Jaymie Ticknor Intro Philosophy 1050 Sect 003 21 March 2014 Banality of Evil Ethics in the 20th Century branch of philosophy ethics approach is Lecture 17 existentialism philosopher Hannah Arendt idea banality dull unoriginal of evil Eichmann in Jerusalem talks about the everydayness of Eichmann figure did not look like the monster we might imagine this forced Arendt to confront her views on the subject of evil people thought that evil was present in a small percentage in the population Evil does not come from malevolence or a delight in doing wrong bad rather evil comes from thoughtlessness careless in thought the reasons that people perform evil deeds is because they fall victim to failures of thinking and judgment therefore evil is banal potentially can happen everyday to everyone The idea of evil as banal does not strip evil acts of their horror according to Arendt instead refusing to see people who commit terrible acts as monsters brings these acts closer to our everyday lives challenging us to consider how evil may Eichmann committed atrocities not through a hatred of the Jewish community Arendt suggest but because he unthinkingly followed orders Milgram experiment proves Arendt s theory in some way following orders to shock people 65 26 out of 40 actually went all the way to 450 volts
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