The problem of evil in Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt, Yahudi kökenli bir Alman yurttaşı olarak II. Dünya Savaşı sürecinde Nazilerin güttüğü antisemitist siyasete ve Yahudi soykırımına tanıklık etmiş ve bütün bu olup bitene bir anlam verme gayretiyle kötülük problemi üzerine odaklanmıştır. Arendt’e göre, Naziler yalnızca Yahudilere değil bütün insanlığa karşı suç işlemiştir. Bu ise ahlâki anlamda kötülüğün ta kendisidir. Kötülüğün sebebini ortaya koymaya çalışan Arendt, Nazilerin işlediği suçların geleneksel kötülükten farklı olduğunu ve insanca anlaşılabilir sebeplerle açıklanamayacağı sonucuna varmış, bu yeni suç türünü “radikal kötülük” olarak adlandırmıştır. Sonrasında ise eski Nazi subayı Adolf Eichmann’ın işlediği savaş suçları nedeniyle Kudüs’teki yargılanma sürecine gözlemci sıfatıyla katılmış ve bu dava sürecinde kötülüğe ilişkin yeni bir açıklama geliştirerek “kötülüğün sıradanlığı” kavramını ileri sürmüştür. Bu bağlamda, kötülüğün kaynağı “düşünce yoksunluğu” eş deyişiyle “fikirsizlik”tir. Bu çalışmada, Arendt’in kötülük üzerine düşünceleri ele alınarak açıklanmaya çalışılacak ve kötülüğün epistemik boyutu tartışılacaktır.Although the evil and problem presented can be stated with theological or worldly concepts, it’s advised as that it’s a problem regarding understandability of the world as a whole in very deed. Consequently, it is belonging to neither ethic only nor metaphysics, but establishes a mutual relation between two of them. It’s arise from the distinction connected to being of evil in two forms as natural and moral or being considered, perception mainly. But two points of view are clarified regarding the evil without considering the form, away from Early Enlightenment up to the present and both of them are directed with ethic concern rather than epistemological concern. It’s emphasized that the point of view shaped with opinions of Rousseau and Hannah Arendt is quite insistent on making the evil understandable by morality, while the point of view shaped with opinions of philosophers as Voltaire and John Améry defends that morality doesn’t demand making the evil comprehensible (Neiman 2006: 18-19). Even if Arendt’s point of view shaped with epistemological concerns even though, it has epistemological conception concerning the evil in point of being insistent in comprehensibleness. Hannah Arendt as Jewish-origin German citizen bear witness to antisemitism that adopted Nazi’s and Jewish genocide during the II World War and focused on the problem of evil with a sense-making will to all what was happening. According to Arendt, Nazi’s fell from grace against the whole humanity, not only Jewish people. So this is the epitome of evil in moral terms. Arendt who tries to prove the reason of evil, concluded that the offenses committed by Nazi’s were different from traditional evil and these can’t be explained with comprehensible reasons humanely and called this new kind of offense as “radical evil”. Later on he got involved in prosecution process as an observer in Kudüs due to war crimes committed by Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann and by developing new statement regarding the evil during this claim, brought forward “the banality of evil” concept. In this regard, the source of evil is “thoughtlessness” with co saying “absence of thinking”. In this research, it’ll be tried to explain the thoughts of Arendt upon the evil by discussing them and to be talked epistemic dimension of the evil