"The Great Masquerade of Evil"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Ethics for Times of Exception

Abstract

Starting from a text written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the turn of 1942 to 1943, in which he analyzes the decade that passed between the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the period of writing the text, we investigate what type of ethics he proposes for that period of exception in which all institutional and cultural references disappeared. It partially examines the text of ethics that Bonhoeffer was working on when he was arrested by Nazi forces. Secondly, the reflection proposed by the author is placed in an expanded context, making use of the contributions of people who were also involved in the effort to think about that moment (Arendt, Jonas, Adorno), unearthing from that situation the notion of responsibility as the only possible action in a state of exception. At a time when the issue of fascism is once again on the agenda, this examination of the issue of responsibility takes its place once again.

Keywords: State of exception. Fascism. Ethics. Responsibility