Each of the books that Hannah Arendt published in her lifetime was
unique, and to this day each continues to provoke fresh thought and
interpretations. This was never more true than for Eichmann in
Jerusalem, her account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, where she first
used the phrase “the banality of evil.” Her consternation over how
a man who was neither a monster nor a demon could nevertheless be an
agent of the most extreme evil evoked derision, outrage, and
misunderstanding. The firestorm of controversy prompted Arendt to
readdress fundamental questions and concerns about the nature of evil
and the making of moral choices. Responsibility and Judgment gathers
together unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendt’s life,
as she struggled to explicate the meaning of Eichmann in Jerusalem. At
the heart of this book is a profound ethical investigation, “Some
Questions of Moral Philosophy”; in it Arendt confronts the
inadequacy of traditional moral “truths” as standards to judge
what we are capable of doing, and she examines anew our ability to
distinguish good from evil and right from wrong. We see how Arendt
comes to understand that alongside the radical evil she had addressed
in earlier analyses of totalitarianism, there exists a more pernicious
evil, independent of political ideology, whose execution is limitless
when the perpetrator feels no remorse and can forget his acts as soon
as they are committed. Responsibility and Judgment is an essential
work for understanding Arendt’s conception of morality; it is also
an indispensable investigation into some of the most troubling and
important issues of our time.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780307544056
Publisert
2017
Utgiver
Random House Digital Inc.
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter