How Stable is Forgiveness? Abstract: Imagine a case in which you think you have forgiven P for ø, and you say to P “I forgive you”, but within a couple of days you find yourself getting angry again and repeatedly blaming and rebuking P for having done ø. Many of us think that in this scenario you have not actually forgiven P for ø. One possible explanation for this is that forgiveness is essentially a stable, reliable, or robust state. You have forgiven P only if you have moved into this stable state. But how stable does this state have to be in order to count as forgiveness? What kind of stability must it possess?