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Kant's categorical imperative and its formulation
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Kant's categorical imperative and its formulation
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In the book Eichmann Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt, we are shown a man that is seemingly normal and a common type of man. As the the trial goes on, we begin to see deep inside the mind of this banal, monstrous man. Evil does not always have a “look”, sometimes evil is found in the most ordinary of men with a cliche lifestyle and a stamp of approval from half-a-dozen psychiatrists. Eichmann was a simple man that thought of himself as always being the law-abiding citizen. Eichmann stated in court that he had always tried to abide by Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative (Arendt,135). Arendt argues that Eichmann had essentially taken the wrong lesson from Kant. Kant’s moral philosophy is so closely bound up with man’s faculty of judgment, which rules out blind obedience. Knowing this, we learn that Eichmann could not have just been going along with the Nazis without knowing anything that was going on or the consequences. Eichmann had not recognized the ‘golden rule’ and principle of reciprocity implicit in the categorical imperative, but had only understood the concept of one man's actions coinciding with general law. Eichmann attempted to follow the spirit of the laws he carried out, as if the legislator himself would approve. In Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative, the legislator is the moral self and all men are legislators. In other words, we are all taking on the roll of the leader. In Eichmann's formulation, the legislator was Hitler. Eichmann claimed this changed when he was charged with carrying out the Final Solution, at which point Arendt claims "he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer 'was master of ... ... middle of paper ... ...t right, but yet,he never quit. He never said no. In saying that he had to disappear, it’s as if he is stating he had to not see that consequences of his actions. He did not want to get his hands dirty. We conclude that Eichmann was incapable of articulating anything other than what he had heard all his life. He only spoke in cliches. However, he did not live the cliche lifestyle. He finally got his dream of being part of something that was bigger than himself. Arendt for the first time utilizes the term banality of evil at the end of the book stating, "It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us — the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-denying banality of evil" (252) Works Cited Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin, 2006.
In the memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel portrays the dehumanization of individuals and its lasting result in a loss of faith in God. Throughout the Holocaust, Jews were doggedly treated with disrespect and inhumanity. As more cruelty was bestowed upon them, the lower their flame of hope and faith became as they began turning on each other and focused on self preservation over family and friends. The flame within them never completely died, but rather stayed kindling throughout the journey until finally it stood flickering and idle at the eventual halt of this seemingly never-ending nightmare. Elie depicts the perpetuation of violence that crops up with the Jews by teaching of the loss in belief of a higher power from devout to doubt they endure.
Bascomb, Neal. Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased down the World's Most Notorious Nazi. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print. 06 Feb. 2014.
While the basic argument will be "well no one held a gun to your head, Mr. Eichmann," this is most likely not true. Nazi Germany was known for its ruthless and aggressive leadership, immediately eliminating those vehemently opposed and simply passing it off as "treason." Even if Eichmann truly did not want to sign each of these orders, he still did so out of fear for his own life. But is that justified? What makes him think that his life is far more valued than any single Jew? This in and of itself proves that Eichmann was, at the very least, a selfish man.
The Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever known. There were many key people who participated in this outrageous genocide however some get more attention then others. Adolf Eichmann is a classic example. Eichmann was a self-proclaimed “Jewish Specialist” and head of the Gestapo Department. Eichmann was responsible for keeping every train rolling right into the stations of the concentration and death camps during the holocaust. Now we will take a look into Eichmann’s childhood, life experiences, and his later actions to see what shaped into a man of hatred towards the Jewish race.
The Holocaust was a terrible and tragic time for Jewish people. They were constantly treated bad, harassed, and killed. The Nazi’s maintained many concentration camps, the most infamous of which being Auschwitz, where Vladek Spiegelman was sent to during the war. In the graphic novel, Maus, Art Spiegelman tells the tale of his father, Vladek, and his life during the Holocaust. In order to improve his chances of staying alive, Vladek got involved in helping the guards with certain tasks and jobs. By doing so, Vladek was able to raise his reputation among the Nazi officers, which improved his living conditions and saved his life a few times, and he was able to help his fellow prisoners and his wife, Anja.
First, I will look at Arendt’s criticism of violence. She believes that violence is not an idle concept. It needs to be justified by ethics and philosophy and often cannot be referred to without regard to
“The Holocaust is the most investigated crime in history, as has often been pointed out in response to deniers. Eichmann may be that crime’s most investigated criminal” (Sells, Michael A.). Adolf Eichmann was one of the head Nazis. He had a lot of authority in enacting what Hitler had told the Nazis to do. He was just about as responsible as Hitler was for killing all of those innocent
...eiss, “Anti-Semitism Through the Ages” Ed. By Donald Niewyk, The Holocaust: Problems in European Civilization (Boston, Massachusetts:Wadsworth, 2011), 12.
Ordinary men have the capacity to commit extraordinary crimes and on April 11, 1961, Adolf Eichmann, an ordinary looking man, faced trial for the murder of five million Jews. Adolf Eichmann served in the Nazi party as their expert on Jewish matters. During the Nuremberg trials that took place years before Eichmann’s trial, many witnesses testified to the control Eichmann had over the implementation of the final solution. SS Captain Wisliceny worked under Eichmann in Hungary in 1944 and he proclaimed that Eichmann said, “he would jump into his grave laughing, because of the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience, gave him extraordinary satisfaction’” (48). Also, Eichmann worked with the members of Jewish councils, and they claimed in earlier trials that he had a direct hand in the “Jewish Question” (49).
Throughout World War II, Nazi Germany was composing a plan to completely eradicate inferiors in a massive genocide. Millions of Jews were shipped into concentration camps dispersed throughout major Eastern European cities. Many Jewish believers, used their faith, to guide them to freedom. Others didn’t have that privilege for peace in the camps. In Night, Elie Wiesel discusses Man’s relationship with religious faith through imagery motifs, and selection of details to reveal how the absence of a just and loving God led to the Jews loss of Faith.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, humanity is a theme seen throughout. Humanity can be defined in many ways. It can be the disposition to do good, or it can be the human race. In the Night, the theme of humanity is the disposition to do good. In the book, Elie loses and finds his humanity. At the end, he holds on to his humanity, but loses some of it after events like his father’s death. Elie succeeds in retaining his humanity because he holds on to his father, he feels sympathy for people at the camps, and he keeps faith. Elie retains his humanity in the end even though he loses it in the middle of the book.
The novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, takes the reader through his mind as he endures the cruelty of the concentration camp. With a theme such as death, it is no wonder that cruelty’s role leads to the torture and death of millions of innocent humans. As the story progresses through his life in the camps, the cruelty increases in magnitude. It first starts by people being stripped from their homes and taken to the camp. Once in the cruel camps, their identities are taken and replaced with only a number. Then their clothes, family, hope, and finally their will to live is stolen from them by their captors. Elie Wiesel was one of the millions of Jews involved in the holocaust. He survived and years later wrote about
ABSTRACT: I analyze the ways in which the faculty of thinking can avoid evil action, taking into account Hannah Arendt's discussion regarding the banality of evil and thoughtlessness in connection with the Eichmann trial. I focus on the following question posed by Arendt: "Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining and reflecting upon whatever happens to come to pass, regardless of specific content and quite independent of results, could this activity be of such a nature that it 'conditions' men against evildoing?" Examples of the connection between evildoing and thinking include the distinction between the commonplace and the banal, and the absence of the depth characteristic of banality and the necessity of thinking as the means for depth. I then focus upon Arendt's model thinker (Socrates) and argue that the faculty of thinking works to avoid evildoing by utilizing the Socratic principle of noncontradiction.
QUESTION ONE: Hannah Arendt argues for a crucial distinction between politics, which she takes to be the realm of speech, conversation and debate, and violence, which she suggests is ‘speechless’. Others we have studied this term propose something different – that politics and violence are inseparable, and that one invariably entails the other. With direct reference to at least one of that authors considered in Theories of Conflict and Violence, consider the relationship between politics and violence.
Joe Sacco’s graphic novel, Palestine, deals with the repercussions of the first intifada in Israel/Palestine/the Holy Land. The story follows the author through the many refugee camps and towns around Palestine as he tries to gather information, stories, and pictures to construct his graphic novel. While the book is enjoyable at a face level, there are many underlying themes conveyed throughout its illustrated pages and written text.