Lecture 2: Introductory Lecture

What this lecture covers

This lecture is a class discussion of Hannah Arendt's account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who organized the transport of Jews to concentration camps. Shapiro uses students' reactions to Eichmann's conduct, and to Israel's controversial capture, trial, and execution of him, to surface the course's guiding question: what makes a government's authority legitimate, and when can it be resisted or defied?

Building on the first lecture's overview, this session shows how the five traditions previewed earlier (utilitarian, Marxist, social contract, anti-Enlightenment, democratic) will each supply a different answer to that question. It closes by introducing John Locke as the following lecture's topic and explaining why Locke matters for several traditions at once.

Key ideas

• Banality of evil: Arendt's term for Eichmann's ordinariness; he was not driven by hatred but by a desire to please superiors and do his job efficiently, without reflecting on the larger purpose.
• Unreflectiveness as the core discomfort: what troubles readers about Eichmann is his failure to question orders, not any visible malice.
• Apparent tension: Eichmann is criticized for obeying an illegitimate order, while Israel's commandos are criticized for disregarding legal procedure (extradition, evidence rules, appeal) to capture and try him.
• Legitimate vs. illegitimate regimes: the tension resolves once you separate the case where the underlying order (the Third Reich) is itself illegitimate from the case where international law, though imperfect, is not.
• Legal positivism: the view that law is simply whatever a society enforces, with no higher natural law behind it; contrasted with the idea of a natural law standard used to call the Third Reich a "criminal regime."
• Five traditions previewed: utilitarian (maximize happiness), Marxist (eliminate exploitation), social contract (consent), anti-Enlightenment (inherited tradition), democratic (affected interest).

Walkthrough

Who Eichmann was and what motivated him (0:01)

The class discussion opens by establishing Eichmann's actual role: not a policy maker who designed the Final Solution, but an implementer who organized the logistics of transporting Jews to concentration camps. Students describe him as driven mainly by self-advancement and a desire to please his superiors, not by visceral antisemitism - he reportedly had Jewish friends and had once supported Zionism, but did whatever his superiors asked without reflection.

The banality of evil (5:12)

Students identify what makes Eichmann unsettling: his lack of reflection about the larger purpose of his actions, his loyalty to superiors over any independent moral judgment, and his apparent satisfaction at being commended for a job well done. Shapiro connects this to Arendt's phrase "the banality of evil" - Eichmann doesn't seem like a monster but like an ordinary, unremarkable man, which is precisely what makes the case unsettling: it raises the question of how anyone might behave in his position.

Discomfort with Israel's capture and trial of Eichmann (11:21)

Turning to the second reading question, students explain why Israel bypassed extradition and instead had Mossad agents kidnap Eichmann from Argentina, reasoning that formal extradition would have let him disappear. They then raise objections to what followed: loose standards of evidence, an execution carried out within hours of his appeal being denied, the trial's showiness and mixture of justice with revenge and catharsis, doubts about Israeli jurisdiction over a crime committed elsewhere, and the fact the verdict felt like a foregone conclusion.

The apparent tension between the two discomforts (24:57)

Shapiro highlights a contradiction: the class was uncomfortable with Eichmann for failing to question and resist the authority he served, but also uncomfortable with Israel for doing exactly that - disregarding existing international legal procedure to achieve what it saw as the right outcome. He asks the class whether this is a real contradiction or only an apparent one.

Resolving the tension: legitimate vs. illegitimate regimes (30:11)

A student proposes, and Shapiro endorses, the resolution: discomfort with Eichmann stems from the fact that the regime he obeyed - the Third Reich - was illegitimate, so his failure to resist it is the problem. Discomfort with Israel's actions stems from the fact that the international legal order it bypassed, while imperfect, is not illegitimate in the same way, so disregarding it is more troubling. This reframes the whole discussion around one deeper question: what makes a regime legitimate or illegitimate in the first place?

Five traditions of political legitimacy (32:12)

Shapiro previews the five traditions the course will use to answer that question: the utilitarian tradition (legitimacy through maximizing the greatest happiness of the greatest number), the Marxist tradition (legitimacy through the absence of exploitation), the social contract tradition (legitimacy through the consent of the governed), the anti-Enlightenment tradition (legitimacy through inherited tradition and norms), and the democratic tradition (legitimacy through the principle of affected interest, often via majority rule).

Legal positivism and next lecture on Locke (41:33)

Responding to a student's suggestion that "might makes right," Shapiro introduces legal positivism - the view that law is simply whatever a society is able to enforce, with no higher natural law standard behind it - and contrasts it with the natural law idea implicitly used to call the Third Reich a criminal regime. He closes by correcting himself on the schedule: the next lecture will cover John Locke rather than Bentham, since Locke represents both the Enlightenment's twin commitments to science and freedom and the social contract tradition, and will recur throughout the course.

Before you watch

• Read Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (or at least know its basic narrative) before this discussion, since the lecture assumes familiarity with the book.
• Review Lecture 1 for the course's five traditions and the concept of political legitimacy, which this session builds on directly.

Check your understanding

1. What does Arendt mean by "the banality of evil," and how does the discussion connect it to Eichmann's motivations?
2. Why did Israel choose to kidnap Eichmann rather than pursue extradition, and what procedural objections does the class raise about his trial?
3. Explain the apparent contradiction between condemning Eichmann's obedience and condemning Israel's departure from legal procedure. How does Shapiro resolve it?
4. What is legal positivism, and how does it differ from the idea of natural law invoked to judge the Third Reich illegitimate?