Abstract

One of the most debated issues in Arendt scholarship concerns the relationship between ethics and politics, especially the separation between them. This essay intends to point out the basis for this disjunction. The grounds for this segregation can be found in Arendt’s rethinking of politics and in her radical notion of action, that is spontaneous by nature. What some critics have not adequately underlined is that the term «morality» can have different meanings, therefore it is important to understand what Arendt is removing when she parses the ethical from the realm of the political. Her approach does not imply an immoral political domain. This essay contends that the rift between politics and a certain kind of ethics not only reaffirm the autonomy of action toward moral rules but also the autonomy of thinking toward any context. In this exercise the aesthetics plays a crucial role