Hannah Arendt: Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship (Bonus Close Reading)
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In the chapter titled, “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship,” from Hannah Arendt’s Responsibility and Justice, she confronts one of the most troubling moral questions of the twentieth century: what does it mean to remain morally responsible when living under a tyrannical regime? Writing in the shadow of Nazi totalitarianism and drawing on her broader reflections about authority, judgment, and evil, Arendt challenges the comforting assumption that individuals are absolved of responsibility when they are “just following orders.” Instead, she argues that even under extreme political coercion, individuals retain the capacity—and therefore the burden—of moral judgment.
In this essay, Arendt explores the tension between obedience and conscience, legality and morality, and private complicity versus public action. She asks whether ordinary people can excuse their actions by appealing to social norms or state authority, and she scrutinizes the psychological and political mechanisms that allow wrongdoing to become normalized. Rather than portraying evil as monstrous or exceptional, Arendt suggests that it can arise from thoughtlessness—a failure to critically examine one’s own participation in unjust systems.
Please join us in a close reading of this sample of Hannah Arendt’s work. All are welcome!