The Legacy of Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35994/rhr.v3i1.83

Keywords:

Adolf Eichmann, Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt, Mass Atrocities, Radical Evil

Abstract

Contemporary thinkers such as Philip Zimbardo, Alexander Hinton and Elizabeth Minnich recently coined the terms Banality of Heroism, Banality of Everyday Thought, and Banality of Goodness respectively (without these concepts being the linchpins of their theses). These terms can be retraced to one thinker in particular who is constantly referred to by them: Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s Banality of Evil, a key concept in her work, was devised to discuss the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. This paper seeks to critically analyze these “banalities,” and ascertain whether they have contributed meaningfully to the existing literature on the problem of evil.

Published

2018-09-12

How to Cite

Carrim, S. (2018). The Legacy of Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil. Review of Human Rights, 3(1), 65-86. https://doi.org/10.35994/rhr.v3i1.83

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2017): Review of Human Rights

Section

Articles

This work is licensed under Creative Common Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International.

Creative Commons License

RHR operates based on a non-exclusive publishing agreement, according to which the journal retains the right of first publication, but authors are free to subsequently publish their work. The copyright of all work rests with the author(s). 

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