Itajaí-SC, 2016.
RESUMO
ABSTRACT
Responsibility – considered not only in legal, but also in moral and political terms –
has been neglected by the legal actors. The increasing bureaucratization of life in all
areas is an obstacle to assigning responsibility to individuals, and the tendency not to
exercise the faculty of judgment, identified by Arendt for over 40 years, still persists.
In the practice and teaching of law, this trend seems to stand out, perhaps even due
to the positivist imposition to separate law and morality, which ultimately relegates
studies concerning moral issues to a secondary position. In this context, this work
looks to Hannah Arendt’s work for a model that will enable a better understanding
and perspective on responsibility. Among Arendt’s writing, three works were chosen
to guide the research: The Human Condition, Eichmann in Jerusalem, and
Responsibility and Judgment. Three dimensions of responsibility were identified:
responsibility to think and choose for one-self; responsible for judging and choosing
examples; and responsibility for the common world through conscious action. While
the first two dimensions can be classified as forms of personal responsibility, the
latter can be said to be hybrid; This is because although it can sometimes be thought
of as personal or individual responsibility, it is also conceived by Arendt as a
collective responsibility, as there are deeds that cannot be performed by man on his
own. Seeking to understand these categories, the study starts with the Human
Condition, the activities of the vita activa and its constraints and spatiality, focusing on
action - and therefore, the plurality (it’s condition) and public space (where it
develops). This is because the understanding of action, according to Arendt, is critical
for understanding the author’s concept of responsibility for the common world. In the
second chapter, we investigate the underlying notion of responsibility in Eichmann in
Jerusalem; this is a work that advances many arguments that were later developed in
the articles comprising Responsibility and Judgment, for example, the banality of evil,
a phenomenon that Arendt faced while writing the book, was the catalyst for
questions that would occupy her until her death: the activities of the life of the mind
(think, want and judge) and their relationship to work, fabrication and action (activities
of active life). It is in thinking of this relationship that the dimensions of responsibility
become evident and can be better understood. The essay method was used in the
10
research phase, and a literature review was used as the research technique.
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