Note
For example, Jenniffer Nedelsky’s interpretation of the social conception of the autonomy of judgment as fundamental for optimizing judiciary judging overstrains and misapprehends the particularity of Arendt’s notions of moral and political judgments; Albrecht Wellmer supposes that Arendt attempted to «assimilate political and moral judgment, structurally speaking, to aesthetic judgment in the Kantian sense»; from a different perspective, while trying to explain why taste is the sense from which (political) judging is derived, Elizabeth Young-Bruehl turns to the element of disgust in Kant’s moral philosophy and misinterprets Arendt’s recovery of the notion of «sociability» as directed towards a possible consideration of «how we experience the solidarity of mankind»; and Bryan Garsten confuses the distinctive foundations of moral and political judgments when he claims that, for Arendt «the intersubjective point of view grounds moral judgments that are not based on a definite set of reasons or rules and yet are also not inscrutable to others». See Nedelsky and Wellmer’s chapters in Beiner and Nedelsky, 2001: 103-120, 165-181, Young-Bruehl, 1982: 299, Benhabib, 2010: 328.
This is the only reference to Eichmann’s inability to think in Arendt report: «The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality itself», Arendt, 1964.
Arendt does not make any generalizations out of Eichmann’s apparent inability to think in the main body of her report on the trial. This changes, however, when she explains (although not necessarily in a satisfactory manner) the notion of banality of evil and its relation to thoughtlessness in the «Postscript» she adds to the 1964 edition of the book.
See (Young-Bruehl, 2004: 389-397).
Her explorations are at the center of the courses on moral philosophy she taught at the New School for Social Research (Some questions on moral philosophy, 1965) and at the University of Chicago (Basic Moral Propositions and Kant’s moral philosophy, 1966), and would reach its most elaborated form in her 1971 lecture on «Thinking and Moral Considerations».
In her notes for her lecture Some Questions of Moral Philosophy given at The New School for Social Research in 1965, Arendt writes: «[A]t the moment morality collapsed... no one was any longer afraid of an avenging God or, more concretely speaking, of possible punishments in a hereafter». «All we know is that hardly anyone thought these old beliefs fit for public justification». «That ours is the first generation... in which the masses... no longer believe in “future states”... and who therefore are committed... [t]o think of conscience as an organ that will react without hope for rewards and without fear of punishment. Whether people still believe that this conscience is informed by some divine voice is, to say the very least, open to doubt» (Arendt, 2003: 63, 64, 89).
Arendt’s rather pungent critique of Jaspers’ notion of German guilt appears in her correspondence with her husband, Heinrich Blücher: «Jaspers’ guilt-monograph despite all its beauty and noble-mindedness, is an anathematized and Hegelized, Christian/pietistic/hypocritical nationalizing piece of twaddle...» (Arendt and Blücher, 2000: 1985-1986).
The fallacy of the concept of collective guilt, Arendt explains, is that its admission results in «a very effective, though unintended, whitewash of those who had done something... where all are guilty, no one is» (Arendt, 2003: 28-30, 43). See also Arendt, 2003: 147-158.
Arendt, 2003: 32, 41, 42-43, 46. The emphasis on personal responsibility is consistent throughout Arendt’s writings. See Arendt, 2003: 148, 158.
Arendt, 2003: 44. Richard Bernstein has raised questions about the limits of Arendt’s interpretation of Eichmann’s motives: «I think that Arendt tends to overstate her case about Eichmann. Ironically, she was always deeply skeptical about the ability to penetrate the “darkness of one’s heart”, to say with confidence what one’s own or another’s “real” motives are». The same question can be raised here as to just how Arendt knew that every nonparticipant was «unwilling to live with a murderer» and was not holding past to old values and standards (Bernstein, 1996: 170).
Arendt, 2003: 26, my emphasis.
Arendt, 2003: 44, 45, my emphasis.
In the same vein, Arendt writes in «Collective Responsibility»: If it is a question of killing, «the argument would not be that the world would be better off without the murder being done, but the unwillingness to live with an assassin». Arendt, 2003: 51, 156.
See Selbstdenken in Arendt, 1968: 8-10.
Arendt’s work on morality unfortunately suffers from the lack of a clear distinction between these two mental activities. See Bernstein, 1996: 172, 173; Arendt, 2003: 131.
Arendt, 2003: 67.
Arendt, 2003: 51, 64-65.
Arendt, 2003: 62-63, 66, 67.
«The real imperative underlying the categorical imperative is: don’t contradict yourself. And this is clearly the basic law of thinking, or a command of reason» (Young-Bruehl, 2004: 366, my emphasis).
Kant felt the need «to give his rational proposition an obligatory character». For him, Good Will is the «will that when told “Thou shalt” will answer, “Yes, I will”». This is how Kant «introduced the form of the imperative and brought back the concept of obedience, through a back door as it were». Arendt, 2003: 68, 69, 72, 77, my emphasis.
Arendt, 2003: 82.
Arendt quotes this proposition later, in Arendt, 2003: 181.
Arendt, 2003: 90, my emphasis.
It is in this respect that Arendt claims that nonparticipators «did not feel an obligation but acted according to something which was self-evident to them even though it was no longer self-evident to those around them. Hence their conscience, if that was what it was, had no obligatory character, it said, “This I can’t do”, rather than “This I ought not to do”» (Arendt, 2003: 91, 77, 79).
«We are left with the conclusion that only people filled with this eros, this desiring love of wisdom, beauty and justice, are capable of thought —that is we are left with Plato’s «noble nature» as a prerequisite for thinking. And this was precisely what we were not looking for when we raised the question whether the thinking activity, the very performance itself —as distinguished from and regardless of whatever qualities a man’s nature, his soul, may posses— conditions him in such a way that he is incapable of evil». (Arendt, 2003: 180, my emphasis) Arendt writes something similar in Thinking: «It looks as though Socrates had nothing more to say about the connection between evil and lack of thought than that people who are not in love of beauty, justice, and wisdom are incapable of thought, just as, conversely, those who are in love with examining and thus «do philosophy» would be incapable of doing evil». (Arendt, 1981: 179).
The distinction between the Socratic «desiring love of wisdom» and «consciousness» is easy to miss. This explains why George Kateb claims that in Arendt’s exploration on morality «Socrates is one kind of absolutely good man» and that his two propositions serve as «the basis for Socratic moral absolutism.» (Kateb, 1984: 37).
Arendt, 2003: 182, 183, 184.
Conscience is no more «supposed to tell us what to do and what to repent of; it was the voice of God before it became the lumen naturale or Kant’s practical reason». Arendt, 2003: 185, 186.
Arendt, 2003: 186, 187.
Arendt, 2003: 187, my emphasis.
Seyla Benhabib is mistaken when she claims that Arendt «described conscience as the harmony or oneness of the soul with itself» for, as shown above, Arendt describes conscience as the «cross examination» of one’s self. See Benhabib, 1988: 44.
Arendt, 2003: 188, my emphasis.
This is how Arendt refers to non being afraid of feeling guilt in The Life of the Mind: «A person who does not know that silent intercourse (in which we examine what we say and what we do) will not mind contradicting himself, and this means he will never be either able or willing to account for what he says or does; nor will he mind committing any crime, since he can count on its being forgotten the next moment. Bad people —Aristotle to the contrary notwithstanding— are not “full of regrets”» (Arendt, 1981: 191).
Cfr. Richard J. Bernstein in Villa, 2000: 281.
As Arendt puts it more simply in her essay Crisis of the Republic: «The fear of being alone and having to face oneself can be a very effective dissuader from wrongdoing». Arendt, 1972: 67, Kateb, 1984: 37.
In «Philosophy and Politics», Arendt poses the frightening consequences of committing evil as follows: «[A] murderer is not only condemned to the permanent company of his own murderous self, but he will see all other people in the image of his own action. He will live in a world of potential murderers» (Arendt, 2004: 440).
Arendt tends to blur the distinction between thinking and conscience. See Arendt, 2003: 101, 189.
Arendt realized that, since its foundation, philosophy has been at odds with both politics and the public sphere for it was established through an act of fear and distrust of both opinion and plurality. She also concluded that the foundation of the Western philosophical tradition had yet another political consequence: the transposition into public space of relations of rulership, which had traditionally been confined to private life. Arendt criticizes, thus, the experiential impact of the devaluation of politics by tracking its transformation from a relation inter pares into a relation between rulers and ruled. Arendt, 2005: 130-131). See also Arendt, 1998: 220-230, 2007b, 2007a.
Arendt, 2005: 168.
«To Socrates, as to his fellow citizens, doxa was the formulation in speech of what dokei moi, that is, “of what appears to me”» (Arendt, 2005: 14).
Jerome Kohn published a «slightly different» version under the title Socrates in The Promise of Politics.
The article was published in Partisan Review, XX/4 1954, although the version used here is the one edited by Jerome Kohn. For details see Arendt, 1994: xix.
Arendt, 2004: 429.
Arendt, 2005: 15. Arendt, thus, finds in Socrates the epitome of political experience in which thought and action are performed simultaneously. Arendt, 2004: 434.
Arendt, 2005: 16, 17-18, my emphasis.
Arendt et al., 1996: 112.
Arendt, 2005: 14.
Arendt, 2005: 18, my emphasis.
«It is therefore obvious still quite in the Socratic tradition that Plato’s early dialogues frequently concluded inconclusively, without a result. To have talked something through, to have talked about something, some citizen’s doxa, seemed result enough» (Arendt, 1994: 15-16).
Arendt, 2005: 168, my emphasis, 1994: 321, my emphasis.
Arendt, 1977: 221, my emphasis.
Arendt, 1982: 28-37.
Arendt, 1982: 36, my emphasis.
Arendt, 1982: 38-39, 40.
This illustrates the explicit influence of Karl Jaspers’ concept of «communication» in Arendt’s concept of political action/speech. See Arendt, 1982: 40.
Arendt, 1982: 41.
Arendt, 1982: 42. We thus see that Disch’s interpretation of Arendt’s use of the phrase «training one’s imagination to go visiting» is misleading. Disch suggests that «Arendt’s visitor imagines how he or she might feel and think as a character in each of the several stories of events can give rise». However, Arendt is calling for a form of impartiality that does not reproduce the feelings or thoughts of «others» but, rather, reaches a general point of view that is different from both one’s own and that of others’ (Disch, 1996: 159).
Arendt, 1982: 42. Arendt is taking precaution against the claim that one attains impartial objectivity only by rising to a «higher standpoint». Two examples are: the alienating fallacy of the Archimedean point Arendt refers to in The Human Condition and what is represented by the figure of the «umpire» in Kafka’s parable «He». See Arendt, 1998, Arendt, 1977: Preface.
Arendt, 1982: 42-43. To be impartial means to disregard self-interest, and thus making possible the application of critical standards to one’s own opinion in relation to the others’ doke moi. This impartiality is not the opposite of Lessing’s «taking sides», which means understanding and judging everything in its specificity, that is, «in terms of its position in the world at any given time». Instead, «taking sides» in this sense means assuming responsibility in opposition to being indifferent. See Arendt, 1968: 8.
See Beiner’s Interpretative Essay in Arendt, 1982.
See Disch, 1996: 141-171.
Disch, 1996: 151.
Kant, 1952: § 8.
Arendt, 1982: 62, 63, my emphasis.
«The remedy against irreversibility and unpredictability of the process started by acting does not arise out of another and possibly higher faculty, but is one of the potentialities of action itself. The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility —of being unable to undo what one has done though one did not, and could not, have known what he was doing— is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy of unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises». Arendt, 1998: 237, my emphasis.
Arendt, 1982: 63, 77, my emphasis. This exposition of «the actor’s partiality» is consistent with Arendt’s political interpretation of Lessing’s polemicism: the «lack of “objectivity” in Lessing’s polemicism... his forever vigilant partiality... has nothing whatsoever to do with subjectivity because it is always framed not in terms of the self but in terms of the relationship of men to their world, in terms of their positions and opinions». Arendt, 1968: 29, my emphasis.
Arendt explains that the sense of taste is private, incommunicable, non-representational, and indisputable («De gustibus non disputandum est»). She thus questions: «Why then would taste... be elevated to and become the vehicle of the mental faculty of judgment?». Arendt, 1982: 65, 66.
Ronald’s edition of Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, includes a section on Imagination that was part of a Seminar she gave on Kant’s Critique of Judgment during the same Fall of 1970. In these notes Arendt explains the concept of «example» as an analogy of «schema». Kant affirmed, as Arendt quotes, that in cases of reflective judgment «understanding [intellect] is at the service of imagination». This means that, in these cases, schemas do not have a cognitive purpose but are, rather, an «example» liberated from «rules» and «stiff regularity» that allows «the maintenance of a free play of the powers of representation». As Arendt explains, if the «example is rightly chosen» then the «judgment has exemplary validity»; or, in words of Kant: In reflective judgments «I put forward my judgment of taste as an example of the judgment of commons sense». Arendt, 1982: 65, 67, 84-85, Kant, 1952: § 22 and the General Remark on the First Section of the Analytic, my emphasis)
See Kant, 1952: § 7, § 8, § 40, my emphasis.
Kant, 1952: § 40.
Arendt, 1982: 70, 72. See also Arendt, 1977: 221.
«One can communicate only if one is able to think from the other person’s standpoint; otherwise one will never meet him, never speak in such a way that he understands. By communicating one’s feelings, ones pleasures and disinterested delights, one tells one’s choices and one chooses one’s company». Arendt, 1982: 74
This seems point seems to underlie Maurizio Passerin d’Entrèves’ claim that «Arendt retained the link between judgment and the world of human affairs, stressed the public and intersubjective dimensions of judgment, and continued to emphasize its political character» Passerin d’Entrèves, 1994: 14.
Arendt, 1981: 179-193.
«Here the remedy against the irreversibility and unpredictability of the process started by acting does not arise out of another and possible higher faculty, but is one of the potentialities of action itself» (Arendt, 1998: 236-237).
See in Arendt, 2005: Introduction into Politics.
Arendt’s «ideal type» of Socrates as «phronimos» does not seek to recuperate a «model» of Socratic philosopher, but the equi-vocal experience implied in the Socratic maieutic. It is not the reenactment of the «gadfly» that Arendt is recommending (although she does not seem opposed to it); she is, instead, trying to recover the political meaningfulness of opinion (doxa) from its prolonged philosophical and scientific underestimation. See Villa, 2001: 264, 275, 277, 278, Arendt, 1972: 64.
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