A B S T R A C T
Hannah
Arendt and the Question of Conscience
Mika Ojakangas
D. Soc. Sc., Docent in Political Science
Academy of Finland/Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
University of Helsinki
Website
Given her reputation as a political theorist, Hannah Arendt
is rarely considered a moral philosopher. Nevertheless, her
writings and lectures since 1960’s indicate that she
was moving from the purely political issues (action, public
sphere, appearing in common…) to the moral ones
(conscience, moral judgment…), although I believe
that she would no longer have accepted the sharp
distinction between politics and morality she maintained in
The Human Condition. For late Arendt, moral reflection had
become part of politics, even a cornerstone of it. The aim
of the paper is not, however, to pinpoint this shift of
emphasis in Arendt’s work. The aim is more modest: I
shall examine Arendt’s concept of conscience,
developed especially in her lecture “Some Question of
Moral Philosophy” and in The Life of the Mind. The
focus will be on the accuracy of her reflections on the
history of the concept, the possible new meaning she gives
to the concept, and the possible reasons why she uses this
particular concept.
Return to Program