About Martha Nussbaum’s Anger and Forgiveness

Anger and Forgiveness - Martha Nussbaum

Anger and Forgiveness by Martha Nussbaum offers alternatives to the darker, more vindictive emotions that drive people’s reactions to wrongdoing. She makes the case that managers shouldn’t get upset in the workplace because doing so wouldn’t help anything and would only make matters worse. People should also try to regulate their anger rather than give it considerable importance (Nussbaum 1). Anger makes someone want to exact retribution for their suffering in a situation when there is no way to win. Instead, she advises that people especially in business should attempt to strike a balance between forgiveness and anger. Forgiveness as opposed to anger is an important fountain of human resource management in business as it encourages healing and harmony in an organization.

The Power of Forgiveness

She emphasizes the need for forgiveness because it is a key personal and political virtue. She provides examples of political figures that encouraged people to forgive their nemesis. For instance, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther encouraged their supporters to forgive their foes. The process of forgiveness involves confrontation, declaration of guilt, expression of regret and working through. Most interestingly, the wronged individual emerges victorious after forgiving (Nussbaum 13). In addition, he/she becomes unburdened from irate emotions. In so doing this can be referred to as transactional forgiveness, which is very beneficial in the contemporary world.

Judeo-Christian Perspectives on Forgiveness

Judeo-Christian perspectives shaped the features of forgiveness, in which the main moral association is that between erring humans and an omniscient God. In this regard, God is a record keeper of all humans’ sins in eternity and is used in the hour of last judgment. The creator may decide to forgive transgressions after they apologize, or seeking forgiveness (Nussbaum 21). Therefore, human relationships with others should simulate the primary relationship between God and mortals.

Forward-Looking Perspective

Martha Nussbaum advocates for alternatives in what she refers to as “unconditional love” which encourages forgiveness and looking forward. More importantly, it avoids anger completely. In fact, the need of forward-looking instead of backwards is a key theme of her argument (Nussbaum 21). Precisely, she pointed out that in human interactions, people are normally wrong to disregard the future.

The Role of Forgiveness in Business

Some of the business news articles highlight the need for managers to practice forgiveness in their administration. Article by Susie Cox, “An investigation of forgiveness climate and workplace outcomes” emphasize the need for human resource managers in organizations to promote transactional forgiveness rather than anger. Just as Martha Nussbaum encouraged humans to embrace forgiveness towards their fellow people, the article uphold the importance of nurturing forgiveness as an efficient mechanism of accomplishing positive business outcomes and resiliency (Cox 1). In the contemporary business environment, the society has turnout to be more individualistic. Therefore, most individuals do not seem inspired to forgive others.

The Impact of Forgiveness in HR Management

The human resource management is characterized by mild conflicts or intense disagreements, which lead to negative moods of retaliation, revenge, anger, and resentments. If the virtue of forgiveness is not cultivated among the personnel in an organization, it may cause deterioration of work relationships as people hold onto the emotions of resentment and anger (Cox 1). For this reason, forgiveness should guide interpersonal association in an organization between employees and the management. In fact, forgiveness can be used as an important HR management strategy.

Creating a Nurturing Work Environment

Forgiveness at HR management helps the wronged people to give up bitterness against or the wish to revenge or payback as well as give up faultfinding or blame. In most workplaces, forgiveness is difficult to implement because the legal and organizational structures establishes cultural norms, which fail to reinforce need of forgiveness. In this regard, something or someone in a firm is normally to blame hence if such kind of behavior is encouraged, it can weaken accountability creating a bad illustration for other workers (Cox 2). The human resource can be a catalyst of transformation in an organization, which can only be realized through forgiveness among workers. Significantly, forgiveness is the most difficult and vital element of accomplishing a more fulfilling and nurturing work environment. Furthermore, employees do not feel welcomed to add their innovation, passion and special talents in an intolerant work environment.

Internal Harmony and Growth

Similarly, forgiveness provides a chance to apply the breakdowns, flaws, failures and mistakes of life as opportunities to stimulate greater capability, compassion and wisdom in the workplace and among the co-workers. Through forgiveness, the organizational culture is reinforced where employees feel welcomed to take accountable risks, desist from withholding their inventiveness and establish passionate contribution and individual ownership (Cox 3). In so doing, forgiveness in human resource management acts as a source of internal harmony among the workers.

Conclusion

My personal response based on the business article illustrates the need for encouraging forgiveness among the employees in a workplace because it creates a healing process. Moreover, the article is very clear the forgiveness is the fountain of understanding and compassion. Consequently, it is important for human resource management because it establishes a place where employees are welcomed to express their innate creativity and genius. Therefore, the reading increases my understanding of fostering forgiveness among employees and management of organizations across the globe. The main reason for this statement is that forgiveness makes the workplace a place where workers feel valued and respected as well as experience a feeling of meaning and joy from their job.

Work Cited

Cox, Susie S. “An investigation of forgiveness climate and workplace outcomes.” Academy of Management Proceedings. Vol. 2011. No. 1. Academy of Management, 2011.

Nussbaum, Martha C. Anger and forgiveness: resentment, generosity, justice. Oxford University Press, 2016.