A banalidade do mal e as possibilidades da educação moral: Contribuições arendtianas

Abstract

We face today the crisis of an era rather than an era of crisis, in which education has a fundamental role to perform. In this sense, this paper revisits the work of Hannah Arendt, a philosopher who thought and lived in dark times, in order to understand better some fundamental concepts necessary for rethinking moral education or education in values. Based on analysis of two of Hannah Arendt's studies, entitled Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil and The life of the mind, this paper seeks to comprehend how and why Hannah Arendt coined the concept of banality of evil. This paper also seeks to understand in what sense this concept relates to both the emptiness of thought and to a proposal for education in values.