“Standing behind your phrase”: Arendt and Jaspers on the (post-)metaphysics of evil
| Author | Carmen Lea Dege |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14748851211052809 |
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
“Standing behind your
phrase”: Arendt and Jaspers
on the (post-)metaphysics
of evil
Carmen Lea Dege
Polonsky Academy at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute,
Jerusalem, Israel
Abstract
This article turns to Hannah Arendt’sEichmann in Jerusalem in order to illustrate the dif-
ficulties involved in approaching the (formerly) metaphysical concept of evil as a secular
phenomenon. It asks how the advocate of plurality, natality and forgiveness could also
vouch for the death sentenceof Eichmann based on a rhetoric of retribution and revenge.
It then shows that Arendt’s surprisingly consistent view of evil is based on a quasi-onto-
logical understanding of the human condition that allowed her to negate Eichmann’s
humanity. Rather than simply unmasking a metaphysical account in disguise, however,
the article develops an alternative perspective that emerges from the conversation
between Arendt and Jaspers. It argues that Jaspers’s interpretation of Kant offers a way
to defend the idea of secular evil and judge Eichmann on the basis of his thoughtlessness.
Keywords
Arendt, Jaspers, evil, post-metaphysical thinking, political ontology, Eichmann, plurality,
crimes against humanity, sovereignty
Introduction
When Eichmann in Jerusalem was initially published in 1963 as a five-part article in
The New Yorker, Hannah Arendt was viciously attacked. She was accused of exoner-
ating Eichmann, relativizing the Holocaust and blaming the Jews for bringing about
Corresponding author:
Carmen Lea Dege, Polonsky Academy at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Jabotinsky St 49, Jerusalem,
Israel, 9104001.
Email: carmend@vanleer.org.il
Article
European Journal of Political Theory
2023, Vol. 22(2) 281–301
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14748851211052809
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their own extermination. While the intensity of agitation has waned almost 60 years
later, the controversy remains (Benhabib, 2014; Bernstein, 2018; Robin, 2014;
Stangneth, 2014; Wolin, 2014a, 2014b). This paper investigates some of the puzzling
and, at times, contradictory dimensions of Arendt’s“banality of evil”thesis by focusing
on an underexplored dimension of her book, namely the transition from her diagnosis of
thoughtlessness to her verdict of Eichmann on the last page. It is disconcerting, I argue,
that the advocate of plurality, natality, and forgiveness also vouched for the death sen-
tence of Eichmann based on a rhetoric of retribution and revenge. How can we make
sense of this shift and explain the extent to which Arendt moves so close to those
she had always opposed, namely those who saw in Eichmann a degree of wickedness
and perversion beyond the human pale?
A few theorists have addressed the mismatch between Arendt’s diagnosis of thought-
lessness and her final judgment of Eichmann. Yet, the problem is either analyzed without
explicating its deeper causes and structural implications (Coutinho, 2015; Luban, 2015;
Norrie, 2008) or it is interpreted as a reflection of her irony rather than a substantial com-
mitment (Butler, 2011). I contend that neither Arendt’s rhetoric nor the frequently raised
inconsistency of her thought can clarify the consistency with which conflicting definitions
of evil remain intertwined. The center of the controversy gravitates around the question of
totalitarian evil. Against which standard do we measure the action of those who claim
they acted in accordance with the law of totalitarian regimes? Is a totalitarian crime
only deducible from the outside, or in the aftermath, or can we subordinate a law of
the land under a universal law that acts in the name of humanity; and if so, how do we
define humanity?
On the one hand, Arendt’s thesis of the banality of evil is revolutionary because it pro-
poses a solution to the problem at the heart of these questions: to judge evil in the absence
of rules. In her view, Eichmann as well as other functionaries in charge of or complicit in
mass murder were not lacking the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. They
were not stupid, vicious, or extraordinarily egoistic; they were rather strangely detached
from their own action. The banality of their evil is expressed in a thoughtless indifference,
which substitutes the certitude of rules for the plurality and contingency of human life.
There is something fundamental happening in this claim to mastery, which can no
longer be explained as the effect of personal weakness or the privation of the good. In
defining evil as shallow, Arendt breaks with a long metaphysical tradition that has pre-
dominantly interpreted evil as deficiency.
1
On the other hand, Arendt’s“banality of evil”thesis is not revolutionary at all. Her
transition from radical evil to its secular variant reflects a common trend in the history
of political thought. It is particularly symptomatic of how post-war political theory
has sought to divorce itself from metaphysics by way of translating formerly meta-
physical concepts into secular terms.
2
This critique of metaphysics amounts to a rejec-
tion of universal foundations, which it seeks to replace by a focus on difference,
plurality, and contingency. However, this “migration into the profane”(Adorno,
1966: 393) is not easy,
3
and I turn to Arendt’sreflections on evil to illustrate some
of the difficulties involved. Why is it, I ask, that in the moment of judgment the dis-
dained foundations reappear? How is it possible that Arendt becomes a spokesperson
282 European Journal of Political Theory 22(2)
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