In her controversial study of the Eichmann Trail, “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, Hannah Arendtcoined the phrase “The Banality of Evil”. As summarized neatly in the last link, what Arendt meant was that to do great evil did not (necessarily) require evil - no evil plans, no evil intentions, nothing evil was required- just an almost robotic fealty to a higher authority, or to a job, or a command; an amoral series of actions without the conscious intent to do evil things.
And now we in Canada read about the crimes of Terri-Lynne McClintic. Although she cries in the re-tellling, even McClintic’s own account betrays the ‘matter-of-fact’ way she helped violate and then murder an eight-year-old girl, evidently simply because her boyfriend asked her to. She would even take the blame for him if it came to it. Link. Link. Link, (NB - these links contain graphic, often horrifying details)
If you can stomach it, please read the last three links (they’re not too long) and then tell me: Is Terri-Lynne McClintic evil? Is she just preternaturally stupid? I don’t know why she did what she did, but it seems to me that Arendt’s ‘Banality of Evil’ has never rang truer.
(If you insist, the “debate” here is on the nature of McClintic’s ‘evil’ - does Arendt’s thesis apply?)
McClintic’s crimes seem the opposite of banal in the sense Arendt uses it. She paints a picture of Eichmann as basically a bueraucrat, removed from the suffering and pain he caused others. McClintic personally murdered the girl (or at least, was closely involved in her murder) and seemed pretty emotionally and physically involved in it.
Yeah, I’m not seeing a banality of evil case here. Banality of evil would be where some functionary reacted the same to orders killing people as to orders for processing hamburgers - carry out the instructions, draw a paycheque, and go home to watch TV.
Here, there is some underlying personality problems at issue. From the first article:
In my eyes, the thesis is predicated on the false assertion that evil even exists. It does serve as a useful indication of how people are able to commit acts typically (though falsely) described as evil. From the sound of it, he was psychopathic, and simply felt no compassion for the little girl, that woman had fundamental drug and emotional problems and allowed herself to be manipulated and to go along with something that on her own she would probably have been unable to do. Extremely unpleasant story and I can only imagine how the parents felt and indeed how the little girl felt, but to describe it as ‘evil’ is meaningless; an emotional response and not any kind of useful descriptor. The truth is that if humans are able and willing and desire to do things such as these, then they will do them, and right and wrong will not mean very much at all.
Absolutely she was intimately involved. I don’t dispute that (and couldn’t).
But, was she saying, “I will now do evil. I will help assault her and then I, I will hammer Tori to death”? No, she did those things because she was told to. The bottom line is that she didn’t care. It was of no concern to her that her actions were abominable. She had a job to do, a promise to fulfill. (As an aside, the retroactive guilty, repentant spin she puts on things in the telling of her deeds, is just that - spin. At the time, she was, in some sense just following orders).
Eichmann wasn’t trying to do evil. The things he did which we would call evil were of no concern to him. He didn’t care.
And, that, I think is the essence of the banality - not caring. Or, at least, caring about the wrong thing. Caring about doing the job, or finishing the task, but not about the suffering one is inflicting.
Indeed. Despite the fact that my OP would seem to indicate that I believe ‘evil’ exists, I basically agree with you; at least on one level - there are no absolutes. That being said, from a practical standpoint, or at least with the supposition that certain actions are inexplicable and counterproductive to all (including the perpetrator), there seems to be some intuitive reasonableness to the notion of ‘evil’.
Her own testimony seems to indicate she did care. She could of course be lying, but I don’t really see any reason to be so confident thats the case. Her testimony is meant to help her boyfriend (she’s already been sentenced) so if anything, her incentives would be to make herself seem like a psychopath that murdered the child on her own initiative after the rape. Given that she isn’t really doing that makes me think the rest of her testimony is also true.
I have every respect for your opinion, I would say however that we are conflating two separate, distinct concepts. The concept of morality, with the concept of utility. It certainly serves no useful purpose whatsoever, indeed it is even counter-productive as you have rightly asserted. However, this if anything simply outlines why:
A. To conceive of morality is unnecessary - are rational ‘moral’ people not simply acting in utilitarian ways, with emotional justifications/moral narratives as a result of socialisation
B. The concept of evil is actually the concept of unjustifiable, illogical acts with consequences we don’t agree with. That we don’t agree with them is probably a result of both learning to extend pack/family/tribe altruism to the entirety of the human race, and also cultural socialisation - in this case as regards to the sanctity of a child’s life and also that it is fundamentally wrong to kill for enjoyment - both factors affecting each-other reflexively.
I do not argue, for example, that I do not strongly disagree with child murder, but had I been socialised from childhood by someone like the psychopathic man in this story, with no ‘positive’ influences, I very much doubt I would see anything wrong with this behaviour - it does not carry intrinsic moral value, but rather that which we learn to ascribe to it.
Some significant conceptual dissonance comes from a conflict between two ways of viewing evil. The “people just like us” theory and the “demon spirits” theory. Both are wrong…but, like most moral ideas, both have some validity.
Are murderers “just ordinary people gone wrong?” Many are. Are murderers “crazed evil maniacs with insane eyes?” Many are.
The former idea is troubling because it can imply that evil is endemic in humanity. My neighbor might be capable of incredibly vicious acts. I, myself, might, under sufficient pressure, commit evil acts. The university experiments involving volunteers inflicting (supposed) pain on test subjects is indicative.
The latter idea is troubling because it can imply that evil is “outside,” that it comes from “others,” that it is alien, exceptional, unique – and thus can be treated with “othering” techniques, such as ostracism, imprisonment, or execution. It comforts us, but removes our responsibilities.
Much evil is banal. Much is psychopathic and “alien” to our minds. One size doesn’t fit all.
What an eloquent and pithy summation of moral relativism; I wish I could have come up with something that cogent! Can you be my new best friend?
(And in case there’s any doubt whether I’m being sarcastic - this is the written medium after all - as a moral relativist myself who agrees with the position above I sincerely meant that)
I’d say (though I accept many may disagree) that the primary difference between moral relativism and moral nihilism is the application of the same framework to your own life, which in turn reflexively shapes your discourse on the matter.
I think you are simply misunderstanding the phrase “banality of evil”. You are reducing it to “lacking empathy”. It implies something more specific than that to my mind. The essence of the phrase is not simply absence of empathy, but absence of the sort of imaginative facility that could make the leap from processing of files in an office (or other such duties) to horrors carried out in the field, as it were.
I agree that the murderers in this case lacked empathy for their victim. However, a psycopath carrying out abduction and murder with her own hands as part of some sort of twisted psychodrama is worlds away from a guy like Eichmann. The true horror of people like Eichmann is that they carried out duties that lead to horrors these two psychos could never have dreamed about, but apparently without for a moment thinking they were acting badly. For these two, acting badly was as it were the whole point.
Could not disagree more. The Golden Rule points towards objective morality. What’s the concern, exactly, with enshrining it (applied flexibly and intelligently) as the foundation of a system of intrinsic moral values? That psychopaths would not agree with it? Too bad for them. I do not simply have a “disagreement” with such people. I am right on the matter of child-murder for fun, and they are simply wrong. Their point of view on the matter is not somehow worthy of equal consideration.
I never understood the “problem” that adopting moral relativism as a philosophical position was supposed to “solve”.
You are misusing the word ‘objective’. I have no real problerm with your position however, I will simply say that moral relativism is not supposed to solve a problem, it is simply supposed to be logically correct, as opposed to emotionally-charged assertions of moral certainty, which are logically incorrect. It’s a matter of your understanding of the nature of meta-ethics.
Asking about whether psycopaths would agree with it is missing the point entirely. I am not defending them, merely using them as an example of the subjective and essentially arbitrary nature of moral values.
You misunderstand what is meant by “objective” and you are misusing the phrases “logically correct” and “emotionally charged”. There is no “emotional charge” to the assertion that the Golden Rule (again, applied intelligently) is the proper foundation for an objective morality - and you appear to be asserting that if something is asserted emotionally, it is not logically correct, when the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They are not opposites.
There is a whole philosophy of attempting to remove subjective biases from analysis of morality - see for example the “veil of ignorance”. The existence of bias and subjectivity no more invalidate moral objectivity than measuring errors invalidate physics.
And a damn poor example for you they make. How on earth is the actions of psychos that even you agree are wrong an “… example of the subjective and essentially arbitrary nature of moral values”? They are the reverse. Everyone (even the psychos involved, probably) agrees that killing little girls for fun is morally wrong; according to moral theory I propose, they are wrong. How is this judgment “essentially arbitrary”?
It is essentially arbitrary because the perception that it is wrong is a application of subjective moral value to an action that is objectively valueless. I don’t like that you throw about this ‘everyone’ stuff, as if you can speak for everyone. What people claim to objectively ‘know’ about moral value is essentially and fundamentally what they have learned (i.e. been socialised) to apply.
Further, I have not misunderstood the meaning of any word, you’ve merely disagreed with my application of those words to the concept, fundamental difference. If I am misunderstanding them, what is my knowledge of the words versus their ‘actual’ meaning? If you can outline where it is you think I’m going wrong, I’ll be happy to re-evaluate.
The phrase “banality of evil” makes me think of it like this: let’s say person A works for company X. Company X builds cars. Person A designs them. Let’s say company X gives person A a task: he is to reduce costs in the latest car design by slightly reducing the rigidity of certain components while staying within required specs. This will make the cars slightly less safe, in that there will be a tiny but definite increase in the number of deaths caused in collisions, say three per year. Company X has determined that the cost of the resulting lawsuits will not exceed the savings made by changing the design, and therefore orders the redesign, which person A does.
There’s no emotional connection here. The additional deaths are numbers on a page. The truth, however, is that each family suffers a crippling loss, directly caused by person A, someone they’ll never meet who will never see them. The evil lies in reducing human life to a numbers exercise simply because you’ll never have to get your own hands dirty. That’s the “banality”. McClintic is a psychopath; there’s nothing “banal” about her behavior.
I feel like this sort of moral relativistic (or nihilistic) thinking is an example of what the OP is referring to. Yes, there probably is no such thing as “evil” or “good” in terms of some measurable particle or force or intangible spirit or whatever. But it serves a useful shorthand to describe actions that harm or help people. But it seems to me that to declare that there is no such thing as evil or morality really opens the door to all sorts of reprehensible behavior because it’s convenient, profitable or simply because you feel like it. That’s how sociopaths think. They do things because they feel like it or it is to their benefit. They don’t do other things (like murder 8 year olds) not because they belive it “wrong” but because they find the legal consequences undesirable.
Murdering an 8 year old girl is inherently wrong. For any number of reasons that for most people, don’t need to be logically justified. However, if you dehumanize that same 8 year old. For example, if they are nothing more than a number on a spreadsheet, it becomes increasingly easier to make decisions that might ultimately do her harm. Of course, usually if you are making decisions like that, you aren’t usually deciding which 8 year olds to hammer to death. They are more likely decisions on how to benefit the most or harm the least number of people and the unfortunate consequeces might be that in helping some people, other people are harmed.
When that becomes “evil” is when people make decisions that affect others with no thought other than the benefit to themselves. Like a CEO deciding that it’s better to loot a company than to try to turn it around and make it profitable.
I’m using “everyone” here because, pretty well by definition, everyone who isn’t a psychopath or insane agrees on this point. Most psychopaths also probably know it is wrong as well, but simply choose to do it anyway. However, this isn’t an argumentum ad populum, since my argument does not rely on “everyone” knowing something to be true. On the contrary. The beauty of objective morality is that it can lead to conclusions that run counter to what “everyone” in a certain time or place “knows” to be true - such as, for example, the anti-slavery movement. This demonstrates that it is not simply a matter of learned socialization.
You have simply asserted that it is “objectively valueless” and thus “arbitrary”. I’m disagreeing that it is valueless. I say that it is objectively wrong.
You are observably and historically incorrect that what people morally “know” is simply learned socialization. If that were true, where to changes and advances in moral reasoning come from? Why, for example, is slavery now considered “wrong”? How did anti-slavery folks ever agitate against slavery? Surely they would have been “socialized” that it was morally correct in their time and place, right?
Certainly.
First, you have asserted that “emotionally-charged assertions of moral certainty” are “logically incorrect”. To my mind at least you are therefore asserting that objective morality, such as that I have proposed, is based on “emotionally-charged assertions of moral certainty”.
Please identify the ‘emotional charge’ you are claiming to observe here.
Second, explain why asserting something “emotionally” makes it “logically incorrect”. If I am passionate and certain about 2 + 2 equalling 4, does that therefore mean I’m logically incorrect?
