Exploring the Complexity of Evil and Responsibility

This week, the HBS hosts discuss Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil.

In 1961, Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Israel for crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish People. The philosopher Hannah Arendt covered the trial for The New Yorker. Her articles were collected in the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, which had the subtitle, A Report on the Banality of Evil. What did she mean by the phrase “banality of evil?” She remarks that there is nothing monstrous, hideous, or outrageous about Eichmann that one could point to as the root of his evil actions. Rather, she argued, he was “thoughtless,” that is, he lacked the imagination to understand the position of others. In this way, the evil he brought about has its source in a kind of unremarkable everydayness. Is her notion useful to us today to think about the multiple evils we confront?

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/arendts-banality-of-evil

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