Responsibility and Judgment [Paperback]

Hannah Arendt (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 9, 2005

Responsibility and Judgment gathers together unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendt’s life, where she addresses fundamental questions and concerns about the nature of evil and the making of moral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.

Editorial Reviews

From 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 This first volume in a new series of her unpublished works, comprising a delightful constellation of articles and essays taken from class and public lectures, centers on that unfinished project's theme.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.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“With Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt wrote the 20th century's most important - and controversial - work on the problem of evil, and the least understood. The publication of Responsibility and Judgment is thus a particularly welcome event. For readers who know Arendt, the autobiographical reflections or the discussions of personal responsibility under dictatorship will be of great interest in understanding the background of Eichmann in Jerusalem or The Life of the Mind. For readers who don't, essays such as "Auschwitz on Trial" will provide a superb introduction to her views - and a chance to probe, without hearsay or slander, one of the great thinkers of our time.”
-- Susan Neiman, author of Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Modern Philosophy



From the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (August 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805211624
• ISBN-13: 978-0805211627
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) taught political science and philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York and the University of Chicago. Widely acclaimed as a brilliant and original thinker, her works include Eichmann in Jerusalem and The Human Condition.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of previously unpublished writings from the last decade of the life of editor & World War II survivor Hannah Arendt October 7, 2005

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Paperback

Responsibility And Judgment is a collection of previously unpublished writings from the last decade of the life of editor and World War II survivor Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Chapters wrestle with complex moral issues and philosophical questions both in general and in relation to specific events such as judicial trials of World War II criminals and the repercussions that America's failed war effort in Vietnam had on the nation's policies and psyche. Written in clear, no-nonsense terms, Responsibility And Judgment is as accessible to lay readers as it is to philosophers, and offers its insights free from the constraints of political ideology. Highly recommended.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A compilation of thought-provoking texts November 4, 2006

By Alexandros Gezerlis

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Given that none of the editorial reviews on this page contain a table of contents, I decided it may be wise to copy it here:

Introduction by Jerome Kohn
A 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

The first part deals with somewhat abstract questions, whereas the second is an application of Hannah Arendt's moral and more generally philosophical considerations to real-world situations. The fundamental text contained in this volume is "Some Questions of Moral Philosophy", which is based on four lectures Arendt gave in 1965. In it, Arendt deals with Socrates, Immanuel Kant, Paul of Tarsus, Augustine of Hippo, and Friedrich Nietzsche while discussing thinking, willing and judging. Also of note is Arendt's examination of Dr. Franz Lucas's case (described in "Auschwitz on Trial"). In a nutshell, this is a very interesting, though somewhat mixed and slightly repetitive, collection of essays, speeches, and lectures by a significant Selbstdenker.

Alexandros Gezerlis

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Work on Responsibility March 31, 2009

By dizzy dean

Format:Paperback

What would you do under a dictatorship? Arendt poses this question for all of us in her collection of essays dealing with the relationship between the individual and the state--in particular, what can the individual do in a system that is evil. Similar to a number of writers in circumstances not unlike her own (Remarque, Silone, Bonhoeffer) she argues that we each have the capability to retain our own sense of goodness and avoid the "banality of evil" she found with Eichmann.