[lit-ideas] Re: *Eichmann in Jerusalem*
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Judith Evans <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:48:51 -0230
A few texts to look at here is her *Lectures on Kant's political philosophy*,
"Truth and politics" and "Some questions about moral philosophy." Sections 39
and 40 of Immanuel's Third Critique deal with the material on Imagination and
reflective judgement that Hannah attempts to re-work into a theory of political
judgement. Pretty wild stuff, if you ask me.
Walter C. Okshevsky
Memorial U
Quoting Judith Evans <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> RP>I'm not sure where Arendt claims that individual judgments
> >of right and wrong can be made without appealing to
> > 'general principles, rules or concepts' (surely these are
> >not the same?) or whether if she does she does it in
> >Eichmann; but perhaps somewhere she does.
>
> I've read only her "Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship", so haven't
> wanted
> to comment. But I wouldn't say that she claims it there (where the basic
> arguments are, I believe, the same as in "Eichmann"). Her point
> about thinking is I'd say rather different.
>
> (But I haven't got the essay here, and it isn't online.)
>
> Judy Evans, Cardiff
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Paul
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 10:36 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: *Eichmann in Jerusalem*
>
>
> Walter wrote:
> �I'm hoping [that someone] will take a stab at making some sense
> of
> Hannah's (sic) idea that judgements of right and wrong regarding
> particular
> historical events or individual subjects can be made without appeal to
> general
> principles, rules or concepts, as per Kant's "reflective judgement"
> �
>
> I'm not sure where Arendt claims that individual judgments of right and
> wrong can be made without appealing to 'general principles, rules or
> concepts' (surely these are not the same?) or whether if she does she does it
> in Eichmann; but perhaps somewhere she does. This clearly puzzles Walter,
> goes against some intuitions he has about the nature of moral judgments. I
> wonder why it should? Isn't it true that a moral theory ('Kantianism,'
> Utilitarianism, Consequentialism, e.g.) is judged in light of clear cases,
> whose rightness or 'wrongness' must by their nature (for they are
> extra-theoretical touchstones) lie outside that theory. If, in light of T it
> would be permissible to torture innocent people for pleasure, T can be
> neither a guide to right action nor a moral theory (either explanatory or
> prescriptive) worth considering. (Witness the lengths people will go to to
> preserve Utilitarianism from the objection that it allows no room for
> justice.)
>
> So, where do these clear cases come from? A moral sense, Hume thought,
> something with which human beings are endowed just as they are endowed with a
> sense of sight or hearing. Some will get it right, some will see as through a
> glass darkly, and others may be morally blind; but for one equipped with a
> sound moral sense there is no need to argue to the rightness or wrongness of
> an act from fist principles, any more than there is in the case of seeing
> green.
>
> Walter continues:
>
> This seems impossible to me (and should have so seemed to Kant as
> well); I don't know why Hannah ever saw the question as a sensible one.
>
> I think I've missed the question here? Is it, how do people reach
> particular moral judgments without arguing from (even tacitly) prior rules,
> laws, principles? Easily, I say; but I doubt that will satisfy Walter.
> Perhaps reading William Gass' 'The Case of the Obliging Stranger,' will help
> make the point I here make clumsily.
>
> By the way, in Eichmann, Arendt does discuss Kant, and Eichmann's own
> perversion of the notion of acting from duty. I don't know if Eichmann
> actually quotes Kant or simply tries to argue on 'Kantian' lines. My copy of
> the book is too dusty for me to read comfortably right now, or I'd look it
> up.
>
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
>
>
>
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