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Abstract
Hannah Arendt claimed that “totalitarianism” emerged as a new word to designate a new form of evil in politics. However, she added, the use of a new word does not imply that we understand what this novelty consists in. This dissertation is an attempt to understand the novelty of totalitarian evil. The central argument, following Arendt, is that this understanding requires a reconsideration of the notions of action and judgment. A further argument is that a radical reconsideration of action and judgment in response to a new form of evil in modernity takes place in Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy, which influenced the political thought of two prominent post-totalitarian thinkers: Arendt and Jean-François Lyotard. The first part of the dissertation analyzes the relationship between evil and action in Kant and Arendt. For both thinkers, evil consists in the destruction of responsibility for action, which stems from the capacity to begin, transform ourselves, and establish relationships with others. The second part analyzes the relationship between evil and judgment in Kant and Lyotard. In their view, evil corrupts the power of judgment by concealing its uncertainty under absolute rules that preclude disagreement. The conclusion argues that action and judgment imply the exposure and endurance of uncertainty, while evil stems from the attempt to eliminate uncertainty.
