Ethical Implications of Hannah Arendt’s Studies of Totalitarianism

Abstract

Arendt was one of the first researchers who substantiated unprecedented nature of totalitarianism as phenomenon of the twentieth century. The paper represents ethical implications of totalitarianism based on Arendt’s examination of the human condition and humanity in dark times, banality of evil and radical evil, guilt and responsibility. According to Arendt, totalitarianism is the system of mass terror, which is formed under the conditions of destruction of the political sphere of human interaction, while providing propaganda for masses of alienated individuals. Arendt argued that in the moral sphere the success of totalitarianism was a result of noncritical adherence to norms at the morality-etiquette level. Obeying criminal demands and orders without any reflection, person is able to make evil acceptable and to become an accomplice in crimes, insensibly for her(him)self. The human qualities are represented to the full in the public sphere where a person by use of speech and action arranges the world for her(him)self and the future generations as well. Acting in public space spontaneously and creatively, a person develops her or his own judgment and makes morality the topical matter, thus preventing the recurrence of totalitarianism.