Hannah Arendt’s conception of responsibility

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The ethical-political scenario left in the wake of the Holocaust functions as an incentive for moral theorists to rethink the problem of evil from a new perspective: denaturalizing violence from the notion of responsibility. Among these authors that wrote about responsibility and prevention—of Jewish origin—we find Hannah Arendt as an exemplar of the critique of her historical moment. She intended to stop the repetition of totalitarian and instrumental violence. Breaking the barriers of the political and the personal, Arendt proposes a vision of evil that encompasses institutional obedience, the task of moral duty, and the origin of evil itself linked to thought. This proposal arises through the study of the Eichmann case—who is judged in Israel for the Jewish persecution—since she uses this evil official as an example of the banality of evil.

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt tries to understand the lack of morality that exists in carrying out unfair actions and enduring evil in an indifferent manner. Upon listening to the monotonous and simple speech that the prosecuted proposes, she begins to question whether there is a motu proprio behind his reasoning: If he is aware of the barbarism committed or if he is simply incapable of understanding the gravity of his actions. This distance from his own humanity and from the atrocity committed, leads Arendt to weave a network of ideas that conclude in the thesis of the banality of evil, in which she theorizes about the role of obedience, the suspension of judgment, and thereby the faculty of thinking.

These reflections about the origin of evil, which already appeared in Arendt’s previous works (like The Origins of Totalitarianism), are diverse. In her philosophical evolution we can see how the conception of evil is transmuted from a radical evil to an evil linked to banality, instrumentality, and lack of active thinking. The resignification of evil arises in her work on Eichmann. We find a passage in the book “from history to action” where she dedicates a chapter to theorizing about the incapacity to think. This is why, to understand the roots of this both revolutionary and criticized conception, we must first formulate the questions linked to institutional obedience and the faculty of judgment to arrive at the thesis of the banality of evil.

The first key to understanding this problem comes from the characterization of ​​Eichmann as an official of evil, influenced by social and ideological mechanisms that veil active thought, leading to the inability to analyze and contemplate what is happening. In this way, cultural heritage generates a barrier between what is learned as morally valid—as a universal maxim—and concrete situations, resulting in an unreflective subject. This subject is distinguished by the distance generated between himself and his own humanity, and between himself and his personal ethical sense as well, to filter all actions as authorized, without evaluating the content of the particular facts. The banality of evil is thereby embodied in an irreflexive subject; a social automaton that follows the established patterns and complies with what is ordered as a logistical machinery of a coordinated structure.

Suggesting this raises the question: Does institutional obedience exempt moral responsibility for actions? To solve this problem, we must consider the idea of ​​the principle of responsibility, since the world, the connections, and the institutions must be maintained, preventing them from falling into oppressive treatments. Although institutions and ways of life in a community experience dynamics of well-being dismantlement, civil disobedience will serve as an opposition to legalized barbarism; and through reflection and sensitivity to the power of the elites, small groups of individuals can be educated to make good use of the ability to articulate moral judgments. Thus, institutional obedience during atrocious realities is a reflection of the lack of moral conscience and awareness of the world. For this reason, the institutions that coordinate the artifacts of evil should be judged, not the subjects who—using their instrumental rationality—follow the established norms, since a great ethical potential is needed to discern the good actions from the bad ones that hide under routine and institutions:

Despite the monstrosity of the acts, the agent was neither a monster nor a demon, and the only specific characteristic that could be detected in his past, as well as in his conduct throughout the trial and the previous police examination, was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity, but a curious and authentic inability to think. (Arendt 1995, p. 109.)

The power to judge is linked with the most political aspect of the human being, because it is through judgments that the interest in the community and social action are reflected. This action is limited, since it arises as a derivative of consciousness and can only be released through thought. As we have already seen, the diagnosis that Hannah Arendt gives to the society of her time is supported by the idea of ​​mental economy, proposing a panorama in which individuals get constructed using a kind of social mask. So, they act in the stipulated manner, repeating the expected discourses, and follow a strict social role that limits the possibility of thought. This is why the ability to think is completely denied by prejudices and cliches, causing individuals to lose the sense of moral conscience, not only with the world around them, but with their own. Thus, those individuals comply with the two maxims that define the irreflexive subject: no longer capable of recognizing his own humanity—complying with the supreme law—without considering the atrocity of what he does; and once the crime against morality has been committed, he is thoughtless, he is not qualified to de-automatize and understand the world beyond the limits of his induced ideology.

Bringing back the subject dedicated to the bios theorikos is a necessity because if we do not constitute ourselves under the political spectrum, we become individuals isolated from social concerns; resulting in a certain metaphysical escapism that does not allow us to understand our own humanity. Life and politics should be two interconnected elements, since acting and living in a world of human relationships is what gives meaning to the elaboration of moral judgment. Without thinking, which is the first step to free the faculty of judgment, people are only occupied with generalities, thereby eliminating the interconnections that allow internal dialogue with ourselves, which create awareness and evoke particular judgments on the issues that affect us. It is only through reflection that we can take responsibility for our actions. Thinking and questioning is a permanent activity that allows us not to fall into the clutches of dogmatism, stipulated discourse, and floods of propaganda.

If we follow the common thread of this Arendtian proposal, we end up with the banality of evil thesis, which constitutes the epicenter of its ethical scheme. Taken together, we see here the lack of deepness of human praxis and a moral provision coming from outside the individual that is shown to be deprived of thought. The subject who performs evil has already lost his ability to discern good and evil and carries out the most horrid actions with indifference, because he has separated himself from his own humanity to function as a machine. Evil has no complexity and is not radical, since it has no hidden roots and does not hide something diabolical, but rather arises from non-thought; good is the only profound and radical thing that has a transformative character. That is why Arendt affirms:

The task of thinking is like the work of Penelope who every morning unraveled what she had done the night before. (Arendt, 1995, p. 117)

Hence, we see how these three major elements that support Arendt’s theory of responsibility are linked to each other. The connection appears in front of us when the quid of the banality of evil is resolved, because it is directly coordinated with the inability to think. This inability to think generates the impossibility of exercising moral judgment, causing the banal subject to unknow the way to discriminate good and evil. This triad provides the resolution to the enigma of evil in contemporary times, because the ability to think has to do with not letting oneself be captured by schemes that come from outside or preconceived ideas, and the current social paradigm is attached to culture as an instrument of domination. To combat this control apparatus, thinking must be a work for everyone—leaving aside the individualistic idea that constitutes the history of knowledge—not the privilege of a few; and therefore, that all individuals of a society can formulate inquiries about good and evil at each moment, making use of their ability to generate judgments. In this way, introducing critical thinking and rejecting codes of conduct, all individuals can put into practice an ethics of responsibility that forecasts future evils through reflection and action.

Bibliography

Arendt, H. (1995) From History to Action, Paidós.

Arendt, H. (2005) The Human Condition, Paidós.

Sánchez, N. (2021) Hannah Arendt: Philosophy in the Face of Evil, Alianza.

Translated by Lina María Salazar

Lucía Martín Ciriero

Bachelor student of Philosophy at the University of La Laguna (ULL). She is interested in History of Philosophy and Political Philosophy, and to the reading of Simone Weil and Critical Theory as well.