hannah arendt's conceptualizations of evil

220 Pages·2016·1.4 MB·English

HANNAH ARENDT’S CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF
EVIL

Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences
of
Ihsan Doğramacı Bilkent University

by

ETRIT SHKRELI

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

THE DEPARTMENT OF
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
IHSAN DOĞRAMACI BILKENT UNIVERSITY
ANKARA

January 2016
Per Nanen

ABSTRACT

HANNAH ARENDT’S CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF EVIL

Shkreli, Etrit
PhD, Department of Political Science and Public Administration
Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. James Alexander
January 2016

We owe to Hannah Arendt the notion of “radical evil” and “the banality of evil”. The
word “evil” appears with a surprising frequency in Arendt’s work, even though she never
wrote a theory of evil and she was not a moralist. Arendt was not a systematic thinker. In
this thesis I reconstruct Hannah Arendt’s accounts of evil by presenting them in relation
to other fundamental concepts for which Arendt is well-known. My argument is that in
order to understand the many nuances of the concept of evil that feature in Hannah
Arendt’s body of work we need to look at the relation between evil and freedom. As
Arendt’s two notions of freedom (I-can of the new beginning and I-will of the freedom
of will) point towards two different conceptualizations of evil (radicality of evil and the
banality of evil), it is the reality of evil which serves as the linchpin that helps us see the
relation that exists between these two conceptualizations.

Keywords: Hannah Arendt, Evil, Freedom, Action, Judgment, Morality

iii
ÖZET

HANNAH ARENDT’İN KÖTÜLÜK KAVRAMSALLAŞTIRMASI

Shkreli, Etrit
Doktora, Siyasi Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü
Tez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Dr. James Alexander
Ocak 2016

Siyaset düşüncesindeki kötülüğün sıradanlığı ve radikal kötülük kavramlarını Hannah
Arendt’e borçluyuz. Kötülük kavramı Arendt'in eserlerinde oldukça sık karşımıza
çıkmasına rağmen, Arendt’te bir kötülük kuramı bulmak mümkün değildir, ayrıca
Arendt’i ahlak kuramcısı olarak düşünmek de yanlış olacaktır. Onun düşüncesinde dört
başı mamur sistematik bir düşünce silsilesini takip etmek de mümkün değildir. Bu tez
Arendt’in kötülük anlayışını yine Arendt tarafından ortaya atılmış diğer önemli kavramlar
ışığında sistematikleştirerek ortaya koymaktadır. Bir çok farklı anlamda, zaman zaman
birbirine zıt ya da çelişkili biçimlerde karşımıza çıkan kötülük kavramı Arendt’in
özgürlük fikri ile beraber düşünüldüğünde kendi içinde tutarlı bir anlam
kazanabilmektedir. Arendt’in iki farklı özgürlük anlayışı (yeni bir şey başlatma imkanı
olarak özgürlük ve özgür irade) yine onun tarafından ortaya atılmış olan iki farklı kötülük
anlayışı (kötülüğün sıradanlığı ve radikal kötülük) ile örtüşmektedir. Tüm bu ikilileri bir
birine bağlayan en temel kavramsallaştırma da kötülüğün gerçekliği anlayışında açığa
çıkmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Hannah Arendt, Kötülük, Özgürlük, Eylem, Muhakeme, Ahlak

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... iii
ÖZET ................................................................................................................................ iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... v
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER I: THE RHETORIC OF EVIL ...................................................................... 13
1.1. Demonic Evil ................................................................................................ 16
1.2. ‘Devilishness’ and the Antisemitic Rhetoric ................................................ 25
1.3. The Rhetoric of the Eichmann Case ............................................................. 30
1.4. Moralistic Evil .............................................................................................. 33
1.5. Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER II: THE REALITY OF EVIL ....................................................................... 42
2.1. The Problematic Philosophical and Theological Tradition .......................... 45
2.2. Arendt’s Non-Philosophical Account of the Reality of Evil ........................ 56
2.3. The Implications of the Reality of Evil......................................................... 67
CHAPTER III: RADICAL EVIL AND POLITICAL ACTION ..................................... 73
3.1. Understanding Radical Evil and Political Action ......................................... 76
3.2. The Challenge of Novelty ............................................................................. 78
3.3. The Challenge to Common Sense ................................................................. 83
3.4. The Challenge of Punishment and Forgiveness ............................................ 87
3.5. The Radical Nature of Evil ........................................................................... 91
3.5.1. Total Domination ............................................................................. 91
3.5.2. The Delusion of Omnipotence ......................................................... 94
CHAPTER IV: THE FAILURE OF MORALITY ........................................................ 101
4.1. Mores, Moral Collapse and Evil ................................................................. 103
4.2. Wickedness and Absolutes ......................................................................... 107
4.3. Morality through the Teachings of Jesus .................................................... 113
4.4. Religion and Morality ................................................................................. 116
4.5. Philosophers and Morality .......................................................................... 121
4.6. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................... 125
CHAPTER V: “THE BANALITY OF EVIL”: RESPONSIBILITY AND
FREEDOM ........................................................................................................... 129
5.1. The Experience of the Eichmann Trial ....................................................... 131
5.2. Human Responsibility ................................................................................. 136
5.3. Effortless Evil ............................................................................................. 143
5.4. “The Banality of Evil” and the Reality of Evil ........................................... 147
5.5. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................... 152

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CHAPTER VI: THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT ...................................................... 154
6.1. Evil and Judgment....................................................................................... 156
6.2. Actors and Spectators ................................................................................. 159
6.3. Taste and Common Sense ........................................................................... 165
6.4. Thinking, Willing, Judging ......................................................................... 170
6.5. The Validity of Judgment ........................................................................... 172
6.6. Resisting Evil .............................................................................................. 180
CONCLUDING ANALYSIS ........................................................................................ 187
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 197

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INTRODUCTION
This thesis is a study of the political thought of Hannah Arendt in terms of her
conceptualizations of evil. The notion of radical evil transcended the sphere of
philosophy where it originally appeared and entered the sphere of political science
through Arendt’s first book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1950). Almost a decade and a
half later another concept of evil, signaled by the notorious phrase “the banality of evil,”
was introduced by Arendt to our political vocabulary through her book Eichmann in
Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). The word “evil” persistently recurs
throughout Arendt’s work, whether she is referring to political or philosophical evil.
Arendt never wrote a theory of evil, but her formulations of the radicality and banality of
evil have been at the heart of the controversy that has surrounded her work even during
her lifetime.
This study offers a reconstruction of Arendt’s accounts of evil and argues that in
order to understand the many nuances of the concept of evil that feature in Hannah
Arendt’s body of work we need to investigate the relation between evil and freedom.
Arendt did not only produce two accounts of evil, she also adopted two interpretations of
the concept of freedom. This study shows that Arendt’s two notions of freedom (I-can of
the new beginning and I-will of the freedom of will) point towards two different
conceptualizations of evil (radicality of evil and the banality of evil), however it is the
reality of evil which serves as the linchpin that helps us see the problematic relation that
exists between these two conceptualizations.
There are two ways in which evil can relate to freedom in Arendt’s writings. The
first is the existential relation. Evil in this relation is radical and utterly destructive. It
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poses an existential threat to the relationship that made possible its very existence. The
notion of freedom that we will be dealing with is freedom as the new beginning. This
notion, whose origin Arendt traces to Saint Augustine, in Arendt’s writings gains an
existential dimension and transforms into the human capacity for both good and evil.
Freedom understood as new beginning involves novelty and actualization. Arendt
appears to be interested in the theoretical relationship between freedom and evil to the
extent that these ruminations help her understand the reality of evil. Therefore in order to
appreciate the existential dimension of the relation between evil and freedom we need to
explore the parallels between radical evil and political action.
Evil is commonly considered to pertain to the field of morality; however the first
relation presents a conundrum with regard to morality. How are we to think of individual
responsibility in the context of radical evil which appears, for lack of a better word, as a
systemic evil? Arendt is aware of this problem and we will see that she attempts to
confront it through a second formulation of the relation between evil and freedom. I have
called this second relation the moral-political relation. Thus, even though the concepts
involved are again evil and freedom, the operating definitions for them change. Freedom
in this relation is the freedom of the will, where our will serves as an arbiter between
good and evil; it is the freedom of choice which brings along responsibility. But we see
that Arendt moves beyond this moral dimensions and adds to it the political dimension.
We do not only choose between good and evil, we also choose sides and are therefore
politically responsible for our choice.
At this point, we are confronted with a great discrepancy with regard to the reality
of evil, i.e. the fact that evil exists. While the evil in the first account is active, energetic
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and destructive, the evil in the second account is marked by passivity. The wording
Arendt uses for the banality of evil is the inability to think, thoughtlessness, failure of
conscience, and lack of judgment. Approaching evil in terms of deficiency is nothing new
in philosophy. But this approach makes Arendt contradict her own interpretation of the
philosophical tradition, i.e. philosophers tell us that evil does not possess real existence
and thus we have been left vulnerable to evil (Arendt, 1978a).
The matter becomes all the more complex when we consider the fact that Arendt
was not a systematic thinker. The obvious implication is that she may and does contradict
herself. The inconsistencies in Arendt’s thought have produced two responses. The first
is that we should refrain from the temptation of trying to build a system out of her ideas
because this endeavor would distort them. The second is that there is nonetheless a web
of concepts that are systematically interwoven in her writings. Arendt herself seems to
associate being systematic with philosophers and implies that writing about politics is
inconsistent with the creation of systems of ideas. In my reading of Arendt, I see the
inconsistencies in her through as integral to her theorizing because, as I will be
explaining below, Arendt’s prerogative is beginning and being truthful to experience
rather than being internally consistent as a thinker.
In collecting the material for this thesis (I initially made a catalog of all the
instances where Arendt used the word “evil”) I have followed Margaret Canovan’s
advice: “what we need to do is to follow her thought trains, to situate her best-known
works within them and to show how they were related to one another.” The advantage of
this method, as it will become clear in the exposition of the chapter in this thesis, is that it
allows us to see the origins as well as the development of a particular concept in Arendt’s
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