But let us first examine the type of mercy which involves the waiving of a claim. What is meant here is, of course, our renunciation of a valid right of our own. Mercy impels us to overstep the measure of justice in a case where justice would operate to our personal advantage.

When, on the other hand, we have to decide about the conflicting claims of others—acting, for instance, as an arbiter between two contestant parties—we are not at liberty to transgress the measure of justice. We have no right simply to cancel the debt which an indigent person owes to a prosperous one. By all means, we may—having regard to the particular circumstances—try to persuade the creditor to show mercy, but we are not in a position to substitute in our own right clemency for justice. Yet, we may well do so if the creditor is ourselves.

Even in this case, however, our surrender of the claim in question may not always be an act of true mercy, nor even always the right thing to do. If it is a debt we remit, it must, first of all, be owed us by a poor man—one who, not only as regards the given juridical case but in a more comprehensive sense also, is in a weaker position than we are. To remit a debt owed by a rich man has obviously nothing to do with mercy. The misery to which our mercy responds cannot consist in the weaker position alone in which every debtor as such has placed himself. It must attach to the situation of the debtor beyond this particular indebtedness, too.

It is further ill-advised on our part to renounce our right if by so doing we are likely to inflict upon our debtor a moral damage. Some people seek to capitalize on the magnanimity of others; to help them to success cannot but confirm them in their unrighteousness, whereas a stern treatment, may provide them with a salutary lesson. In such cases, yielding one’s right is not an act of true mercy but a mere indulgence of faintheartedness and guilty weakness. There are, as a matter of fact, several types of complaisant attitudes which, though they lack all intrinsic kinship with mercy, may easily be confused with it by a superficial observer.

Yielding to others out of fear of conflict is not mercy

Some people are simply too weak to defend their rights. They shun every dispute, abhor every act of resistance, and feel unable to sustain any conflict. With some of these the matter is chiefly faint-heartedness; with others, helplessness; with others again, sloth.