The Emotions Behind Forgiveness
Forgiveness includes a series of emotions besides thoughts and behaviors.
Posted April 22, 2026 | Reviewed by Davia Sills
As a moral virtue, forgiveness encompasses motivations to do good, thoughts that do not condemn the offending person, softer emotions, and, as far as possible, cooperative behaviors toward that person. See, for example, Song et al. (2025), in which the wholeness of forgiveness is described.
In this essay, we examine one part of the overall moral virtue of forgiveness: the emotions. Fostering these feelings can help soften your heart toward the one (or ones) who were unjust to you. This heart-softening can have significant benefits for the forgiver because it tends to lower the resentment that can lead to fatigue, sadness, and, eventually, anxiety and even depression if the resentment lingers and is intense for a long time.
Consider five points about the emotions of forgiveness.
1. For most people, the emotions of forgiveness emerge after the cognitive work has commenced and progressed.
We find that, in the process of forgiveness, it is easier for people to do the cognitive work than the emotional work because we are more in control of what we think than of what we feel. So, a first step in developing the emotions of forgiveness is to begin to see the offending person with a wider-angle lens than just defining the person by the unjust actions. As people try to see the other’s history, there is a tendency to see injustices against this person, struggles with life, and inner pain that the person may have been carrying for a long time.
2. Seeing the other person’s wounds can engender sympathy for this person.
Sympathy is a feeling of concern or sadness directed at people because of their pain and suffering. In other words, the forgiver begins to react to the other’s emotional wounds, which has the effect of lessening, at least a little, the emotional intensity of the resentment.
Sympathy needs its own care so that the forgiver does not make the error of concluding, “Oh, this person was wounded by others. Therefore, what happened to me is okay because the other just couldn’t help it.” This kind of excusing needs to be resisted when sympathy begins to emerge because injustices were, are, and always will be wrong.
It is here that the emotion of sympathy needs the clarity of separating actions from the person. The person may be wounded, but a free-will action that was unjust toward the forgiver remains wrong.
3. Sympathy can give way to empathy.
Empathy is often informally defined as stepping into another person’s shoes to feel that person’s feelings. It is different from sympathy in this way: Sympathy looks toward another with resulting feelings of concern, whereas empathy is a deeper response that seeks to get inside another’s heart to see and experience the other more deeply.
As with sympathy, this can soften the heart even more toward the other person as the forgiver feels the other’s pain. Yet, empathy does not complete the forgiveness process because it can be neutral in one’s response toward the other. Feeling the other’s pain does not automatically lead to a behavior like reaching out to help that person.
4. Sympathy and empathy can give way to compassion.
Compassion, by some people, is seen as the culmination of the forgiveness process. Compassion is a softened heart in which the forgiver willingly suffers along with the other: The offending person is hurting, and I am hurting; we suffer together. It differs from empathy in that it often involves a motivation to help someone in pain.
This feeling, then, is at odds with resentment or revenge -seeking, as the forgiver sees the other’s full humanity and desires to engage in behaviors that are constructive for the other and perhaps even for their relationship, if one existed prior to the unjust actions.
5. Compassion can give way to the emotions connected with agape love.
Agape love is a moral virtue, a special kind of love in which the person wants the best for others, even when it is painful to offer this (Enright et al, 2022). As a moral virtue, it includes thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. An example outside of forgiveness is this: A mother is up all night caring for her sick child. She is exhausted, and yet willingly gives to her child out of deep love.
This is more than compassion, which primarily takes place in the heart. Compassion certainly can contribute to behavioral altruism . The emotional aspect of agape love is desiring the good of the other. In contrast to compassion, agape love is not fulfilled until what is in the heart transfers to helping behavior that can be quite painful.
The paradox of forgiveness is clearly seen on this level: As the one who was hurt feels for and gives to the one who caused the inner pain, it is often the forgiver who experiences emotional relief from the injustice. As a cautionary note, based on Aristotle’s (340 B.C./2013) philosophy , a person should exercise temperance or balance when practicing agape love so that burnout does not occur.
If an abiding and deep anger can be substantially reduced or even eliminated, this person now has a certain emotional freedom that might not have been experienced for a long time. We have worked with some people who had carried this resentment in their hearts for decades, and it faded as a deeper sense of forgiveness emerged, as measured by a scientifically validated instrument (Hansen & Enright, 2009).
Some Final Reflections
The emotions of forgiveness take time to develop, especially when the hurt is deep. Therefore, people need to be patient with themselves as these emerge.
Not all of these emotions are developed in all forgivers. For example, some people feel some sympathy and resultant empathy, but then do not progress further. This does not indicate failure. Forgiveness is a process, and even small reductions in the challenging emotion of resentment can make a difference for a person.
My colleagues and I find in our research that, following forgiveness interventions, many people reach only the midpoint on the forgiveness scale, which makes all the difference for enhanced well-being. Yet, knowing the full picture of forgiveness, knowing its highest way, or, as Aristotle would put it, its essence, can be a goal that people can keep in mind. The emotions of forgiveness, combined with its cognitive and behavioral aspects, can go a long way toward healing a person’s broken heart.
Aristotle. (2013). Nicomachean Ethics (W.D. Ross, Trans.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. (Original work published ca. 340 B.C.E.).
Enright, R.D., Wang Xu, J., Rapp, H., Evans, M., & Song, J. (2022). The philosophy and social science of agape love. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 42 (4), 220– 237.
Hansen, M.J., Enright. R.D., Baskin, T.W., & Klatt, J. (2009). A palliative care intervention in forgiveness therapy for elderly terminally-ill cancer patients. Journal of Palliative Care , 25, 51-60.
Song, J., Enright, R.D., & Kim, J. (2025). Definitional drift within the science of forgiveness: The dangers of avoiding philosophical analyses. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 45 (1), 3-24.
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Robert Enright, Ph.D., is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a licensed psychologist who pioneered the social scientific study of forgiveness.
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