FROM KANT TO EICHMANN: HOW KANT LED ARENDT TO THE BANALITY OF EVIL

It is often assumed that Hannah Arendt began to explore Kantian judgment seriously only after the Eichmann trial. In this article, I argue that it was, rather, Arendt’s engagement with Kantian judgment in the years before the trial that led her to the insight of the ‘banality of evil’. Recognizing the way Kantian judgment served as an important ‘origin’ for the concept of the ‘banality of evil’, I further argue, has important implications for our understanding of this concept and its significance in the development of Arendt’s thinking about genocidal perpetrators.