wronged and essentially exonerate ourselves? In other word, how many of our apologies are genuine? It’s a good question, but it raises another: what is a genuine apology? Does it involve an admission of guilt, remorse, a promise never to do it (whatever it is) again…