Most religions advocate forgiveness. However, the conditions for granting forgiveness differ across religions. Christianity tends to be more unilateral in advocating the granting of forgiveness, and its believers are often urged to make a unilateral decision to forgive personal offenses. Emotional forgiveness, which is actually, I believe, a different type of forgiveness, might occur days, months, or years later. Reconciliation is the restoration of trust when trust has been damaged in a relationship. Whereas forgiveness—decisional or emotional or both—is something within a person, reconciliation happens between people. Reconciliation depends on mutually trustworthy behavior until trust can be restored.

Michael Vick violated public trust with his involvement in dog fighting and cruelty to animals. That certainly personally hurt and offended many people, and therefore each must consider whether to forgive. But often when we talk about whether we (as a nation, or as a body of sports fans) should forgive Michael Vick, we really mean: Should we adopt a stance that says, “We trust you again”? That stance depends on Michael Vick’s behavior. It seems to me, in reading the papers, that he has (a) taken care of his “debt” to society by paying the penalty for his crimes, (b) seems sincerely remorseful for what he has done, and (c) is trying his best to make up for what damage he has done. For some people, that will seem to be enough that they believe he should be granted a tentative trust—tentative based on his continued trustworthy behavior. For others, his offense against the public trust was so  egregious that nothing will ever convince them that trust should again be granted.

When I counseled couples who experienced an affair, the erring partner always seemed to believe he or she had done enough to earn back trust, but the offended partner seemed never sure whether enough was enough. I usually coached them to set a definite time as a probationary period. If after that period, the formerly erring partner had maintained fidelity and had made sufficient amends, then I urged the couple to consider the case tentatively closed. It was clear, however, that a repeat of the offense could not be tolerated.

In many ways, the public is in the same boat regarding Michael Vick. What penalty is enough? What time period is enough? We each need to decide that for ourselves, but we also, in fairness, have to allow a person to make redemption for errors—even the most grievous of errors. That’s generally what we would want in the other person’s shoes: a fair chance at redemption.

Everett Worthington is a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University.