Arendt On Responsibility For The Banal Evil

Arendt is one of the political philosophers in our times who have paid a special attention to the problem of evil.On the basis of her insightful observation of the origins of totalitarianism in the last century,she questioned Kant’s conception of radical evil and considered that radical evil is superficial.Later,she participated in the trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem,and proposed a new kind of evil--banal evil,which was different from Kant’s conception of evil,and she want further to correct her previous ideas in this matter.Modernity puts people in a state of non-thinking,which leads to the banal evil,whose consequences are even more serious than the radical evil.It is in this context that Arendt is looking for ways to avoid the banal evil.She believes that thinking alone cannot avoid it,because thinking is about individuals,and individuals also need to shoulder collective responsibility and actively participate in political life.Arendt’s arguments about collective responsibility and moral responsibility are not entirely beyond question.Instead there are some contradictions in them:insofar as moral responsibility is concerned,the connection between banal evil and moral responsibility may not be so close as Arendt thought;on the other hand,insofar as collective responsibility is concerned,Arendt did not elaborate on the scope of the collective responsibility,but only described it in a very vague scope.Despite the fact,it must be admitted that the solution she offered to the problem of banal evil is instructive for us to think about how to be a good person and a good citizen.