Eating Ethically: Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil
Publication Type |
Journal Article |
Year of Publication |
2002 |
Author |
|
Journal |
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly |
Volume |
76 |
Number |
2 |
Pages |
295-320 |
Language |
English |
Publish Dates |
Spring |
Keywords |
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Annotation |
Boulous looks at Levinas’s notion of responsibility in relation to Weil’s concept of grace. She begins with a relatively brief but careful presentation of Levinas’s notion of subjectivity in relation to responsibility towards the other. She goes on to examine Weil’s ideas around gravity and grace, arguing against conceptions that posit them in dualistic opposition. She then elaborates on Weil’s vision of social ethics and Levinas’s responsibility before addressing that difficulties that arise in her contention “Levinas’s responsibility speaks to and informs our reading of Weil’s grace” (p. 310) Ultimately Boulous presents apparent areas of disagreement between these two thinkers and then attempts to show they are not as irreconcilable as might first be supposed. She concludes with a discussion of Weil’s anorexia offering a possible interpretation of it as less a symptom of some misguided sense of control over the body and environment as the majority of the discussions in the psychological literature suggest, and more the tragic result of an extreme sense of ethical responsibility for others. |