OCTC's Lewis Writes Book About Forgiveness

Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness

Owensboro, KY (09/12/2018) — OCTC Professor Dr. Court Lewis has published a new book with Lexington Books, entitled Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness. Inspired by Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower and Nicholas Wolterstorff's work on justice, Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness adds the voice of rights theory to contemporary discussions on forgiveness. Rights have been excluded for two related reasons: first, forgiveness is often framed as "a gift" to wrongdoers; and second, rights suggest that victims are obligated in certain cases to forgive their wrongdoers. Such an obligation is often considered repugnant, for it unjustifiably wrongs (i.e., victimizes) victims, while benefiting wrongdoers. Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness overcomes this repugnancy by utilizing the moral theory of eirenéism to craft a rights-based theory of justice grounded in the inherent worth and intimate moral relationships between victims, wrongdoers, and their social community in order to show that the particular needs of victims make the obligation to forgive self-beneficial while also promoting a peaceful state of just flourishing.

Court Lewis received his PhD from the University of Tennessee and is Program Coordinator and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Owensboro Community and Technical College. Court lives in Owensboro with his wife Jenny and son Elliott Storm. He spends his free time mentoring children and youth, acting, and playing music. Author of Way of the Doctor, Court has already begun working on his next book project examining social expressions of forgiveness and peace in popular culture and the arts. For more information, contact Court Lewis at 270-686-4621 or court.lewis@kctcs.edu.

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Owensboro Community & Technical College is one of the sixteen community and technical colleges that make up the Kentucky Community & Technical College System. OCTC serves the KY counties of Daviess, Hancock, Ohio and McLean. OCTC has three campuses in Daviess County and a Center and Annex in Hancock County. OCTC strives to serve the communities in the service area by providing associate degree education for transfer, state of the art technical education for students focusing on entering the workforce, customized business and industry solutions through the Workforce Solutions division, and adult education and business and industry testing through the SkillTrain unit.

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The Kentucky Community and Technical College System is the Commonwealth's largest postsecondary institution with 16 colleges and more than 70 campuses. We also are Kentucky's largest provider of workforce training and online education. Through partnerships with business and industry, we align our programs to meet the needs of local employers. We help students fulfill their dreams of creating a better life through programs that lead directly to jobs or help them transfer to one of our four-year partners.

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