By Mikel Van Dyken
In “Thinking and Moral Considerations”, Hannah Arendt proposes the act of thinking as a method of preventing what she calls “the banality of evil” in states of crisis.[i] While I agree with her assertion that thinking is necessary for this project, I do not consider it to be sufficient.[ii] I will argue that her view of thinking requires what she refers to as ‘taste’, but that the intersubjectivity of this sense problematises her theory. I will use the example of online algorithms and their tendency to create artificial bubbles of information and politically radicalise users to demonstrate how this problem occurs beyond just the case of totalitarian states. I will conclude by arguing that to effectively prevent acts of banal evil, Arendt’s philosophy should allow for, to some extent, the use of the “practical reason” that she rejects.[iii] I should divulge that in arguing this, I do have an objectivist ethics in mind, but I will not pursue any specific view of morality here for the sake of brevity. For my purposes, it is sufficient to say that Arendt’s theory requires some recourse for forming independent moral judgments.
Arendt proposes thinking and the use of one’s conscience, which is accessed through the practice of the former, as a manner of conditioning against “the banality of evil”.[iv] This discussion is initiated by her observations on the trial of Adolf Eichmann.[v] She argues that, as opposed to cases of wickedness, Eichmann’s active decision to become “thoughtless” prevented him from sufficiently consulting his conscience which allowed him to commit this kind of banal evil.[vi] For Arendt, thinking is an action that involves withdrawing from public life, “the world of appearances,” so that the appearances gained through our experiences can be ‘re-presented’ by our imagination and subsequently reflected upon.[vii] In doing so, one is made aware of the “two-in-one” nature of consciousness as it is proposed by Socrates; due to the reflectiveness of consciousness, there exists the ‘me’ that appears to others and the ‘me’ that I become aware of in solitude.[viii] This duality forces one to “literally ‘[have] to live with oneself’,” giving rise to their conscience.[ix] Arendt describes this conscience as being the ever-present threat of self-contradiction “who awaits [the individual] only if and when [they go] home” to a moment of reflection away from public life.[x] Each person possesses this faculty to think, face this internal other, and reckon their actions with themselves.[xi] Arendt argues that in times of crisis, “when the chips are down,” thinking allows one to avoid being “swept away unthinkingly by what everybody else does and believes in” through consulting their conscience and acting accordingly.[xii] Banal evil stems from one’s refusal to refer to their conscience in times of crisis, and so thinking, accessing this dual self, can help prevent it.
Although thinking may be necessary to avoid committing acts of banal evil, conscience alone cannot provide any moral criteria by which one ought to act. Consider an individual born into an absolutely totalitarian state; the information available to them is heavily controlled, they are exposed to extensive propaganda, and they only interact with other like-minded citizens.[xiii] As much as this person retreats in solitude to think, they could never be influenced to avoid committing banal evil acts since one’s conscience can only prevent them from acting against their existing moral beliefs.[xiv] Arendt acknowledges this characteristic of her account of the conscience when she states that “the faculty of judging particulars… is not the same as the faculty of thinking”.[xv] Although one’s conscience cannot always act as a perfect moral guide, Arendt asserts that there are still ways in which one can improve it.[xvi] One can acknowledge their prejudices, broaden their available knowledge, reduce their hubris, and most importantly, refer to moral exemplars to cultivate a refined conscience.[xvii] However, I posit that to implement any of these improvements, one is still required to refer to some moral criteria. To acknowledge that one has a deficiency in knowledge, or a surplus of hubris or prejudice would require them to make a moral judgment regarding whether these characteristics were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Likewise, determining if a certain historical or fictional figure is an exemplar worth following requires some kind of normative assessment. Arendt’s account of thinking requires some moral criteria on which one’s conscience can refer to if it is to prevent acts of banal evil.
Arendt proposes that one’s conscience can inform political discernments in conjunction with judgment and its “vehicle”; taste.[xviii] She alludes to judgment as being a solution to “[bridging] this gap” between thinking and “issuing positive moral imperatives” when she states that “judging… makes [thinking] manifest in the world of appearances”.[xix] The specific conception of judgment she puts forth recontextualises Immanuel Kant’s view as it is presented in his philosophy of aesthetics so that it can be applied to political cases.[xx] For Arendt, “judgment [is] a faculty of ‘telling right from wrong’” in the same way that Kant described it as being used to discern “the beautiful from the ugly”.[xxi] Reflective judgment, as it is used in private, involves using one’s imagination to “make present” the “objects of the objective senses,” like those which can be seen, touched, or heard, so that they can be judged “as though they were objects of an inner sense”.[xxii] Once an object is represented in this way, the inner sense of taste can reflect upon the representation and provide one with an immediate moral judgment of “it-pleases-or-displeases-me”.[xxiii] It is also vital to note that the immediacy and subjectivity of taste leaves no room for one to disagree on the basis of reason or for any other justification: “there can be no dispute about right and wrong here”.[xxiv] Critically, taste only ever reflects as to produce intersubjectively considered judgments.[xxv] Utilising Kant’s ‘sensus communis’, Arendt holds that one uses their imagination to take others’ “possible judgments into account”.[xxvi] As such, our judgments are incentivised to be pleasing to our community. Conscience is supplemented by one’s faculty of judgment which uses taste to make moral judgments, but this taste is intersubjective and necessarily reflects the imagined judgments of others.
I find that this intersubjective aspect of Arendt’s view of taste causes thinking to be ineffective at preventing the banality of evil. If one’s taste is determined by their community, it is at risk of permitting banal evil acts if they would be pleasing to the community. Arendt asserts that the intersubjectivity of taste allows one to consider judgments beyond their own subjective prejudices, intending for this to lead to more impartial judgments.[xxvii] However, taste becomes problematic in cases of information-restriction and homogenised collective mentality; someone entrenched in an absolutely totalitarian state could conceivably think, consult their conscience, and still commit banal evil acts if their taste was constituted by their community. It is difficult to conceive that the imagination could construct radically new viewpoints that someone has never encountered, especially if historical or fictional literature is restricted so people cannot refer to moral exemplars.[xxviii] I am not asserting that all acts of banal evil are a result of this intersubjectivity of taste, Eichmann clearly could have considered the judgments of the Jewish people he encountered.[xxix] However, one can imagine someone in Nazi Germany, or a hypothetical stricter totalitarian state, who did not have such experiences being complicit in the atrocities that occurred. This results in a problem of ‘moral luck’, wherein one’s ability to act in a morally justified manner can be precluded by their circumstances.[xxx] Within a sufficiently totalitarian state, thinking can fail to prevent the banality of evil on account of one’s taste being intersubjectively constituted.
I consider that modern social media algorithms can also facilitate the conditions for unchecked acts of banal evil. By only presenting users with posts similar to those they have previously interacted with, or that other users with similar interests have interacted with, these algorithms can create an artificial ‘filter bubble’ of information which can skew what one perceives to be common consensus.[xxxi] This has been well documented with the ‘YouTube pipeline’ effect, wherein new accounts can quickly be shown a feed of almost entirely radicalised political content.[xxxii] However, this problem becomes extenuated with less regulated platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan.[xxxiii] Isolation is a vital step in the process of radicalisation and these algorithms can produce insular communities wherein users may not interact with any opinions or people without doing so through the lens of their community’s shared ideology.[xxxiv] The isolation of people within these communities becomes problematic when community members possess hateful or bigoted prejudices; alt-right online spaces have significantly influenced the decisions of numerous mass murderers in recent years.[xxxv] I am not proposing that these individuals did think and consult their conscience before committing these acts and their undeveloped taste permitted them to do so. It is far more likely that they, like Eichmann, chose not to think.[xxxvi] My point in raising these examples is that the intersubjectivity of taste allows for at least the possibility that thinking people can still commit acts of banal evil and that this possibility is problematic for a theory of political philosophy. In cases where certain people have a limited exposure to a diversity of judgments, the conditions for which are becoming increasingly prevalent online, Arendt’s moral theory risks precluding such individuals from developing their taste and acting ethically according to it.
Although she is opposed to it, I consider that Arendt’s political philosophy should incorporate some notion of reason to effectively prevent acts of banal evil. Unlike traditional notions of practical reason which failed to prevent the horrors of the twentieth century, she intends for the intersubjectivity of taste to be more impartial.[xxxvii] However, as I have argued, it is this intersubjectivity of taste that can lead to the permitting of acts of banal evil in insular communities. Reason, unlike Arendt’s taste, can produce conclusions that are independent of the thoughts of others. Critically, it can lead to one concluding that, since their political judgments are dependent on the breadth of new perspectives they have encountered, they ought to seek out a new diversity of viewpoints. I do not think Arendt’s political philosophy should necessarily be abandoned in favour of an objectivist ethics, but that reason, insofar as it is independent of others, should be incorporated to some extent.
In this essay, I have argued that Arendt’s view of thinking requires some external moral criteria to prevent acts of banal evil. She proposed the solution of taste as an intersubjective sense; however, this can fail in cases of totalitarian states or online information bubbles. As such, I consider that her theory ought to adopt some notion of reason so that thinking can effectively defend against the banality of evil. In states of crisis, it is not enough for one to simply judge as a member of a community because if that community is both insular and misguided, one can be “swept away,” even while they are thinking, “by what everybody else does and believes in”.[xxxviii]
Mikel Van Dyken is an Advanced Humanities student at The University of Queensland and is currently preparing to commence his Honours in philosophy in 2025. His research interests pertain to phenomenology, philosophy of the brain, and disability studies theory. When he is not studying, Mikel enjoys sitting by Maiwar, Brisbane’s river, and watching the local aquatic birds.
FOOTNOTES
[i] Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” in Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), 159.
[ii] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 160.
[iii] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 178; Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982), 70.
[iv] Paul Formosa, “Thinking, Conscience and Acting in Times of Crises,” in Power, Judgment and Political Evil, (Oxford: Routledge, 2010), 94-95, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315601854-7; Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 159.
[v] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 159-160.
[vi] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 159, 166; Formosa, “Thinking, Conscience and Acting,” 94-95.
[vii] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 165.
[viii] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 183-184; Formosa, “Thinking, Conscience and Acting,” 93.
[ix] Formosa, “Thinking, Conscience and Acting,” 93; Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 185.
[x] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 185-187.
[xi] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 187.
[xii] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 187-189.
[xiii] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Penguin Books, 2017), 448.
[xiv] Marguerite La Caze, “The Judgment of the Statesperson,” in Power, Judgment and Political Evil, (Oxford: Routledge, 2010), 73, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315601854-7; Formosa, “Thinking, Conscience and Acting,” 93.
[xv] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 189; La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 73.
[xvi] La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 73-74.
[xvii] La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 74, 75, 78.
[xviii] Seyla Benhabib, “Judgment and the Moral Foundations of Politics in Arendt’s Thought,” Political Theory 16, no. 1 (1988): 30-31, https://www.jstor.org/stable/191646; Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 64.
[xix] Formosa, “Thinking, Conscience and Acting,” 93; Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 188-189.
[xx] La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 76; Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 188-189; Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 61.
[xxi] Benhabib, “Politics in Arendt’s Thought,” 39.
[xxii] La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 77-78; Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 65.
[xxiii] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 65-67.
[xxiv] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 66.
[xxv] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 67, 72.
[xxvi] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 67, 69, 72.
[xxvii] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 67; La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 78-79.
[xxviii] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 65.
[xxix] Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 116; La Caze, “Judgment of the Statesperson,” 80.
[xxx] Dipika Bhatia, “Moral Luck: A Philosophical Problem,” Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 35, no. 3 (2018): 577-578, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0146-x.
[xxxi] Jernej Kaluža, “Habitual Generation of Filter Bubbles: Why Is Algorithmic Personalisation Problematic for the Democratic Public Sphere?” Javnost (Ljubljana, Slovenia) 29, no. 3 (2022): 267-268, https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2021.2003052.
[xxxii] Michael Wolfowicz, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi, “Examining the Interactive Effects of the Filter Bubble and the Echo Chamber on Radicalization,” Journal of Experimental Criminology 19, no. 1 (2023): 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-021-09471-0.
[xxxiii] Wen Chen et al., “Neutral Bots Probe Political Bias on Social Media,” Nature Communications 12, no. 1 (2021): 6, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25738-6; Diana Rieger et al., “Hate Speech in Fringe Communities,” Social Media + Society 7, no. 4 (2021). 2, https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211052906.
[xxxiv] Guri Nordtorp Mølmen and Jacob Aasland Ravndal, “Mechanisms of Online Radicalisation: How the Internet Affects the Radicalisation of Extreme-Right Lone Actor Terrorists,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 15, no. 4 (2023): 467-468, https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2021.1993302.
[xxxv] Mølmen and Ravndal, “Mechanisms of Online Radicalisation,” 476-477, 479.
[xxxvi] Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 116-117.
[xxxvii] Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 67.
[xxxviii] Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 188.
WORKS CITED
Arendt, Hannah. “Thinking and Moral Considerations.” In Responsibility and Judgment, edited by Jerome Kohn, 159-189. New York: Schocken Books, 2003.
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Penguin Books, 1994.
Arendt, Hannah. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. London: Penguin Books, 2017.
Benhabib, Seyla. “Judgment and the Moral Foundations of Politics in Arendt’s Thought.” Political Theory 16, no. 1 (1988): 29–51. https://www.jstor.org/stable/191646.
Bhatia, Dipika. “Moral Luck: A Philosophical Problem.” Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 35, no. 3 (2018): 571–584. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0146-x.
Chen, Wen, Diogo Pacheco, Kai Cheng Yang, and Filippo Menczer. “Neutral Bots Probe Political Bias on Social Media.” Nature Communications 12, no. 1 (2021): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25738-6.
Formosa, Paul. “Thinking, Conscience and Acting in Times of Crises.” In Power, Judgment and Political Evil, 89–103. Oxford: Routledge, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315601854-7.
Kaluža, Jernej. “Habitual Generation of Filter Bubbles: Why Is Algorithmic Personalisation Problematic for the Democratic Public Sphere?” Javnost (Ljubljana, Slovenia) 29, no. 3 (2022): 267–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2021.2003052.
La Caze, Marguerite. “Thinking, Conscience and Acting in Times of Crises.” In Power, Judgment and Political Evil, 71–87. Oxford: Routledge, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315601854-7.
Mølmen, Guri Nordtorp, and Jacob Aasland Ravndal. “Mechanisms of Online Radicalisation: How the Internet Affects the Radicalisation of Extreme-Right Lone Actor Terrorists.” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 15, no. 4 (2023): 463–487. https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2021.1993302.
Rieger, Diana, Anna Sophie Kümpel, Maximilian Wich, Toni Kiening, and Georg Groh. “Assessing the Extent and Types of Hate Speech in Fringe Communities: A Case Study of Alt-Right Communities on 8chan, 4chan, and Reddit.” Social Media + Society 7, no. 4 (2021). 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211052906. Wolfowicz, Michael, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi. “Examining the Interactive Effects of the Filter Bubble and the Echo Chamber on Radicalization.” Journal of Experimental Criminology 19, no. 1 (2023): 119–141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-021-09471-0.
Featured photo by Hannah Wei on Unsplash.
EXORDIUM 
1 Comment