Banality of Evil - Discussion and Analysis

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Discussion and Analysis (Word count) ‘To what extent was Hannah Arendt correct in saying that human beings are conditioned to be evil by authority?’ Exploring the dispute between dispositional evil and conditioned/situational evil Introduction By introducing the various sources and theories regarding Arendt’s thesis in the literature review, it is now time to scrutinise each side of the argument. My personal line of thought identifies, specifically in the context of Eichmann and the Nazi bureaucrats during the Holocaust, with Arendt in saying that human beings can be conditioned to be evil by authority. The way this discussion will pan out is as follows: a judgement on the logical validity of each argument by assessing the strengths and weaknesses, followed by an introduction to my case for a particular argument similarly scrutinised. Once my point of view has been forwarded I will round up the discussion and see how credible my viewpoint is. Arendt and the Eichmann Trial: Evidence against the notion of Dispositional Evil (for the question) Whitfield outlines in his article that the psychological tests conducted on Eichmann during his trial ultimately failed to show an evil impulse or nature within him, furthering the feasibility of conditioned evil. The article draws upon the limitations of the tests organised by Michael Selzer (the Bender-Gestalt and House-Person-Tree tests) which were forwarded to several psychologists. According to Selzer, five of the psychologists were not ‘particularly surprised to learn that his name was Adolf Eichmann’, and responded to the tests by emphasising his ‘violent personality, obsessive-compulsive nature and paranoia’. However, Thomas Litwack criticised the tests as the researches may have been able to infer who they were evaluating. Litwack’s reasoning as such it that as the tests were presided over by a renowned

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