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‘Exploding the Limits of Law’: Judgment and Freedom in Arendt and Adorno

‘Exploding the Limits of Law’: Judgment and Freedom in Arendt and Adorno In Eichmann in Jerusalem , Hannah Arendt struggled to defend the possibility of judgment against the obvious problems encountered in attempts to offer legally valid and morally meaningful judgments of those who had committed crimes in morally bankrupt communities. Following Norrie, this article argues that Arendt’s conclusions in Eichmann are equivocal and incoherent. Exploring her perspectival theory of judgment, the article suggests that Arendt remains trapped within certain Kantian assumptions in her philosophy of history, and as such sees the question of freedom in a binary way. The article argues that Adorno’s philosophy of freedom provides the resources to diagnose and overcome Arendt’s shortcomings. Adorno’s position provides a way of embracing the antinomical character of judgment, by emphasising the need for elements of reason and nature in the phenomenon of freedom. In Adorno’s lights, judgment becomes an attempt to express a ‘spirit of solidarity’ with the tragic status of the potentially free but actually unfree subject of modernity. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Res Publica Springer Journals

‘Exploding the Limits of Law’: Judgment and Freedom in Arendt and Adorno

Reeves, Craig
Res Publica , Volume 15 (2) – May 1, 2009
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References (58)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Subject
Philosophy; Philosophy; Ethics; Political Philosophy; Philosophy of Religion; Philosophy of Law
ISSN
1356-4765
eISSN
1572-8692
DOI
10.1007/s11158-009-9088-0
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In Eichmann in Jerusalem , Hannah Arendt struggled to defend the possibility of judgment against the obvious problems encountered in attempts to offer legally valid and morally meaningful judgments of those who had committed crimes in morally bankrupt communities. Following Norrie, this article argues that Arendt’s conclusions in Eichmann are equivocal and incoherent. Exploring her perspectival theory of judgment, the article suggests that Arendt remains trapped within certain Kantian assumptions in her philosophy of history, and as such sees the question of freedom in a binary way. The article argues that Adorno’s philosophy of freedom provides the resources to diagnose and overcome Arendt’s shortcomings. Adorno’s position provides a way of embracing the antinomical character of judgment, by emphasising the need for elements of reason and nature in the phenomenon of freedom. In Adorno’s lights, judgment becomes an attempt to express a ‘spirit of solidarity’ with the tragic status of the potentially free but actually unfree subject of modernity.

Journal

Res Publica – Springer Journals

Published: May 1, 2009

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