Responsibility and Judgement

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 Responsibility and Judgment gathers together unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendt's life, as she struggled to explicate the meaning of Eichmann in Jerusalem.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. From the Hardcover edition.;Introduction / Jerome Kohn -- Note on the text -- Prologue -- I. Responsibility -- Personal responsibility under dictatorship ; Some questions of moral philosophy ; Collective responsibility ; Thinking and moral considerations -- II. Judgment -- Reflections on Little Rock ; The deputy : guilt by silence? ; Auschwitz on trial ; Home to roost.

Best known as the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism, philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) spent much of her academic and writing career wrestling with questions of morality. This volume presents unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendt's life examining the nature of evil and moral choice and the connection between judgment and responsibility. Kohn (affiliation not cited) provides background information on Arendt's life and ideas in the introduction. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Publishers Weekly

Arendt (1906-1975), among the last century's most eminent political philosophers, never lived to complete the final volume of her comprehensive tome The Life of the Mind, entitled "Judging." This first volume in a new series of her unpublished works, comprising a delightful constellation of articles and essays taken from class and public lectures, centers on that unfinished project's theme. The book begins with a piece addressing the controversy around Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, re-examining the arguments regarding the "banality of evil" and responding to criticisms and misinterpretations with a delicate exploration of the imperative "It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong." Arendt often quotes Faulkner's aphorism "The past is never dead, it is not even past," and in other pieces here, her highly original ideas about what constitutes justice yield seemingly paradoxical answers to vexing questions. The section on racial integration, "Little Rock," while arguing against Brown v. Board of Education, makes a parallel case for equality in marriage that speaks to current debates about same-sex marriage and the recent establishment of an independent Muslim school in France. "Responsibility under Dictatorship" and "Coming Home to Roost" will speak to a certain audience about the current political climate, while the chapters on morality are very erudite works on the role of ethical concepts in the history of philosophy that will feed an already ravenous secondary literature market on Arendt. More than anything else, the work's commitment to forthright thinking as a primary political duty, and its lucidity on dangers and deferral of responsibility inherent in received opinion, ensures its relevance to any representative democracy. (Nov. 18) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Responsibility and Judgment gathers together unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendts life, where she addresses fundamental questions and concerns about the nature of evil and the making of moral choices. At the heart of the book is a profound ethical investigation, Some Questions of Moral Philosophy, in which Arendt confronts the inadequacy of traditional moral truths as standards to judge what we are capable of doing and examines anew our ability to distinguish good from evil and right from wrong. We also 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 indispensable investigation into some of the most troubling and important issues of our time. Arendt confronts the inadequancy of triditional 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. Arendt comes to understand that alongside the radical evil she had addressed in earlier analyses of totalitarianism, there exist a more prenicious evil, independent of political ideology, whose execution is limitless when the prepetrator feels no remorse and can forget his acts as soon as they are committed