Approaching an ethics of restorative justice

ABSTRACT: Restorative Justice has a paramount and undeniable ethical essence. Precisely for this reason the ethical depth and complexity of restorative justice must be enlightened. The purpose of this article is, firstly, to provide general guidance on the various ethical aspects of restorative justice; and, secondly, to reflect specifically on one of these aspects. Through Foucauldian intuition, we hold a notion of ethics as hermeneutics, as a practice of the self, as constitution of subjectivity; and, therefore, as a relation with otherness. A restorative process may be grasped as a continuance, turmoil and confirmation of this ethical view.

KEYWORDS: restorative justice; ethics; subjectivation; hermeneutics of self; forgiveness.