Studies in Social and Political Thought Page 39 Hannah Arendt's Concept of Responsibility

Hannah Arendt defined responsibility in terms of political presence, not in legal or moral terms. I shall argue that she regarded political presence as requiring both acting and belonging, that is, as consisting of actions actualis-ing a given and, therefore, apolitical fellowship. The fact that Arendt consid-ered political presence as including some kind of givenness or passivity will surprise those who are familiar with her theory of performative action. Therefore, it is worth recalling that Arendt referred to presence in two dif-ferent contexts1: In 'What is Freedom? ' she wrote, '[A]cting men need the presence of others before whom they can appear. ' (1993: 154, see also 1998: 187-188). However, in Truth and Politics she stated ‘I form an opinion … by making present to my mind the standpoints of those who are absent; that is, I represent them. ’ (1993: 241) Accordingly, Arendt used presence for 1) mak-ing oneself present in the presence of others, and 2) making others present in one’s mind. Opinions represent the others, while at the same time make the agent present to others.2 I will demonstrate that Arendt identified responsibility with the forming of opinions, that is, with the simultaneity of belonging or suffering and acting or doing. I will show that, for her, responsibility is ‘radical ’ and stands in opposition to the ‘banality of evil’; and that, as a result, her concept of responsibility links her political theory to her conception of the world. Arendt did not use the word responsibility unequivocally, as her understand-ing of it evolved over time. Moreover, she repeatedly tried to distinguish the responsibility of political actors from that of intellectuals. At this point, I shall focus on the former, and follow the development of her view from her early article, ‘We Refugees, ’ to the Eichmann trial and beyond