The celebrity and political non-apology is a tediously common feature of our culture. Bill Clinton after lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Richard Nixon after ... well ... everything he lied about. Countless influencers for various online gaffes. Kanye West for numerous instances of behaving like Kanye West.
US secret service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned last week after her performance in a congressional hearing, in which she provided no concrete answers about what happened on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a man was killed and several injured during an attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Cheatle had apologised for the errors which led to a young man being able to access a nearby roof and carry out the shooting on her watch.
The whole ordeal prompts some fascinating questions about apologies and their role in public and private life. We’re all hopefully well-versed in giving and receiving apologies, yet we’re not always clear on what an apology should entail, what makes it sincere, and what its purpose actually should be. We feel that we know a sincere one when we meet it but while the words are easy enough, in her book Upheavals of Thought, philosopher Martha Nussbaum tells us that the emotional state behind an apology is critical to ensuring it’s sincere. Guilt, she says, is a form of moral recognition, while remorse is a more profound, reflective flavour of guilt. We need to feel both to feel contrite.
In a leadership position, a person is ultimately responsible for the actions of the people under their purview and should accept blame for errors, oversights or acts of wrongdoing. So often, though, with power comes a canny ability to dodge consequences, point the finger down the ladder, or offer a performative apology, while ultimately maintaining a position of advantage. The political and celebrity non-apology is a masterclass in sounding sorry without any of the emotional substance and selfless intent Nussbaum tells us is key to a true apology.
To think philosophically about an apology — whether we’ve been unfaithful to our spouse or feel we’re owed an apology by someone else — is to think about its necessary and sufficient conditions. An apology is not a means to an end but an end in itself. Not a way to stop someone being upset with us, to “keep the peace” or to create conditions whereby everyone can move on. It should be freely offered from a stance of contrition motivated by real remorse; it should acknowledge the harm caused. It shouldn’t mitigate, excuse, self-protect or prevaricate. It should not centre the wrongdoer but the person or people impacted by the wrongdoing.
Crucially, if an apology does not entail a cost for the person offering it, it seems insincere, which is no doubt why there was such uproar when Cheatle initially accepted culpability but insisted on maintaining her position. If we admit to having done something seriously wrong, it isn’t enough merely to say so. When our actions cause harm it is not reasonable to expect that we should be able to enjoy all the advantages we did before. To be sorry is to willingly make ourselves a lightning rod for the displeasure and pain of those we have harmed. In a leadership position, it is to occupy a symbolic as well as a literal role of responsibility. It is to accept that, for whatever time, you are occupying the role of the “bad guy”. Our instinct is usually to shrink from this; to apologise so that we feel better about ourselves or to protect ourselves, rather than offer contrition to someone in the hope that it may be what they need, even if they choose not to forgive.
This cost is not retributive but an acknowledgment of proportionality. That harm has been caused and it would be unethical for the consequences of that to leave the person responsible for perpetrating it untouched or their life less impacted than the ones they harm.
Considered in this way, genuine apologies are rare. Nussbaum sets a high bar by stipulating the necessity for a deep state of conscious remorse. The good news is that remorse generates the conditions for moral development. In its cloying soil, we can become better people and work to restore the trust we’ve lost. We’ve all offered the halfhearted and selfish apology. The guilty, needy kind. The instrumental political kind designed to gaslight, manipulate or self-protect. We’ve all received some horrendous apologies. While robust examples of public apologies can be tough to find, we can create them in our own lives. It just takes remorse.