Justice

If the Nazi government can be called evil for committing the Holocaust then shouldn't the American government during the time of slavery be regarded as evil also?

Comments

The notion of evil is somewhat problematic in this context, since it is a very loaded term. Indeed, Hannah Arendt's influential Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, argued that Adolf Eichmann's actions aren't straightforwardly seen as evil (hence the subtitle of her book). One might extend Arendt's doubts to other members of the Nazi government as well, and, even, to members of the American governments that presided over and perpetuated.

I would, therefore, wish to reformulate the question as whether the Nazi and American governments are morally blameworthy for their actions, and to this question I would respond, unhesitatingly, that both are certainly morally blameworthy, and probably reprehensible, as well.

Read another response by Sean Greenberg

Read another response about Justice