A irreflexão como causa da banalidade do mal: ação e responsabilidade pelo mundo

Abstract

This research examines how the absence of thought, evidenced in the phenomenon of the banality of evil, illuminates the relationship between responsibility and action in the world in the work of Hannah Arendt. To develop this approach, Arendt draws on the historical experience of totalitarian regimes, in which the problem of evil takes on an unprecedented form. In this context, the weakening of the exercise of thought and the dissolution of individual responsibility in the face of extreme events that strain the limits of moral and political judgment become visible. It is in this scenario that the idea of the banality of evil develops, whose concrete applicability is evidenced in the author's reflections on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. At this point, Arendt demonstrates that superficiality and the inability to think can make the practice of evil possible.