Legal Theory: Postscript Of Eichmann In Jerusalem By Hannah Arendt

Asha Walker
Legal Theory: Paper 1
Professor Meyer
October 30th, 2015

In the postscript of Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt writes about the controversy that arose over her original account on her views of Eichmann. Arendt largest observation from the trial was that Nazi criminal were ordinary people who committed atrocious crimes and thought they had the right incentive to do so. Eichmann was a German Nazi SS and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. After he was captured he stood trial on multiple criminal charges against the Jewish people. He was ultimately found guilty and put to death. Lon Fuller wrote that there was an 'inner morality' of the law and that law and morality are inextricably mixed. This idea of natural law

Hart believes in a separation between the law as it should and the law as it is. H.L.A. He was influenced by the notion of the chain of connection but also held the belief that man in his natural state is selfish and savage and, therefore, a single ruler is the best for of government. The law is only legitimate if someone who holds the highest power and has no regards to the law has performed it. There are many necessary connections between law and morality, some of them conceptually significant. There is an important connection, being that law is morally imperfect and morally risky. He argued that legal positivism involves the “separation of law and

Eichmann was the chief organizer of the Nazi 'final solution' and claimed at his trial that he had only done what he had been ordered to do. Eichmann would view the same way as Hart does. He believed what he was doing morally right because he was following the orders of someone higher up. Eichmann's main line of defense was that he was just following orders and that he just played a small role in the killing process. Hart and Fuller used the Nazi legal conundrum as the background to argue their opposing views of the meaning of a law. Hart argued that Nazi laws, though wicked, were like any other laws that must be obeyed. Fuller, a proponent of natural law, contended that every law must be examined through the filter of “inner morality.” For Fuller, since Nazi laws were immoral, they could not be granted the status of law. Hart disagreed, conceding that laws may be immoral but maintaining that this does not disqualify them from becoming