Authors: Cindy Holder

Year: 2017

C4E Journal

Two crucial elements for an official apology to be felicitous (i.e., to succeed as the type of speech act it is) are that the person offering the apology be appropriately placed to speak to and for the subject matter of the apology; and that this person be clearly and unambiguously speaking qua public official.[1] In short, the person apologizing must be positioned to speak for the relevant public and must in fact be speaking for that public. But who constitutes the public on whose behalf such an official speaks and in whose name the apology is offered? In this paper I argue that in most cases, the “public” that the official offering an apology represents and on whose behalf the apology is offered is not the general public or any subset of it (such as dominant groups within the general public or elements of the general public on whose behalf wrongs were undertaken). In most cases the public for whom the official offering an apology speaks is the public sector: those who direct, control and populate the apparatus of the state or some segment of that apparatus.

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