Hannah Arendt’s Ethics

Book excerpt: Introduction: Hannah Arendt and ethics after Auschwitz --Philosophy and politics --Ethics and politics --Arendt's ethics --Hannah Arendt and ethics after Auschwitz --1.Arendt, Eichmann and the Banality of Evil --Arendt on Eichmann --The Eichmann controversy --Was Arendt wrong about Eichmann? --Banality: One form of evil --Intention and moral responsibility --Neiman on Arendt --Intention --Responsibility --Moral luck --Concluding remarks --2.Thinking and Evil --Arendt on thinking and morality --Thinking: A particular kind of process --Thinking as destructive --Thinking as dialogue --Conversation: A model for Arendt's notion of thinking? --Thinking, reality and the other --The moral relevance of thought --Is thinking a moralizing activity? --Does the thinking process lead one to moral truth? --Thinking as destructive, aimless and without result --Can evil be an object of thought? --Characterizing the dialogue of thought --Ability to think and responsibility --Morality and politics; thinking and judging --Concluding remarks --3.Evil and Living with Oneself --Reflections on meta-ethical positions in Arendt's work --Arendt on living with oneself --Problematic elements of Arendt's notion of `Living with Oneself' --Can living with oneself be an ultimate moral standard? --Is living with oneself the same as thinking? --Does everyone live with him- or herself or only a select few? --Does the notion of living with oneself undermine the thinking thesis? --Character, integrity and living with oneself --4.Nonparticipation --Individual (moral) guilt and collective (political) responsibility --Moral incapacity --The morally unthinkable.