Responsabilidade política pelo mundo comum: diálogos entre Hans Jonas e Hannah Arendt

Abstract

Modernity has bequeathed us a highly developed world, especially from a scientific and technological point of view, but it has not safeguarded us from the dangers and atrocities that we could inflict against the world in which we live and against humanity. Examples of horror and unbridled power, the extermination camps in Nazi Germany during the Second World War and the two atomic bombs dropped in Japan at the end of the same war, show us in what proportion we are at the mercy of our own artifacts and of evil capable of appearing in the banalest individuals. Hans Jonas has formulated a sagacious critique of what he calls the “modified nature of human action” brought about by modern technology, presenting responsibility to us as a moral principle appropriate to the new challenges that our actions impose on us. With the same attention and concern to reflect on her time, Hannah Arendt dissected the phenomenon of totalitarianism in its two appearances in the last century, Nazism and Stalinism, as well as leaving us a rich literature on political philosophy. This thesis aims to present how responsibility should emerge both as a political principle and as a moral principle in contemporary times for the preservation and continuity of the world. Since Jonas did not develop the political aspects of his ethics of responsibility, we defend the existence in Arendt's work of elements that lead us to the construction of a politics of responsibility. The revolutionary experiences of assemblies and council systems become examples of extraordinary policies and point to other possibilities for politics to reconcile freedom with responsibility in the form of direct participation of citizens in common affairs and the flourishing of responsibility for the world in which we act.