The role of evil in Aristotle, Kant and Hannah Arendt - Essay Example

The role of evil in Aristotle, Kant and Hannah Arendt The question of evil has been the of many discussion and philosophic works. It has always been interesting to see how different philosophers viewed the understanding of evil, and how they applied it to reality. It is difficult to think of any philosopher who has not devoted at least some part of his (her) works to the concept of evil. The aim of this work is to discuss the evil from the viewpoint of Aristotle, Kant and Hannah Arendt, and to see how the concept of genocide applies to their ideas. We will have thus to conclude, which of the concepts is the best applied to the issue of genocide. Aristotle Aristotle is the author of several books on ethics and philosophy, and namely in these books we find the ideas, which directly or indirectly explain what Aristotle thought of evil. First of all, he was criticizing the Socrates thesis that 'no one performs evil on his own will'1. Aristotle supposed that if one follows this thesis, the human is not the manager of his actions and deeds, and thus does not bear any responsibility for he does. According to Aristotle, the wish to know what evil is is not always accompanied by the wish to perform only good things. There is something more needed - moral stability, moral principality is and confidence in one's will. Aristotle writes, that 'there should be the appropriate character for the very beginning - the character suitable for creating the good.'2 Thus, the evil for Aristotle is something for which a person is responsible and which the person can control. According to Aristotle, the role of knowledge and understanding in the moral ethics is great, but the evil is not limited by illiteracy and misunderstanding only. Moral evil is always unreasonable, but only in three different senses. These may be only the absence of reason, or its inability to influence the strivings, or perversion and actions directed at evil. Following these ideas, amorality is represented by the three kinds of the spoiled soul: atrocities, immoderation depravity. Atrocities according to Aristotle are based on the absence of the better reasonable part of the human soul. Atrocities lie under the threshold of human in the human; they are derived of knowledge and freedom and thus cannot give catastrophic results. Immoderation - it is the form of evil, which is related to the sphere of reason, and not to the sphere of will. The subject possessing this disadvantage is normal in his judgments but is abnormal in his relation to his intentions and the ways of their realization. In other words, immoderate is able to reasonably judge the events which take place, but he acts unreasonably. The flows of rage, love passions and other strong incentives lead him to the state, when he possessing the knowledge, does not possess it in the same time. In these cases knowledge is left as if strange and indifferent towards his soul. Immoderation is different depravity - the next form of evil - the inability to control one's incentives. According to Aristotle, depravity is the very moral evil. It does not exclude the well-developed reason, sense, strong will, but it presupposes their negative directness. Depraved person is fully guilty in his behavior, as he has got the ability to be another, but he does not use it. Thus, having divided the evil into the three different displays, Aristotle has separated amorality from weakness and foolishness.3 Having crated the source of the amorality not in some separate psychological ability, but in the insufficient abnormal development of any of them (or all of them), Aristotle has closely come to the understanding of the systematic inner world of the human being. After Aristotle, the close connection between the understanding of the moral evil and the disharmony of the psychic functions has strongly entered the culture. It has appeared to be compatible with the rationalistic requirements for the prevailing of the reason over the passions, as well as with the Christian condemnation of tyranny as the source of depravity. The understanding of the good as the harmony of opposite sides of the human nature has become an important edge in creating the dialectic understanding of the evil. Kant Kant has become another bright philosopher, whose ideas about evil should not be neglected. They are clear and understandable, and are worth attention. First of all, it should be said that Kant's concept of evil possesses two distinctive traits - first, he 'conceives evil as an immanent problem, independently from any transcedecent appeal to the knowledge of God and philosophical theodicy'.4 Kant was the first to separate evil from the religious origin, and has related it to the strictly moral knowledge. Kant supposes, that evil is the problem of morality, and not religion. Thus, this understanding may be supposed to be very close to our modern culture, as it lies beneath understanding of God. While Aristotle identified evil with the 'intrinsically deviant character of matter'5, Kant was directed at relating it to the use of the human freedoms, and this use had of course to be positive. Kant supposed, that if evil is to be a moral norm, and is to be connected with the use of human freedoms, its origin must lie in the use of freedom, which is supposed to be original, and at the edge of which good and evil become absolutely equal choices. 'Man himself must make or have made himself in whatever in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is or is to become'.6 Kant strongly supposed that the source of the evil was in the human will; he was sure that the evil was the best sign of the human morality and all human inclinations thus arise from it. Inclinations, on the other hand, are not only what a human has for conducting the good or the evil - they become the structure of the meaning to be a human. Moreover, inclinations create the surrounding in which the human is to decide - in what direction he should work and go, and it is the act of freedom, freedom of choice and the evil as follows becomes the matter of this choice. It does not matter, what inclinations a person may have, Kant writes that these inclinations won't work without the human deliberating and allowing them to act. Thus, Kant relies on the human will as the main source of evil. Kant also supposes, that evil is the means of opposing to the laws in the manner of a rebel - to perform evil for the evil's sake is not interesting according to his writings. As he writes about the locus of evil and its direction against moral law, he at the same time notes, that evil lies in the human will and it adopts a maxim, which ultimately works for the unification of the other maxims, and thus leads the person for radical neglecting of the moral law. This makes the person adopt and use the moral values and incentives which he carries inside his being, making his choice to the negative side. On the basis of his will, the human becomes susceptible to certain types of values, as well as of reasons, and their combination ultimately defines whether the person will work for the better or for the worse. The actions of the human in terms of evil, according to Kant, are absolutely dependent on the human will and are the result of the choice, which the human has as a result of freedom. Trying to adopt the moral values the person has, he creates certain attitude towards the agents which surround him, and creates his own moral reality - this reality finally displays itself in the evil - that is, the action which is perceived by the other agents as negative towards them or others, and causing serious negative consequences to any of them. Kant states, that 'good and evil are, then, forms of the will's self-relation, fundamental ways of unifying its internal heterogeneity, which underlie and condition how an agent relates to others'.7 Evil thus becomes the means of expressing one's moral identity. It is also the sign of how the person organizes his will, and the aims which he pursues. Both aims and means may be good or evil; it all depends on the human freedom of choice. However, a question remains, whether the human, who acts without any self-love, but on duty, and violating the moral laws, is creating the evil. In order to answer this question it will be necessary to consider the notion of self-love from the viewpoints of both good and evil, and from the viewpoint of its relation towards the moral law and responsibility. In any case, it will be interesting in this work to have a look at one more concept of evil - by Hannah Arendt. Hannah Arendt Arendt has become the person, who was one of the most prominent in modern times to work on the concept of evil. She is the author of the expression related to the 'banality of evil'.8 It is important to note, that Arendt herself makes strict difference between the commonplace and the banality of evil. This difference is described by her in her correspondence: 'For me, there is a very important difference: 'commonplace' is what frequently, commonly happens, but something can be banal even if it is not common. Banal does not presuppose that the evil has a commonplace in everyone. Evil can become banal even if evil itself is not trivial to anyone. Thus, banality of evil does not mean that the evil itself is trivial and common to everybody.'9 This means that the expression 'banality of evil' for Arendt is not related to the fact that evil is something which happens to us everyday; banality here carries absolutely different meaning. While Kant spoke about the roots of evil in the human will, Arendt on the contrary, writes about the evil having no particular rules. She relates to the 'absence of roots', in connection with which it is necessary to discuss here two different implications. First of all, she speaks about the absence of evil roots as the absence of them in any evil tradition as a whole during the whole history of mankind. It is also means that banal evil does not have any roots in the evil incentives or motives, as for example, Kant put it.10 Second, the banality of evil and its connection with the absence of roots makes Arendt assured that the faculty of thinking is the only way which may bring explanation to evil and thus find these roots, in case they really exist. Evil for her is a 'surface phenomenon', and she comes to this conclusion through connecting it with the faculty of thinking. What she means is that thinking of evil is difficult, as any thinking is aimed at reaching any roots; this is why evil does nt have any roots and appears to be some surface phenomenon.11 Making Eichmann the central figure in one of her books, she has come to conclusion that he didn't have any evil roots either. He was not able to think over his deeds at the more profound level, thus he didn't see anything negative in what he performed. 'Thought tries to reach some depth, to go to roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its 'banality'.12 Arendt makes three important connections between the faculty of thinking and the problem of evil roots. First of all, she is sure, that the faculty of thinking is accessible for everyone, and thus everyone may find these roots or again faces the 'banality of evil'. Second, the faculty of thinking does not work in relation to the so-called solid axioms, as there is no need and use in thinking them too much; this thinking thus is not the means of creating some moral foundation or basis - the basis of this morality is in these solid axioms, and thinking is usually opposed to them. Third, and probably, the most important: when we think of evil, we understand that as a notion it is invisible, as we live in the 'world of appearances'; we are used to the fact that the only thing which works is the one which may be seen - evil appears to be invisible, though its displays are clearly viewed by us. Arendt is sure, that the fact that the person cannot think is not the principal reasons of creating evil - she is sure that to prevent evil it will be necessary to use both thinking and reason.13 Arendt clearly opposes to the idea that all of us have evil incentives inside us.14 She better states, that evil and the faculty of thinking are the two notions, which are interrelated and connected. She implies that the society at time changes its moral values without even creating any judgment upon this change. She is sure that faculty of thinking is not the only factor which works for the evil, and that evil in itself is a surface notion, which does not have roots in itself. It is interesting to note, that Arendt makes clear distinction between intellect, which is the means of processing the senses we get from our environment, and thinking, which is closely connected with the function of judgment, which in its turn appears to be the key to the prevention of evil. Genocide in relation to the evil in views of Aristotle, Kant and Arendt Genocide is usually related to as the notion, explaining the process of destruction of people, with the one and set aim - the destruction which is usually aimed at one specific group of people.15 In the thoughts of all people genocide is the representation of absolute evil - destruction of whole nations and countries, making people suppose themselves to be non-human makes us shiver. However, let's look at genocide not simply as evil, but from the viewpoints of the three philosophers described above. Starting from Aristotle, it will be possible to see the genocide from the viewpoint of the three parts of evil, which he presents in his philosophy. However, it is still a question of subjective attitude, whether genocide is atrocity, vice or immoderation. What is evident here is that it can be any of that, or all those named. Genocide is certainly an atrocity, being displayed through mass murders or indirect actions which ultimately lead to the destruction of the whole society layers. Genocide is vice in the fewer manners, as it serves only as the display of the inner vicious intentions of people, who put genocide into action. Genocide is also the display of the immoderation similar to the vice. Thus, if we take Aristotle's viewpoints into account, it appears that the name of atrocity is the most appropriate. Simultaneously, taking into account Kant's implications about evil, it can't be but agreed that the roots of genocide lie in the depth of the human will. This assumption may be viewed from the two different points - from the viewpoints of those, who create genocide and performs it and from the viewpoint of those, who experience and suffer from it. Is it human's will to create genocide - sure, it is. According to Kant, the person has the freedom of choice, and the person chooses the way he is to perform in this or that situation. It is the very display of the power and will, that person tries to create not through positive deeds, but through the negative actions, which at times reach large scales and take the form of genocide. It is absolutely human will to create the impression of the one nation superior to another one, or one social layer to another one. While the person is standing at the edge where he is to take some decision as for where to direct the incentives and power, he often decides that the best means to prove self-power is to make people inferior and suffering, make people depend on one's will, and not simply depend but know that their lives depend on this will. Genocide becomes the result of the person's will choosing negative way, coming to its maximum and making human being the source of atrocities and evil. Hannah Arendt appears to be the most modern of all three, and is familiar with the notions of totalitarian regime. Applying the knowledge about genocide to her concepts of evil, it may be concluded that genocide being evil does not have any roots. It appears to be true, because in connection with the faculty of thinking it appears, that human thought cannot completely understand the reasons and the implications of the genocide against people. Thinking about the possible reasons of why people act against other people on a large scale, we face the fact that our mind cannot reach the roots of this phenomenon. Being invisible in its essence, the displays of genocide are clearly seen by other people and are sometimes shocking by their cruelty and sophistication. In agreement to Arendt, genocide is the means of objecting to solid axioms, but it appears to be even more than that - genocide is not the opposition of such kind, but is the means of creating similar norms. After the fascist genocide during the World War II, how many people more still believe that the Jews are the inferior nation This concept still exists and it appears to be even more difficult to change it for better idea. This is the idea, which Arendt expressed in relation to the fact, that at times whole societies change their values without even making their judgments - this directly relates to the notion of genocide: on the one hand, a large portion of the population has become assured that certain nations are to be destroyed for their inferiority; on the other hand, genocide made people re-think the values they used to have before. Genocide as philosophic notion Arendt's idea of evil for me appears to be the most appropriate of all described. The notion of banality of evil without roots is the best presentation of the genocide concept from the philosophic point of view. It appears to be true that we can't grasp the idea and the reasons of genocide with our minds, the roots of genocide are also closed for us. Thinking about the difference between the banality and the commonplace of the genocide, it appears that in reality genocide is far from being a commonplace event, but trying to come down to its roots and the incentives which made people perform such actions, we come to the conclusion that not only no roots are seen there, but the incentives which we may trace there appear to be banal. Genocide is the notion, which is not possible to re-think with the help of both intellect and the faculty of thinking. This phenomenon is very unclear to us, and its displays, though very vivid at times, are yet to be seen. Genocide has also become the reason of not only breaking moral laws, but creating some solid axioms, which need long period of time to be broken. However, it is also important to understand that fascist genocide, for example, is the clear display of the human perversity and non-restraint, but it is very often that genocide is next to us, but its process is so slow that we don't notice it, and thus it acquires invisible form, which is according to Arendt, the form of evil. Mass destructions of people are the representations of the Arendt's 'banality of evil' - not understood and yet existing: sophisticated in forms and usual in goals. The reason of Arendt's being closer to my understanding of genocide may lie in the fact that she lived in the modern time and better than no one was familiar with those notions. However, I suppose that the expression 'banality of evil' is the best correlated with the notions of genocide in any form. Conclusion We may here come to the conclusion that there have been many philosophers, who tries to understand the phenomenon of evil. They have created various concepts and ideas as for the roots and implications of evil, its displays and theories. Aristotle has created the idea of evil being displayed in three different forms, each of them being peculiar. Kant was sure that the human will was the reason of creating evil, and that the human himself was able to choose between his negative and positive actions, as well as evil was not the result of the human sensuous nature, but rather the result of the interaction of both the sensuous and the reasonable parts of the human mind. On the contrary, Arendt supposed, that reason and thinking had to be combined for opposing the evil, and that evil had no roots in fact, being invisible and not subject to thinking it over. Genocide in this work has been chosen for its clear idea as being the largest evil against humanity, with this idea widely accepted. Though it seems to me that Arendt's ideas about evil are the closest to my understanding of genocide, I suppose that this phenomenon may be viewed from the different points of view, and any interpretation of evil on philosophic grounds will be worth paying attention to it. All three views presented in this work relate to genocide, or better, its different aspects, but they become common in one: evil is the notion which should not be underestimated. Moreover, I suppose there will hardly ever exist one and single notion as for evil is and what his roots are. This phenomenon is both clear and unclear and can't be described in its narrow meaning. The reason for the differences in opinions about evil are that the incentives and the displays of evil are too different from each other, and thus there is no possibility to make the reasonable system of how evil works. This is why any new ideas appearing in relation to the notion of evil will need close consideration and be accounted in the similar works on philosophy. References Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin Books, 1994 Neiman, Susan. Evil in Modern Thought. An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton University Press, 2002 Yovel, Y. "Kant's Practical Reason as Will: Interest, Recognition, Judgment, and Choice". The Review of Metaphysics 2 (1998): 267-272 Read More