Monstrous Thinking and Arendt’s Banality of Evil

In ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ by Hannah Arendt, Arendt gives an account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a man responsible for the handling and transportation of Jewish people during world war 2, from the beginning of Jewish emigration to the ‘final solution’. In this account of the trial, Arendt analyses the psychology of Eichmann, and in doing so lays out the ground work for her idea of the banality of evil, that someone doesn’t have to be evil to participate in evil behaviour. I will relate this to the concept of monstrous thinking, and how Arendt’s understanding is a good example of a psychological framework that can overcome and challenge monstrous thinking and other dogmatic ethical views.