ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to understand and defends the plausibility of the relation between understanding and mercy. The intuition that the author wish to support is that the relation between understanding and mercy will not hold in the same way for cases of self-understanding, and so there is an asymmetry between understanding others and understanding the self. The plausibility of claiming an asymmetry between self- and other-evaluation depends partially on the plausibility of claiming a general relation between understanding and mercy. The chapter renders as plausible as possible the claim that understanding another dissipates both the urge to condemn and the appropriateness of doing so. In undertaking self-examination, however, one comes fundamentally to know oneself more immediately and fully, not primarily to know something about oneself. The chapter explores the conditions and limits of the movement characteristic of the merciful judge in self-evaluation.