Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt
Summary
In this book, Arendt Delibera in the likelihood of elaborating moral and historical judgments and how they transcend to pure legal judgment, cultivated through this work of the German philosopher. Similarly, he delves into the Arendtian theory of the banality of evil and the connection that it has with the different types of judgment implicit in the Jerusalem process. As well as the ineptitude of exercising a judgment, and the consequences to which that leads to hindering the reflection and their own responses to moral conflicts. Historical judgment is also related to the unknown on the impact of individual actions on history.
Developing
The reason for my choice of the book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" is due to the concept of "the banality of evil", which Hannah refers and in which he states that anyone mentally speaking person can get to plan the most terrifying crimes whenis part of a totalitarian system. People of this type act within the regulation of the procedure to which they are submitted without deliberate on their actions, and do not worry about the results of what they originate, only by compliance with the mandates.
Hannah also refers in his work to the true difficulty of the personality of the human being. Eichmann did not present during the trial any kind of feeling of guilt or remorse. He only said that he did to do his job and to fulfill orders. She did not share the thought that criminals were unbalanced and different from normal people.
According to Hannah Arendt, the human being is a conscious essence of his actions and that he exercises autonomously (Eichmann acted according to his desire). Therefore, guilt would influence only certain people and dispenses with the idea of a general guilt of the German people.
Reflection
Hannah Arendt talks about the difference between facts and intentions, which are the basis of the text and those that can generate a moral discussion around this. It brings a very interesting idea on which philosophy in general (the philosophy of law) is based, which is the origin of evil, which links it to the loss of consciousness, the lack of thought. She defends that not everything wrong is intentionally, but in this case the evil would be the absence of thought, criteria and morals, and also wonders about historical judgments. Another interesting ideas that can be extracted from this text is that thanks to the fact that it does not deliberate. Hannah defends that responsibility is only given if there is awareness, so that the concept itself has adjective: it is legal, it is moral. In this case, responsibility as a concept in the contemporary world is never individual, since we do not have individual actions, all the actions we do finally affect.
From the intentions that I talked at the beginning of this section we have a question, which is whether the results are positive when we have bad or null intentions. If so, we would ask ourselves how this would play there, that is, if it is for the result or if it is for the intention. Finally we find the "standardization of immoral actions", which would be difficult to make Arendt understand that these actions are immoral.
conclusion
In conclusion it is true that the banality of evil is still an issue under the point of sight, and the infinite points of view show the difficulty of Arendtian reflections. In the same way, the current act of the union of it is more than evident with realities that exceed the interests associated with what happened during World War II. Finally, the intention that Arendt had truly is to offer us the different events that are based on the problem of evil and his work.
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