The Best Apology is Changed Behavior

Abstract: We give and receive apologies with some regularity; sometimes apologies are intricate and serious, but sometimes they are simple and perfunctory. Understanding the connection between wrongdoing and apology is important for having a full picture of this seemingly ubiquitous feature of our moral lives. I argue that extant accounts of apology capture important aspects of the phenomenon, but they fail to properly identify the function of apology. This failure is important because it leads to problems for understanding the relationship between apology and forgiveness and, more generally, the ways in which apology alters our relationships with others. The practice of apology is varied and nuanced, but I contend that what unites the various utterances and performances we call “apologies” is the function they serve in regulating moral relations generally. I map a signaling account of blame onto apology to show how a functional account of the basic nature of apology better captures the various forms apologies can take and explains the ways in which apology relates to forgiveness and our relationships generally.