The Ethical Controversy of Les Bienveillantes: Reflections on the Rationality of the Executioner

Abstract

Upon its publication, Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes sparked a violent controversy that could rightly be described as ethical. The reason? A matter of perspective, a way of depicting the Holocaust. Here, we propose to examine the mechanisms behind this manifest immorality and show how the controversy surrounding Littell’s novel serves as a device capable of exposing the conditions of possibility of a historical atrocity. This reflection on the rationality of the executioner precisely reflects a moral concern.