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Simone Weil on Rights Language and Force

Patricia Roche

Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University Montréal

July, 1992

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts.

C Patricia Roche 1992

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1 am grateful to The Faculty of Religious Studies for understanding the importance of

inter-disciplinary studies and agreeing to sponsor my work.

1 have benefited greatly from the kindness and patience of my thesis Supervisor, Gregory

Baum.

Shelley McPherson, Veronica Dyck, Ma(;ve Ly~ol1, Mary Anne Roche, Claire Cadrin,

David Gairdner, and Rebecca Kingston offered friendùip that sustained me. 1 am grateful

to Michael Smith for his love and support, although he nev,:!' quite grasped Chapter Two.

1 am grateful for the women and children al Auberge Tran ;itio.1 who fuelled my interest

in the non-economic dimrnsions of oppression and for those members of the Christian

Task Force on Central America who insist on the distinction between human rights and

the rights of the poor.

Without the generosity of Janet Gear 1 would not have been able to complete this project.

If any friendship in my life approaches Weil's standard surely it is this one.

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DEDICATION

In memory of S. L. and to being in the 15%.

,," '.

ABSTRACf

This thesis is an exercise in the retrieval of a critique of the moral language of rights.

Grounded in her account of moral agency and her analysis of for('~, Simone Weil's

critique of rights language goes beyond, although il contains, the Marxisl view of rights

language as ideological, as masking power relations. Weil argued not only that humans

are unable to extract themselves from social and economic relations in order to appear

equal on the political level, but also they are unable to extract themselves from the

consequences of force. The thesis clarifies the Weilian appeal to examine in detail the

consequences of force as a precondition to justice. Failure to conduct such an examination

Weil views as a flight from reality, a consolation. Weil argued that facing the

consequences of force is a virtue and requires the exercise of attention, a pivotai concept

of her paradigm of renunciation. Weil's ethica1 category of affliction represents the

p~ycho-social dimensions of extreme forms of victimization. Weil distinguished three

objects of violation that compose reification: the body, self-interpretation and relatedness.

The capacity to articulate, Weil argues, is impaired by practices which result in affliction.

The recognition of muteness engenders understanding of the depth of violation. The

impact of the rnuteness of the aftlicted on the public sphere, discourse, and conceptions

of justice is disclosed by the ethical category of affliction. The category of affliction

discloses, not the absent vaice but, the absence of a voice.

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RÉSUMÉ

Cettel:.èse repré~nte une récupération d'une critique du langage des droits. Basée sur

une anthropologie philosophique et sur une analyse de la force, la critique qu'offre

Simone Weil surpasse, mais contient, la thèse marxiste de la fonction idéologige du

language des droits comme un masque "pour des relations de pouvoir. Weil affirme non

seulement que l'être humain ne peut s'extraire des relations sociales et économiques pour

participer pleinement à la vic po1,itique, mais aussi qu'il est impossible de se séparer des

conséquences de la force. Cette thèse clarifie l'appel Weilien d'examiner en détail les

conséquences de la force comme condition nécessaire de la justice. L'absence d'une telle

examen flÏe la realité et n'est qu'une consolation, selon Weil. WeiJ soutient que faire face

aux con~uences de la force est une vertu et demande de l'attention, un concept central

de son paradigme du renoncement. Le malheur, concept éthique de Weil, représente les

dimensions psychologiques et sociales des formes de victimization extrême. V/eil a

di!.tingué trois objets de violation qui composent la réification: le corps, l'interprétation

de soi, et la relationnalité. La capacité d'articulation est diminuée par des pratiques qui

génèrent la détresse, selon Weil. La reconnaissance du mutisme engendre la

compréhension de l'ampleur de la violation. L'impact du mutisme de la victime du

malheur sur la domaine public, sur le discours et sur les concepts de la justice est révélé

par la compréhension qu'offre Weil du malheur. Le concept éthique du malheur ne révèle

pas la voîx absente, mais l'absence d'une voix.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION ......... . · . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • . 1 Biography ......... . · . . .. . .................. 2 Method ........... . · ........................ 4

CHAPTER ONE - DECREATION .............................. 8

Introduction ......... . . . . . . . ...................... 8

Part 1 - Clarification ................................... 9 Creation ...................................... 9 The Object of Consent: Decreatlon ..................... Il The Summons to Consent: Attention .................... 14

Part II - DecreatlOn: An Interpretatlon ....................... 18 ReIatedness ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Engagement and EmanCipation ....................... 19

Part III - Interpretations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Abandonment of the Human ......................... 22

Decreation SupernaturaI ....................... 23

Feminist Critique ............................... 25 The Summons to Sacnfice as Oppression ............ 26 Self-ActualizatlOn over Self-Effucement ............ 27 Strength of the Weak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Nature of Hunger ....................... 29

Conclusion ........................ 31

CHAPTER TWO - FORCE AND AFFLICTION ..................... 33

Introduction ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Part 1 - Clarification .................................. 34 Force ....................................... 34

The Weilian Appeal: An Ethic of Knowing the Worst ..... 37 Affliction .................................... 38

Physical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Psycho-Social: Invisibility and the Imitation of Nothingness . 40

Part Il - Interpretation . . . . .. ..... ..................... 43 Blindnes~ .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 44

Depth of Harrn ....... . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 45 Deafness. ..... ............................. 46

Force and Dlscourse ........................ 46 Absent VOIce ............................ 47

A Common Vulnerabliny to AfflIctIon ................... 48

Part III - ApplicatIon .................................. 50 The Centrahty of Labour. .. . ...................... 50

Labour as Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . 51 Labour as Renunciation . . . . . . . . ............... 53

Conclusion. . . . . . . . .. . ............................ 54

CHAPTER THREE - RIGHTS ................................ 56

Introduction ........................ ............... 56

Part 1 - Weil's Cntique ......... . · .................... 57 Object of Violation ....... . · .................... 58 False Assimilation ........ . · .................... 59 The BargaInJOg Spirit . . . ... . .... . ..... ...... . .... 60 Ideologlcal Functlon . . . . . . . . . · .................... 61

Part II - Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Non-Economlc DimenSIons of Oppression ................ 64 Procedural Justice ............................... 67

Part III - Language of Human Misery ....................... 68 Muteness .................................... 69 Precision or Understanding ......................... 70 Interpretation over Regulation . . . . . . . . . ............... 72 Ethical Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 74

Conclusion .. ............... . 7S

CONCLUSION ... . ............... 77

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................ 92

INTRODUCTION

Moral language. the articulation of moral outrage and the articulation of the

basis of respt.'<:t, dictates the encounter with the object of moral outrage. The language

Simone Weil developed which captured the impairment of moral agency lS the object

of this exercise in retrieval. In this thesis 1 will argue that the ethical category of

affliction provides a valuable contribution to contemporary moral disputes around the

adequacy of rights language. 1 want to articulate the Weilian appeal to analyze the

consequences of force which 1 hope to flesh out through a clarification of her concept

of a1Hiction. The thesis is intended to show that Weil's critique of rights language is

grounded in her account of moral agency and her appeal to analyze the consequences

of force.

What is at issue in this argument is the med;":.n of moral discourse. Are we

somewhat confused in the way we use rights language and do we apply the label

"rights violation" often too quickly such that our excessive reliance on the moral

language of rights distorts our understanding of what it means to he a human being

and consequently what is the basis of respect? If our moral language is constitutive of

the self then criticism of this language involvl~s shaking up our self-understanding.

How a moral language is employed, how social practices are described and evaluated

(and these are not two distinct operations), the practice of the moral language, is very

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revcaling of the nature of the public sphere. These are some of the larger questions

that insplred a closer exammatlon of Weil's writing.

1 became interested in Weil's writmg in large part because of the commitment

she maintams both to phllosophical inquiry and accompanying the oppressed. While

Weil writes as a philosopher, it IS possible to read her work through a lens other than

that of a student of phllosophy. It is possible to seek philosophical guidance in her

work for those who, today, work with the marginaHzed or victims of oppression.

Biography

Simone Weil, a French philosopher and social theorist, writing in the 1930s

and carly 1940s was very critical of rights language. Weil argued against the concept

of personal rights; she had no conception of using rights language in th~ way the

terms: 'solidanty' or 'collective nghts' are used today.

Il is precisely through examinatlon of the stark contrasts in Weil's work that

her originality shines and this rrecludes the conformity required to house her thought

in any one school. Weil's writing as a whole resists being claimed by the left or the

right as she tried to move beyond views based on either "the dread of social constraint

[or] the dread of individual whim", 1 although there are definite socialist and

conservative moments in her writing. Recently, the New Left has claimed her but she

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will surely slip through their f,ngers as weIL In 1958 Czeslaw Milosz, who would win

the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, translated Weil's works into Polish because he

under~tood \" 'eil's writing as a "weapon" in a struggle to reveal choices beyond

abandoning Marxism for Christianity or abandoning Christianity for Marxism. Indeed,

in her essay "The Power of Word')", Weil wrote:

How far can the ills arising from the social relations which exist today be attributed to this or that convention and how far are they attributable to the totality of conventions of our economic life? How far are they attributable to other factors, either permanent factors which wouid persist after the transformation of the economic system or, on the contrary, factors which could be elimir.ated without putting an end to what is called the regime?2

Simone Weil's life "abolishes the false antithesis between the religico-

contemplative and the militantly committed. "3 Weil's social activism, which included

experiences of factory and agricultural work, participation with the anarchists in the

Spanish civil war and collaboration with the French resistance, informed her social

theory.4 Raised a secular Jew, a mystical experience inspired a relationship with

Catholicism and a turn toward religious themes in her writing. These two elements:

Weil's social activisrn and her deep religious interests have inspired biographers to

describe her life through the analogy of a "worker-priest". 5

Undergirding Weil's rejection of rights language is a conception of moral

agency, language and society. 1 want to examine the foundation out of which the laler

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view involving a rejection of rights language emerges. Thi!; thesis is an exercise in the

retrieval of a rejection of rights language but it is not a polemic against rights

language. 1 want to argue instead that Weil's critique enables us to focus on the nature

of practices we currently label violations of rights, permitting us to look at what the

nature of forces, which are ('(\nstitutive of these practices, tell us about modem

society. The thesis is not an innocent critique of rights language but instead an

argument to interpret (read: something quite distinct from regulate) the practices we

eurrently label violations of human rights.

Method

1 want to interpret the rejection of rights language through Weil's philosophical

anthropology and analysis of force. The purpose of the argument as a whole is to

demonstrate that these two elements undergird her specifie rejection of rights

language. Chapters one, two and three treat respectively: moral ageney, force and

rights. The first ehapter describes Weil's view of human excellence, the second

ehapter focuses on what is a damaged human (victimization) and the third chapter

dea1s with Weil's prescription that inhabiting the damage is a precondition for the

rehabilitation of society and consequently the victim of force. The questions whieh

serve as heuristie devices for each ehapter are as follows: in what lies moral agency,

how is the exercise of moral agency impaired, and, why is rights language unable to

play the eritica1 and explanatory funetions of a moral language which adequately

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captures the violation of moral agency? Let me try to ftesh out this schema somewhat.

ln Chapter One 1 try to uncover the basis for moral élgency in order to make

sense of Weil's argument, which 1 will treat in Chapter Two, that the human being is

damaged by modem social practice~ and in order to make sense of the argument 1 will

take up in Chapter Three, that the moral language of rights does not adequately

capture the consequences of force. Chapter One looks at the nature of moral agency

for Weil by clarifying the concepts renunciation, decreation and attention which

become paradigmatic in her work.

Central to Chapter Two is the argument that contact with force has

consequences on identity. In particular, the analysis of force reveals the construction

of an unauthentic self. Force, as far as it inhibits moral agency is a source of the,

albeit damaged, self. Consequently, the appeaI for an understanding of the

consequences of force is an appeal for understanding the self and society. 1 will

support this view by an elaboration of the ethical category 1 argue is worth retrieving

from the rejection.

In Chapter Three 1 try to lay out the arguments for Weil's critique of rights

language and focus in particular on the inability of rights language, according to Weil,

to contribute to an understanding of the consequences of force. Even if we do not

wholly accept the abandon ment of rights language, (and 1 do not) the category of

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( affliction makes a positive and significant contribution to contemporary moral

discourse. 1 want to stress Jess Weil's poJemic against rights language than her appeal

to understand the nature of practices wc currently label "rights violations" and the

ways heeding her appeal helps modems to see that interiority has a social presence.

The structure of the thesis also represents an argument. The structure allows

Wcil's argument to build from a particular view of what moral agency consists in to a

rejection of a particuJar moral language - emphasizing that disputes about the

evaluation of a moral language are disputes about the nature of the human being in

society.6 Chapter Two, with the emphasis on how moral agency is impaired, also

contributes to this structural argument as Weil prioritized consideration of the existing

context in which caUs for respect are unheeded or the exercise of moral agency

impaired. This is intended to reflect the Weilian priority of analyzing the impairment

of moral agency in detail, examining the particuJar consequences of the instrument of

the impairment. Such a study provides the background for the evaluation of any moral

language that tries to play an explanatory but especially a critical function vis a vis

practices that disable moral agency. This move is ail about helping modems to see

more clearly. Virtue lies in exploring the dark side of the human condition,

"conceiving evil with marvellous lucidity"', and Weil develops an ethical category

that provides access to this terrain. White it is perhaps premature to formulate the

Weilian appeal in the introduction, it is my wish that the thesis convey her view that

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notions of moral outrage are distinct from notions of understanding if they do not

compel us to seek understanding, a profound understanding, of the object of outrage.

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CHAPTER ONE

DECREATION

Introduction

What is distinct about a human being and what is the picture of human

excellence Simone Weil protfers? This chapter will examine Weil's account of moral

agency by clarifying her concepts of renunciation, decreation, and attention. In this

chapter 1 will c1arify Weil's view of creation as self-alienation versus creation as an

extension of the self. 1 want to argue that moral agency, according to Weil, rests on

our conceiving and then consenting to decreate and accordingly, that the inhibition of

attention violates moral agency. Practices which display the feature of inhibiting

attention and consequently, decreation will be discussed in Chapter Two.

The chapter has two purposes beyond the clarification of the three key concepts

mentioned above: fi rst , to otfer an interpretation of the relation between decreation

and social engagement, and second, to defend Weil's account of moral agency against

critics who condemn Weil's enthusiasm for self-effacement. The attainment of these

two purposes will enable me to lay out in Chapter Three how Weil's account of

human excellence undergirds her criti'~ue of rights language.

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1 wish to clarify from the onset that throughout this chapter 1 am referring to

the later Weil. 1 will focus on the aecount of moral agency found in Weil's writings of

1938-1943 which are profoundly inftuenced by her religious interests. 1 am not blind

to - in fact 1 remain profoundly interested in - the instrumental account of human

agency and the thoughtJaction paradigm Weil relied upon in her early philosophical

and political writings.8 However, 1 chose to restrict this chapter to a clarification of

the view of moral agency that undergirds the critique of rights language Weil wrote in

1943.

PART 1 CLARIFICATION

Creation

Central to Weil's view of moral agency lies her thesis that Creation is not an

act of power but a renunciation. Weil wrote, "On God's part creation is not an act of

self-expansion but of restraint and renunciation. H9 1 want to argue that the dichotomy

between elCœnsion (claim) and renunciation and Weil's understanding of creation as

renunciation undergird her vi~w on moral discourse. In order to make this argument 1

must first clarify the concept of creation as renunciation and in the following chapter 1

will demonstrate Weil's identification of extension with acts of power and "force".

Creation, according to Weil, is the withdrawal, renunciation of God in order to

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a)Jow humanity to be. "For in creating God renounces being all, He abc'o~.=,ns a bit of

being to what is other than Himself. Creation is renunciation by love 1110 Creation is

not a product of God, rather creation is the consequence of a withdrawal by God in

order to a1l0w somethi'lg other to be. Creation described in terms of abdication

becomes paradigmatic in Weil's work.

The act of Creation is not an act of power. It is an abdication. Through this act a kingdom was established other than the Idngdom of God. . .. Il is a kingdom from which God has withdrawn. God, having renounced being its king, can enter it only as a beggar.1l

While it may appear paradoxical on first reading, within WejJ's paradigm of creation

she refers to God's presence as absenle. The abdication of power, or renunciation,

implies refusing to exercise control or power where one has the means to do so. Weil

understands the absence of God as the consequence of renunciation.

In Weil's writing, the antil'hesis of renunciation appears as: to impose, coerce,

force, or dominate. 12 Extension is not the antithesis of renunciation; Weil merely

finds that the renunciatory feature is an inextricable element of "great work". "Even

in art and science, though second-c1ass work, brilliant or mediocre, is an extension of

the self: work of the very highest order, true creation, means self-loss."13

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Conclusion

God is present in the world through creation and spirit but for this second

presence of God human consent is needed. 14 1 wish to tum now to human imitation

of the renunciation of God: decreation. Humans respond to divine renunciation: "We

participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves. "IS Weil saw

decreation as the "echo of creation".

The object of consent: Decreation

Human imitation of renunciation consists in lhe con,jCnt to decreate. Decreation

is a form of renunciation of the ego modelled on the renunciation by God in the act of

creation. Human excellence lies in conceiving and then consenting to decreate. The

object of consent is the dissolution of the "1". Rumans conceive the summons to

decreate through the exercise of attention. Two questions will render the Weitian

concept of decreation somewhat more accessible: how do humans find the other, and

why did Weil see virtue in consenting to invisibility?

There are a number of levels of decreation: first decreation fosters a

d\minishment of the space between the divine and the human, while on another Jevel

decreation creates the distance between humans, the space which results from the

.... cknowledgement that one is not the centre. Let us examine these le'lels in tum. 1

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wish to argue that decreation on these two levels happens in tandem.

Decreation is an abandon ment of the unauthentic self, retaining the true self.

"Being and having. Being does not belong to man, only having. The being of man is

situated behind the curtain, on the supernatural side. What he can know of himself is

only what is lent him by circumstances. My"}" is hidden for rlle (and for others): it is

on the side of God, it is in God, it is God. "16 "Go1 gave me being in order that 1

should give it back to him ... God allows me to exist outside himself. It is for me to

refuse this authorization. Humility is the refusai to exist outside God. "17 The

dissolution of the self Weil demanded could only be the object of consent.

Decreation permits acknowledgment nf the presence of the other. Weil writes

in "The Pythagorean Doctrine": "Only the true renunciation of the power to think of

everything in the first person, the renunciation which is not a simple transference,

grants to a man the knowledge that other men are his felIows"18 In this way, Weil

wrote about distance as the result of a creative (and therefore renunciatory) act: toto

love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and

that which we love. "19 One is compelled to write about love when examining the

concept of decreation. Divine love resulted in creation, a central feature of which was

renunciation, and "human love which is pure ... enshrines an intimation .... of divine

love. " 20 Weil held that, "The closer one is to love, the greater the renunciation of

the '1'. "21

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The antithesis of decreation is destruction but it is a particular view of

destruction as the absence (lf renunciation. "Decreation: to make somelhing crealed

pass into the uncreated. Destruction: to make something created pass into nothingness.

A blameworthy substitute for decrea,'ion. Il 22 The antithesis of decreation, the

dissolution of the "1", is the extension of the self al the expense of another. The

following passage is ilIustrative:

The renunciation of the power to think in the first person is the abandon ment of ail worldly goods in order to follow the Christ. Ali of a man's treasure is simply the whole universe seen with himself as its centre. Men only love riches, power and social consideration because they reinforce the faculty of thought in the first person. To accept poverty in the literai sense of the word, as St. Francis did, is to accept being nothing in the appearance which one presents to oneself and to othe7'~, just as one is nothing in reality. "If a man would make himself invisible, there is no means more certain than to become poor, ft says a Spanish folksong. Such an acceptance is the highest degree of love and of truth. 23

The c1assic interpretation of the concept decreation is Chabaud's who refers to

decreation as: "the transcendent completion of creation ... "24 Human excellence lies

in consenting to imitate God's renunciation, to decreate. Weil wrote in her

notebooks:

Renunciation. Imitation of God's renunciation in creation. In a sense, God renounces being everything. W~ should renounce being something. That is our only good.

We are like barrels with no bottom to them 50 long as we have not understood that we rest on a foundation. 25

The relation to the creator is foundational. Humans relate to others as "created by".

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The Summons to Consent: Attention

Through the exercise of attention one receives the summons to decreate. In this

section 1 wiJI lay out three features of the concept of attention - waiting, restraint, and

prayer - that are useful in unpacking the concept. Weil's writing on attention also

reveals her view on the locus of the origin of moral action, and the means of

contacting rea1ity.

Weil offered a particular understanding of the concept of attention. First

attention was not a matter of the will. Weil wrote, in a more polemica1 moment,

"What could be more stupid than to lighten up our muscles and set our jaws about

virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem. Attention is something quite

ciifferent. "26

Understanding is more critical to moral agency than volition, according to

Weil, and understanding is the fruit of attention. "Attention consists of suspending our

thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to he penetrated by the object; ... 1127

"1 have to deprivc aU that 1 caU "1" of the light of my attention and tum it on to that

which cannot he conceived." 28 These two selections on attention contain the Weilian

emphasis on detachment and direction or "orientation".29

By detachment, Weil is referring to a suspension of the win, which she would

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understand as an openness to reality. In her writings on attention Weil emphasizes

patience and waiting, as instrumental to openness to truth. "Waiting for God", the

title of the English translation of a collection of her essays, was inspired by this idea.

Error lies in seizing too quickly upon an object or idea and the purpose of school

studies is to offer students an apprenticeship in attention. Eric Spnngsted tried to

capture the aspect of detachment in his interpretation of attention as "a renunciation of

the ego in order to see the world without perspectival interference. "30

The direction or orientation of attention is a pivotai element of Weil's account

of moral agency. Weil's diagnosis of modemity iIIustrates the absence of both

elements of attention: detachment and orientation. Attention, in Weil's more aphoristic

language, involves "looking not eating. ft One element of Weil's diagnosis of

modemity is that modems consume what they should look al. "Eating" in Weil's

metaphoricallanguage refers to the will and the effort required to seize upon the

object. Looking conveys the passive element or the waiting and self-restraim as weil

as the orientation that are rewarded with knowledge. Within Weil 's religious imagery:

"To look is to rise, to eat is to fall. "li Looking is an image for "renunciatory

salvation"; eating is an image for damnation Y

The object of attention lies outside of the self. "The source of man 's moral

energy is outside him like that of his physical energy (food, air etc ... ). "') The

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summons to act, the Impulsion to respond cornes from outside the self and Weil

suggested access to the source through the technique of attention. Attention is a

psychoJoglcal technique or exerdse and decreation is a spiritual state. As one perfects

the exercise of attention --and Weil saw this as the primary goal of formaI

educationl4-- the spiritual practice of decreation IS approached and as one approaches

decreation the technique of attention is strengthened.

reality.

Attention permits, or rather acknowledges, another "reading" or perspective on

Reading - except where there is a certain quality of attention - obeys the law of gravity. We read the opinions suggested by gravit y (the preponderant part played by the passions and by social conformity in the judgments we form of men and events). With a higher quality of attention our reading discovers gravit y itself, and various systems of possible balance.3s

The antithesis of attention is contempt. 36 Attention establishes a relation; to he the

victim of inattention leads to alienation and despair. The concept of attention is dense,

consequently we have used a number of terms to come closer to the content of the

idea. Moral agency lies in patience, waiting, and looking and not in volition, seeking

and consuming.

1 remain most satisfied with the interpretation of attention by Soelle who builds

on Weil's own definition of attention as prayer. Weil wrote, "Attention, taken to its

highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely

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unmixed attention is prayer. "37 Weil held that the practice of attention fosters

renunciation. Iris Murdoch argues that "attention is rewarded bya knowledge of

reality".38 Murdoch, like Soelle, relied on Weil's concept of attention.

1 have used the word 'attention', which 1 borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and lovÎng gaze directed upon an individual reality. 1 believe this to be the characteristic and proper mark of the active moral agent. 39

The origin of decreation is the recognition of the Impulsion to act, the

summons. The impulsion cornes from outside the self. Attention permits the

recognition of the impulsion to act. For Weil, moral agency lies in consenting to

decreate which is a response to a summons made available only through the practice

of attention.

Conclusion

My intention in this section was not to offer an extensive analysis of

renunciation, decreation and attention but to clarify the terms in order to reveal their

critica1 role in Weil's account of moral agency. Each concept is related to a picture of

the moral agent with an extraordinary capacity for self-effacement. In the remaining

two sections of this chapter 1 wish to interpret Weil's concept of decreation and

examine the nature of the self-effacement she demands.

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PART Il - DECREATION: AN INTERPRETATION

Introduction

ln order to cJarify the Weilian concept of decreation a central tension in her

work between her affinity for social activism and mysticism will emerge. In this

section 1 will argue that while decreation is a spiritual category, Weil wields it in a

prophetic manner.

Weil's unique paradigm of creation challenges the dichotomy between self-Ioss

and prophetic engagement. The first section of this chapter clarified some of Weil's

key concepts while underlining the creative potentiaJ of self-restraint, renunciation,

and attention. 1 want to tum now to the ways decreation and attention foster

relatedness, engagement, and emancipation and 1 rely primarily on Weil's essay:

"Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Weil's writing on friendship serves as the

example of the way decreation fosters relatedness. Weil's analysis of the love of

neighbour furthers the argument that decreation demands engagement and fosters

emancipation.

Relatedness

Decreation consists in the extension of the ldnd of renunciation that is

necessary to create the distance that Weil refers to as "friendship". Weil finds a

18

profound relatedness and access to the other precisely because of the distance. "To

love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and

that which we love. ".0 The distance is a "creative" space and we know creation is a

consequence of renunciation. The creation of this space is a moral act. The

renunciation of the "1" that takes place on a deep level is intended to dissolve the

distance between God and the "1". But this renunciation happens in tandem with

engagement in forms of the implicit love of God which inc1ude: religious ceremonies,

the beauty of the world, our neighbour and friendship. "The love of our neighbour is

the love which cornes down from God to man. It precedes that which rises from men

to God ... 41 In this way the levels of decreation are analogous to steps in a process

such that diminishing the space between the human and the divine happens in tandem

with decreation on the human level, engagement in the human environ ment. What

fonn does engagement take?

Engagement and Emancipation

Weil's work challenges the dichotomy between self-effacement and

engagement. For Weil there is no dichotomy for example between decreation and the

implicit love of God such as love of religious practices, the beauty of the world, our

neighbour or friendship. Attention and the dissolution of the "1" are ingredients of the

process of loving in the way she describes.

19

f

Weil wrote: "In denying oneself, one becomes capable under God of

establishing someone else by a creative affirmation. "42 The quest for our own

invisibility must not be confused with an absence of engagement or unwillingness lI'

confer visibility on others. Weil wrote, "Love sees what is invisible. "43

The emancipatory potential of the Weilian theme decreation lies in the practire

of attention. "Creative attention means really giving our attention to what does not

exist. Humanity does not exist in the anonymous flesh Iying inert by the roadside. The

Samaritan who stops and looks gives his attention all the same to this absent

humanity, and the actions which follow prove that it is a question of real

attention. "44 It is possible to find in WeiJ's writing a reconciliation between the

contemplative and the prophetie dimensions of social engagement.

Conclusion

The mysticaJ dimension of Weil's thought emerges in her understanding of

decreation as the quintessentiaJ moral act. But what needs to come through clearly in

terms of the argument that 1 want to put forward is that this move to decreation is not

a move away from engagement in the human environment back to the subject. Nor, of

course, does Weil have any sympathy for the dissolution of the "1" in the collectivity.

The consent to decreate is not the product of an ahsence of relatedness that involves a

retreat to an atomistic self, but it is an intense relatedness that is derived from

20

attention that fosters the "dissolution of the "1". The kind of relatedness engendered

by the consent to decreate cao be found in participation in the forms of the implicit

love of God.

PART III - INTERPRETATIONS

1 will focus on two interpretations that are variations on the "staggering

selflessness" 45 in Weil's work. 1 have labelled these arguments the abandon ment of

the human, and the feminist critique. The arguments are distinct but they share a

common object of criticism, namely the Weilian emphasis on self-effacement. ln each

case, 1 will offer a brief summary of the critique and a response with evidence from

Weil's writing.

While examining sorne criticism of Weil's concept of self-effacement is the

primary objective of the following section, it is my hope that sorne clarity around the

following questions will surface. What is the relation betwet.;. the object of consent

and the ground of consent? What is the role of the human environ ment in the

summons to decreate? What does the suggestion that our moral energy lies outside of

the self suggest about social engagement?

21

{

Abandonment of the Human

Martin Buber wrote an essay defending the social principle of the religion of

Israel from Weil's identification of the principle with Plato's Great Beast. \Veil's view

does not survive Buber's critique. However, 1 would like to examine two elements of

8uber's view, bath of which are relevant to the present discussion of moral agency.

When 1 argued above that there is a level of decreation involved in friendship

and love of neighbour, 1 was arguing directly against interpretations that find in Weil

an absolu te rejection of the "we". Martin Buber in an essay entitled "The Silent

Question" offers such an interpretation when he suggests that Weil is blind to the

positive 'we' of corn munit y and that she only sees the 'we' of group egotism.46

Secondly, 8uber intimates that Weil abandons the human in a search for the

supematural. G. Panichas s'apports 8uber's interpretation in the introduction to his

collection of WeiJ's work.47

Response

Regarding 8uber's first criticism, Weil without question was suspicious of

collectivities. In laying out an interpretation of the relation between decreation and

engagement, 1 am not arguing that Weil held any views advocating the di ',:.;')lution of

the "1" in the collectivity. Weil's reliance on the Platonic Great Beast metaphors

22

,.

illustrates her repulsion for this kind of dissolution of the -1-. Weil asserted that,

"The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry, the only ersatz of God, the only

imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is 1 myself. "4R

Weil draws a distinction between the social imprint and the "human

environ ment" . Weil's rlisdain for the social beast is not equivalent to an abandon ment

of the human environment,49 Weil wrote, "But that is not social; it is a human

environment of which one is no more conscious than of the air one breathes. A

contact with nature, the past, tradition. Rootedness lies in something other than the

social. dO In Weil's later writings, she argued vehemently for rootedness in a human

environ ment. Weil's preoccupation with the concept of rootedness in the web of

relations which constitute language, tradition, and history challenges the view that her

account of moral agency requires an abandonment of the human. A particular posture

to the human environ ment is required, a posture that is best described as renunciatory.

Decreat;on - Supematural

The interpretation of decreation offered ear1ier in this chapter allows for the

category to 8.pply both to an involvement in the human environ ment and to a spiritual

state. Weil's best example of the dissolution of the self in the human environmeot is

found in her notebooks: "To be ooly an intermediary between ..... the starving beggar

and the beggar who has been fed. - SI What kind of self-effacement is at work here?

23

,{

The act of feeding the beggar is a response to a summons that originates outside of the

self. The recognition of the summons is the result of the exercise of attention:

"through weil directed attention, we should a1ways keep on increasing the number of

[righteous actions] which we are unable not to do. ,,52 The act of feeding the beggar

is made out of necessity. Necessity recognized and consented to thrust the agent

toward the dissolution of the "1" .

Weil does not abandon the human in a search for the supematural; her

paradigm of decreation permits movement toward the human and the supematural in

tandem. Decreation is not self-effacement alone; decreation is a moral act, a response

to a summons from outside of the self. The summons to sacrifice is disclosed through

the practice of attention and decreation is consent to the summons. The use of the

term "summons" is intended to capture WeWs view that "the source of our actions

[lie] outside ourselves ... 53 Decreation implies a consent to self-alienation. Weil's

work contains an appeaI that participation in the human environ ment be a ground of

consent, not coercion.

Conclusion

The distinction between the interpretation 1 offer and the cri tics of self­

effacement is about the degree of engagement in the human environ ment which

permits the dissoluLion of the "1". 1 argue that the mystical dimension of Weil's

24

thought arises in tandem with a much deeper penetration of the "human" as defined in

the forrns of the implicit love of God, than an abandon ment of the human.

Feminist Critique

Introduction

One feminist reading of Weil might juxtapose the feminist appeal for power

and freedom from servitude with the Weilian ideals of renunciation. refusing to wield

power where one has the means to do so, and the summons to sacrifice.

ParadoxicaJly, J have chosen a feminist reading of Weil's concept of self-restraint to

illustrate the emancipatory potential of the concept.

Weil was not a feminist. Passionately concemed with the exploitation of

workers ant:: sutfering, she did not write on womanhood or intentionally write on the

experience of women.S4 It is my intention to point to areas of conversation with

feminists. It is my view that the paradigmatic importance of renunciation has much to

otfer feminist scholars. My more limited objective here is to clarify the emancipatory

potential of Weil's emphasis on self-effacement since this is such a pivotai concept in

her account of moral agency.

Feminist authors read Simone Weil in a particular way and they ilIuminate

25

( some of the difficulties with her emphasis on self-effacement. Contemporary feminist

scholars have identified hoth ethics of self-effacement with oppression and rejected as

an alternative to self-effacement ethics of self-gratification. Weil's work can be used

to challenge categorical rejections of self-effacement as insufliciently dialectical. The

following section will reveal that it is the nature of self-effacement, whether it is

arrived al through consent or coercion, that establishes the humiliation or

emancipation.

The Summons 10 Sacrifice as Oppression

An account of hurnan excellence that evolves into a dissolution of the "1", self-

effacement, provides littte to feminists who understand women's historical propensity

for service or sacrifice as victimization. Christian feminist authors, such as Moltmann-

Wendel who takes up the the me of "Self-surrender and self-assertion", lament the

ideologicaJ function of sacrifice in the history of women: "Ideas of woman's service,

commitment, and sacrifice have repeatedly suffocated, or at least limited, all woman 's

autonomous endeavors. "55 The question such feminist scholarship offers Weil's

account of moral agency is what does an ethic of renunciation offer the powerless, the

victims of inattention?

( 26

Self-actUIJlization over Self-elfactmtnt

Beverly Harrison finds in Iiberation theology resources which counter the kind

of Christian association with self-effacement found in Weil's writing. A struggle for

"our" dignity demands a self-interested form of engagement that is not incongruent

with mutuality and solidarity .

... feminist insistence that personal struggle for fulfilment is neither aberrant nor selfish flies in the face of much Christian theological interpretation. Too many Christians, even of the progressive sort, still believe, in accord with male-stream Christian teaching, that an irresolvable theological and moral tension exists between self-assertive or self-interested acts (that is, those involved in the struggle for our/my liberation) and "loving" and "goOO" Christian acts. 56

Harrison's ethic of self-actualization is far from an ethic of self-gratification.

She argues elsewhere in the same volume for an embodied presence with the

oppressed.57 She nevertheless associates the kind of self-effacement Weil advocates

with a traditional Christian assumption of a "monolithic polarity of self-interested

action versus other-regardingness. "SB Self-actualization is not incongruent with a

liberationist perspective, Harrison argues. To defend self-effacement negates, for

Harrison, the kind of pursuit of engagement in liberation that is motivated by the

"struggle for our own dignity".

27

{

Response

Strength of the We~9

The distance between contemporary Christian feminist scholars and Weil is

great. How cao submission be beautiful to feminists'? However, Weil never celebrated

submission that was not the object of consent. She lamented the ideological function of

coerced self-effacement. Weil was repelled by the adoration the slave exhibits for the

master. The ideological nature of ethics of renunciation pertains to situations

characterised by the absence of consent.

For Weil, obedience, the consent to decreate, the response to the summons to

sacrifice, are liberating. A passage from WeiI's notebooks illustrates both the kind of

self-effacement of "pious females" which she rejects and the dissolution of the "1"

which she prescribes:

There are sorne kinds of effort which defeat their own object (example: the soured disposition of certain pious females, false asceticism, certain sorts of self-devotion, etc.). Others are always useful, even if they do not meet with success.

How are we to distinguish between them'? Perhaps in this way: sorne efforts are always accornpanied by the (1àlse) negation of our inner wretchedness; with others the attention is continually concentrated on the distance there is between what we are and what we love. 60

The renunciation of the "1" is not in favour of the state, or master, but in order

to diminish the distance between 1 and God and this often takes place through the

28

forms of the implicit love of God.

That is why expressions such as to love our neighbour in God, or for God, are misleading and equivocal. A man has all he can do, even if he concer.trates all the attention of which he is capable, to look al lhis small inert thing of flesh, Iying stripped of c10thing by the roadside. Il is not the time to tum his thoughts toward God. Just as there are times when we must think of God and forget all creatures without exception, there are times when, as we look at creatures, we do not have to think expliciûy of God. At such times, the presence of God in us has as its condition a secret 50 deep that it is even a secret from us. There are times when thinking of God separates us from him. 61

It is possible to interpret the renunciation of the 1 in favour of the victims of society,

the renunciation of power in favour of the powerless.

The Nature of Hunger

In order to offer a Weilian response to ethics of self-actualization and the

struggle for "our" dignity, (arguments such as Harrisons' that demand a form of

engagement that is motivated by a "higher" form of self-interest), 1 will,

paradoxically, expand on the therne of hunger in Weil's work. Hunger is a rnetaphor

for sacrifice. In what lies the richness of restraint? According to Weil, hunger or

rather fasting (consented hunger) can be a renunciation. Il enables us to see, which

within her concept of attention is critical to morai agency.

The practices of friendship and love carry a summons to sacrifice, renounce,

refuse to possesse

CamaI desire and the attraction felt toward the beautiful face. The

29

l \.

need we feel to break, shatter our own interior impurity against some exterior and perfeet purity, as against a stone. But what is second-rate in us rebels and requires, in order to save its life, to sully that purity.

To sully is to modify, to touch. Beauty is that which we cannot wish to change. To acquire power over is to suJly. To possess is to suJly.62

Friendship is not renounced, possessing is renounced. Hunger is a metaphor for the

kind of attention that discloses reality. Attention discloses the summons to sacrifice.

Weil wrote:

One of the two is only a little piece of flesh, naked, inert and bleeding beside a ditch; he is nameless; no one knows anything about him. Those who pass by this thing scarcely notice it, and a few minutes afterward do not even know that they saw il. Only one stops and tums his attention toward il. The actions that follow are just the automatic effer' of this moment of attention.63

The imperative is to look; to refrain from eating.

An inextricable element of WeiJ's argument is that the hunger, the self-restraint

must be consented to. Van Herik off ers an interpretation of hunger as renunciation:

.. .if one refuses power one may, by looking and waiting, become edible for God. Then God will feed the soul and use it to nourish others in a way that is uncontaminated and uncontaminating, sacramental and saIvific ... 64

The hunger that Weil writes about is a refusaI to consume.

that,

In conclusion, Simone de Beauvoir reeaUs a conversation where Weil argued

only one thing mattered in the world today: the Revolution which would feed ail the starving people of the earth. I[De Beauvoir] retorted, no less peremptorily, that the problem was not to make men happy, but to

30

find the reason for their existence. She looked me up and down: 'Ifs easy to see you've never gone hungry', she snapped. Our relationship did not go any further. M

The self imposed hunger, the self-restraint that Weillauded contained an emancipatory

commitment. In her theory, if not in her life, hunger was a metaphor.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter 1 have clarified three key concepts: renunciation, decreation and

attention. The ethic of renunciation is paradigmatic in Weil's later writings and serves

as the foundation for her account of moral agency. 1 have interpreted the dissolution

of the "1" through the lens of Weil's essay "Forms of the Implicit Love of God. " 1

have examined Weil's emphasis on self-effacement and criticism that she abandons the

human, as weIl as, views of decreation as exclusively pertaining to an approach to the

supematural realm. 1 have also brought Weil's work into conversation with a critique

of selflessness articulated by Christian feminist scholars and argued that there is room

for dialogue.

In conclusion, Weil's aceount of moral ageney undergirds much of Weil's

evaluation of the modern use of rights language. The specifie evaluation is the subject

of Chapter Three. For now, we must tum briefly to Weil's social theory, for the

analysis of force, the outcome of Weil's investigation into social structures, is the

foundation for her most insightful contribution to eontemporary moral disputes on the

31

adequacy of rights language.

32

CHAPTER TWO

FORCE AND AFFLICTION

INTRODUcnON

What drives the inhibition of moral agency'? The aim of this chapter is to

retrieve the ethica1 category Weil articulated through her account of the impairment of

moral agency. This chapter will clarify the concepts of force and affliction and present

sorne of the strongest interpretations of Weil's employment of these concepts. In

addition, this chapter examines the relation between force and renunciation in the

practice of labour.

One of Weil's projects was to convey the consequences of force, a project that

was grounded in the view "that any madness in us gains from being expressed,

because in this way one gives a human form to what separates us from humanity."66

Understanding the depth of harm done as a prerequisite for justice is an underlying

theme in Weil's writings on force. Weil's work contains an appeal to analyze the

consequences of force.

33

(

PART 1 - CLARIFICATION

Force •

In 1942 Weil wrote an essay entitled: "Iliad: Poem of Force". The essay has

been interpreted in a number of ways; however, the following analysis is predicated

on an understanding of the essayas a discourse on power more profoundly inftuenced

by Weil's views of injustice and reftections on World War II than on the Iliati as

such.

Weil selected the Iliad to convey her analysis of force because of the

"incurable bitterness" regarding the consequences of force that permeates the poem.

Weil placed a high value on conveying loss without sentimentalism. In describing the

"IIiad" she wrote: "Never does the tone lose its colouring of bittemess; yet never does

the bittemess drop into lamentation. "67 Weil was continually drawn to the posture of

the one describing the havoc that is the subject of the poem because she understood

this posture to be a moral achievement. "Nothing precious is scorned, whether or not

death is its destiny; everyone's unhappiness is laid bare without dissimulation or

disdain; no man is set above or below the condition common to all men; whatever is

destroyed is regretted."68

Force is "that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing".69

34

Force transfonns human spirit into matter. Weil wrote about an extreme form of

victimization, "a compromise between a man and a COrpse"'0, a loss of inner life.

Weil described the relation of the victim of force to her own Iife using the metaphor

of death: "This thing is constantly aspiring to be a man or a woman, and never

achieving it - here, surely, is death but death strung out over a whole Iifetime; here,

surely, is life, but life that death congeals before abolishing ... 7'

Force subjugates both the victim and the one who wields force. The strong

exhibit indifference toward the weak. Recognition of the other is predicated on the

imposition of a moment of hesitation which the victim of force cannot impose. Not

only the victim, but the wielder of force, will bear the consequences of this absence of

reftection. The one who uses force is reduced to a kind of madness and excess to

which the user will fall victim. Weil used the terrn "intoxication" to describe the

relation between force and the wielder of force.

There is a second way, specific to the context of waT, in which the one who

uses force is subjugated. Weil describes the user of force in "The Iliali: The Poem of

Force" as having a numbed inner life. Such a person, in the context of war, has a

particular relation between death and the future.71 "The man possessed by thi!i

twofold need for death belongs, so long as he has not become something still

different, to a dift'erent race from the race of the living. "73 It is possible, according

to Weil, for force to also "tum into a thing" the one who employs force.

35

(

The one who endures force clearly has no inner Iife. Weil wrote: "To lose

more than the slave does is impossible, for he loses his whole inner life. "74 While

force "intoxicates" the one who uses it, force "crushes" the victim. The one who uses

force cao have no compassion because of a numbed inner life and the virtual absellce

of such Iife in the victim. Weil wrote: " ... how can a man who has rooted out of

himself the notion that the light of day is 5weet to the eyes respect 5uch a notion when

it makes its appearance in sorne futile and humble lament,?"75 The relation between

force and its wielder and force and the victim are distinct. However, the consequences

of contact with force are the same; both, to use Weil's preferred analogy, become

deaf and dumb.76

Renunciation is the antithesis of force. Renunciation is creative, it involves a

refuw to exercise power where one has the means to do 50. Renunciation,

withdrawal, creates the space for movement by the other. Weil wrote Most often about

renunciation creating the space for a consent to decreate. Force, conversely, compels

the victim.77 Force constrains, removes the power of refusai, theleby eliminating the

possibility of consent. Force impairs moral agency since, as we saw in the first

chapter, agency re~ts on the possibility of the consent to decreate. The consent to

decreate is not possible against a background which has force as its primary feature.

Decreation is consent to the dissolution of the "1". The power to say "III is the only

possession and consequently is the only thing one can offer to God.78 When the self

is destroyed by external sources one is robbed of the ability to "decreate". The

36

consequence of force is reification, the consequence of renunciation is decreation.

The Weilian Appeal: An ethic of knowing the worsl 79

"The Iliati: Poem of Force" contains a Weilian prescription for resisting force.

Modems need to "leam not to admire force, not to hate the enemy, nor to scom the

unfortunate ... 10 According to Weil, the best way to resist using force is to understand

il. Understanding the "dominion of force and refusing to respect il" is a precondition

of justice and love. The first element of the precondition is the subject of the Weilian

appeal to analyze the consequences of force. Weil's priority lay in defining, not

remedying, practices involving force. Il According to Weil, moral inquiry dictates

understanding the consequences of force. Weil demanded the interpretation of the

consequences of practices of force; practices which tum human spirit into matter.

Being sensitive to injustice without understanding its consequences had little value,

according to Weil. 82

The principle in Weil's writing on force is agony, not hope. According to

Weil, any hope that is not rooted in an understanding of the nature of agony is oniy a

consolation. Gabriel Marcel encapsulated Weil's thinking along this vein wh en he

described Weil's work in 1949: ..... the sense of man's wretchedness and that of the

whole world takes precedence, in her, over any perception of creation in its beauty

and glory ..... 83

37

( The WeiHan appeal to analyze the consequences of force is grounded in the

view that there is virtue in seeing things as they really are and that this kind of moral

inquiry and understanding precede the proffering of any kind of remedy.84 This

argument Weil articulated in "The Iliatl, Poem of Force": " ... the sense of human

misery is a pre-condition of justice and love. "85 It is a moraJ task to see the

"bittemess" and agony in an "absolutely undiluted" form.16 However, as Murdoch

states, acknowledging her debt to Weil, "It is very difficult to concentrate attention

upon suffering and sin, in others or in oneself, without falsifying the picture in sorne

way while making it bearable. "87 Weil argues in "The lliatl, Poem of Force"

simultaneously that we retreat to illusions to conceal the harshness and agony and that

it is a moral task not to do so.

Affliction

According to Weil's 1ater writings, the impairrnent of decreation violates moral

agency. Weil develops an ethical category that tries to capture the impairment of

mora! agency conceived along this view. In the following section, the ditferent

elements of affiiction will be explored. The ethical category of affiiction maintains the

intimate relation between the p.!!~nal and social poles of ethical analysis. The

category is particularly important in relation to the critique of rights language to

follow.

( \ 38

Aftliction is simultaneously a critical and an explanatory language. The

particular analysis of the consequences of force Weil offers, as il evolves into her

articulation of amiction, plays out the relation between interiority and social presence.

The new terrain disclosed by the term affliction represents the kind of analysis of the

consequences of force advocated by Weil and put into practice in her own scholarship.

"In identifying an act of cruelty, il is necessary to bear in mind the circumstances, the

different meanings attached to acts and words, the symbolic language peculiar to each

environment, .•• " 88 Moving to the terrain disclosed bjl the concept affliction involves

operating from an analysis of the depth of harm done.89

Aftliction is constituted by three elements: social, psychological and physical,

ail of which must be present for the category to apply. The multi-dimensionality of the

category stems from Weil's understanding of the objects of violation: the body, the

self-interpretation of the victim and relatedness. These objects are, of course, not

wholly distinct but they provide a useful heuristic device and underline the distinction

between aftliction and suifering. Anyone in pain or despair or social a1ienation may he

said to be suifering but she is not necessarily experiencing affliction.

Physical

Physical pain, or at least the terror of immanent physical pain, prevents

thought from "fteeing afIIiction. "90 The pain maintains the victim in the present

39

----------------_ .. _---- -

(

moment, disabling any move toward consolation through the imagination. The tenn

"consolation" in Weil's writing always carries the pejorative meaning of avoiding

reality. Humiliatioa, while distinct from affliction, was often used by Weil as she

tried to describe the layers of affliction, Humiliation within the physical dimension,

she described as: " ... a violent condition of the whole corporal being, which longs to

surge up under the outrage but is forced, by impotence or fear, to hold itself in

check. "91

Pain, while an essential element of atHiction, is insuflicient to plunge the

victim into affliction. The category aflliction applies to a state weil beyond the

"scientific diagnosis 'pain'"92. The analogies Weil employs convey the nature of pain

she associates with affliction and the relation between the physical and psychological

dimensions of affliction.

When thought is obliged by an attack of physical pain, however slight, to recognize the presence of affliction, a state of mind is brought about, as acute as that of a condemned man who is forced to look for hours at the guillotine that is going to cut off his head.93

Psycho-Social: Invisibility and the Imitation of Nothingness

The later understanding of human agency inspired Weil to find a moral

language that could capture the violation of an agent conceived, not atomistically, but

• as a social being. The social dimension of affliction is the most essential, according to

Weil.94 Weil's inclusion of the social dimension implies that moral inquiry cannot be

40

bracketed from sociological investigation. The psychological dimension exposes the

vulnerability of interiority to force. The relation between the psychological and social

dimensions of affliction discloses the effects of affliction on moral agency.

The ethical category of affliction complements the Weilian appeal, an appeal

with vast ethical implications, to analyze the consequences of force. Two objects of

force are relatedness and the self-interpretation of the one subjected to force; however,

these objects are not wholly distinct. The interpretation of moral agency outlined in

Chapter One focused on the consent to decreate. The subject of this chapter is identity

threatening defilement. Force impedes the kind of renunciation that constitutes

decreation.

The rejection of the aftlicted is manifested in indifference, " ... which infects the

object of indi1ference. "95 Weil wrote, "In affliction that misfortune itself becomes a

man's whole existence and in every other respect he Joses ail significance, in

everybody's eyes including his own."96 The victim's view of self is constituted by

the social degradation. Weil's point is not that one consents to humiliation but that one

loses the resources to protest the humiliation.97 One such resource could be the self­

interpretation of the victim but this is precisely one of the objects of force; one

becomes the nothing that others do not recognize. Of course the recognition one does

not receive one cannot confer: "To respect life of another when you have been

castrated of it demands heart breaking generosity." 98

41

(

There are a number of difficulties in seeing affliction. The afflicted do not

soHeit our attention; theyare transparent.

Anybo Jy who is in our vicinity exercises a certain power over us by his very presence, and a power that belongs to him alone, that is, the power of halting, repressing, modifying each movement that our body sketches out. If we step aside for a passerby on the road, it is not the same thing as stepping aside to avoid a billboard; alone in our rooms, we gel up, walk about, sit down again quite ditrerently from the way we do when we have a visitor. But this indefinable influence that the presence of another human being has on us is not exercised by men whom a moment of impatience can deprive of life, who can die before even thought has a chance to pass sentence on them. In their presence, people move about as if they were not there; they, on their side, running the risk of being reduced to nothing in a single instant, imitate nothingness in their own persons.99

There are two sources of the transparency of the afllicted: the lack of renunciation on

the part of others, "indifference" and the complieity of the aftIicted, the "imitation of

nothingness." According to Weil, it is a moral task to overcome the transparency of

the aftlicted.

Weil tries to capture the consequences of "indifference" with the concept of

affliction. For example Weil wrote, "In affliction, if it is complete, a man is deprived

of all human relationship. "100 The social dimension of affliction, the 10ss of

significance, reJatedness, and recognition, is constitutive of the victim's self-

interpretation. The sufferer is deprived of the resources required to extricate

herself. lot The psychological and social dimensions of affliction are deeply

enmeshed.

42

In addition to invisibility and inditference, another dimension of relatedness is

an object of force. Weil extended her analysis of the objects of force to include the

way one interprets not only oneself but the world. Analogies to slavery run throughout

Weil's writing on affliction. Weil wrote in her notebooks: "Ta force one ta be read as

we read him: slave. Ta force one ta read us as we read ourselves: conquest. 11102 An

element of slavery is the los5 of the ability, or occasion, ta interpret the world. More

than subordinating her perception of the world ta that of the conqueror, the afflicted

persan abandons her perception of the world.

Conclusion

Weil was simultaneously passionately concemed with society and interiority.

Weil's concept of affliction describes the content of inner life and how it affects and

reacts to relatedness and sociallife. The beauty of Weil's category lies in its ability ta

capture both inner and social Iife.

PART 11- INTERPRETATION

Introduction

The objective of this section is 10 interpret Weil's writing on force and

a1Iliction with particular attention to what these concepts reveal about the state of the

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public sphere. Thematically, this section builds on the concepts of the invisibility of

the afflicted and relatedness. The categories 1 will employ are blindness, the

impairment of attention and deafness, the distortion of discourse. While 1 rely on a

number of authors, 1 find in Dorothy Soelle's writing an application of Weilian

categories coupled with a contextual analysis and commitment to the marginalized that

serves weil the following discussion relating to the public sphere. Soelle acknowledges

her debt to Weil.

Blindness

ft is no surprise, given WeiJ's linking of attention to moral agency, that

blindness is linked to immorality. Attention is Weil's corrective for social blindness.

The ethical category affliction maps out the consequences of inattention. The

association of social blindness with immorality is also found in the work of Iris

Murdoch and Hanna Arendt, two moral philosophers influenced by Weil's

scholarship. Murdoch argues that moral differences are differences of vision not

differences of choice. I03 Murdoch wrote: "Of course virtue is good habit and dutiful

action. But the background condition of such habit and such action, in human beings,

is a just mode of vision and a good quality of consciousness. Il is a Wk to come to

see the world as it is ... 104 Fostering this kind of discernment is the basis of moral

agency, according to Weil. But the way to contact reality demands the avoidance of

consolation which generally requires inhabiting the pain of the world. Part of the

44

human condition is to create illusions that console us. Weil argues for an active

resistance to such consolations that blind modems to the summons to decreate.

According to Soelle, a desensitization to the pain of others entails an inability

to perceive reality. One cause of the blindness is that the perception of reality is

painfu1. 1OS In a culture that has as its priority the avoidance of pain, the consequence

will he social blindness. Weil's ethical category of affliction contains a critique of the

socially dangerous practice of inattention.

Weil's contribution to contemporary moral philosophy was the articulation of

an ethical category, a language that describes the object of force, occasionally the

object of lament. Weil's category applies prior to lament; affliction is an explanatory

category, not primarily a language of lament. In order for a lament to be rich and full,

Weil would argue that the consequences of force must he understood.

Depth of Harm

The employment of the ethical category affliction fosters articulation of the

depth of harm done. Soelle has understood the object of Weil' s category of affliction:

"There are also brutalization ar.d insensibility, mutilation and injury that no longer can

be reversed." I06 Weil's category of affliction conveys the various objects of in jury;

understanding of the depth of harm is only approached through attention to the ioner

45

and the social, two poles of ethical analysis. Ethical paradigms that do not

acknowledge (read: help modems to see) the relation between what is inner and what

is social are not able to con vey what is at work here.

Deafness

Introduction

Public discourse mediates the relation between the agent and the world. Weil's

category aftliction reveals the ways in which ideal public discourse is distorted. Force

impedes discursive practice: the master speaks; the slave obeys.

Force and Discourse

Force cripples the public sphere. Weil wrote that against a background of

force "the variety of constraints pressing upon man give rise to the illusion of several

distinct species that cannot communicate." 107 Force is a source of distorted

communication; force silences one participant and deafens the other. The resulting

public sphere is a conversation between the mute and the deaf.108

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Absent voice

The silence induced by force has many dimensions. Weil's writing on affliction

suggests that the voiee of the affticted is absent from public discourse. First, suffering

is mute. There is no participation by the afflicted, by definition, in public discourse:

"As for those who have been struck by one of those blows that leave a being

struggling on the ground like a half-crushed worm, they have no words to express

what is happening to them. "IOIJ The impairment of the ability to articulate threatens

relatedness. Soelle understood that "To become speechless, to he totally without any

relationship, that is death. "uo

Secondly, the inner dialogue, the victim in dialogue with herself, is suppressed

as a consequence of the "imitation of nothingness". Weil wrote: "If Job cries out that

he is innocent in such despairing accents, it is because he himself is beginning not to

helieve in it; ... he no longer hears the testimony of his own conscience; it is no

longer anything but an abstract, lifeless memory for him ... 1II The death of the inner

dialogue also diminishes the public sphere.

Weil's category is part of an ethical argument about the social presence of

interiority but in this case one that is constituted (read: mutilated) by force. The

consequence of force can he ..... stifting the response in us to sorne of the deepest and

most powerful spiritual aspirations that humans have conceived."112 Relations of

47

force embedded in our way of being in the world, in how we grasp the world, in our

language, are a source of the stifting. WeiJ's argument is about modems who are

constituted by, or rather robbed of, the social occasion to he moral agents. Efforts at

surfacing sources which constitute the modem identity often contain within them

appeals for fostering articulation. Seeing the horror that pervades the human condition

(anaJyzing the consequences of force) is a precondition of projects that base moral

agency on communication or articulation. According to Weil, to see good and to love

it requires avoiding consolation which requires seeing horror and amiction and

analyzing the consequences of force.

A Common VulnerabiIity to Affliction

There remains a possibility of renunciation within atlliction. Weil did not write

an apology for suffering. Sutfering has no value; however "the spirit in which the

sutfering is endured" has significance.1I3 Affliction is not instrumentally good. 1l4

The person in affliction" ... struggles Iike a butterfty pinned alive into an album. But

through all the horror he can continue to want to love. "lIS The desire to love in

amiction is possible providing one does not equate love with ·protection against

adversity. "116

Weil promoted a way of relating to the possibility of one's own atHiction. The

emphasis on one's own affliction is important because Weil viewed attempts to justify

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the atIliction of others as ideologica1. Amiction, by definition, is suffered

unwillingly.1I7 Weil argues, however, that one is permitted to desire the possibility

of amiction. lJ8 One cao aIso acknowledge that one deserves affliction because of

one's indifference and complicity in injustice and oppression. "Because among our

institutions and customs there are things 50 atrocious that nobody can legitimately feel

himself innocent of this difJused complicity. "119

Weil's analysis of affliction urges one to understand force, defilement, and

ultimately suffering in a way that reveals human vulnerability. "Gone is the armour of

power that formerly protected their naked souls; nothing, no shield, stands between

them and tears .... 11120 The relation ta the possibility of one's future affliction has

moral value in that it fosters an acknowledgement of one's vulnerability to affliction.

According to Weil, it is not enough to contemplate one's fragility, this fragility must

also be loved. In a sense, the acknowledgement of vulnerability, the recognition of the

power of chance and the possibility of being a victim informs the moral agent in a

way that the articulation of a positive standard and the practice of regulation does not.

This concept becomes pivotaI in Weil's critique of rights language.

Conclusion

Weil argues against the rejection of the darker sides of the human condition

and against the retreat into consolation. She emphasized exploring, delving into, what

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is wretched in humanity. The category of affliction is a corrective for the social

blindness that results from an unwillingness to examine the darkest corners of the

human condition: the pain we can induce and the pain we can endure. 121 The

category also exposes the impairment of ideal public discourse. The ethical category

of affliction helps modems to focus on the consequences of force and not on a moral

rule or principle.

PART III - APPLICATION

The Centrality of Labour

The theme of labour in Weil's writings provides a useful axis along which to

see the sociological dimensions of moral agency and more specifically Weil's

argument that moral inquiry demands analysis of the consequences of force. Weil's

social theory was developed through her study of labour praclices; a study concerned

with the anguish and brutalization Weil witnessed within the French working class.

122 The objective of this section is to examine the potential of one social practice to

he an occasion for renunciation or force .

•

Weil envisioned a society centred around the act of labour, but it is a particular

vision of labour, fi rst , as an activity where thl)ught and action become aImost one

50

moment, and in her later writing, as an occasion for practising attention. When the act

of labour is pathological, as Weil's analysis of modem labour practices revealed,

labour ceases to he an occasion for renunciation and becomes an instrument of force.

The pathological organization of labour was the object of Weil's analysis. Il is

important to clarify at the outset however, that labour as force is repulsive to Weil

because of the brutalization of the workers but also because of the promise labour

holds for being a fonn of renunciation.123

1 hope to underline in this section that force is the antithesis of renunciation.

Weil offered two domains in which to argue this out: love and labour. Love as force

is rape; labour as force is oppression. 124 Love and labour as renunciation are

instantiations of the consent to decreate. 125

Labour os Force

Weil's analysis of the nature of oppression as other than economic in her early

essay "Reflections Conceming the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression", is

furthered in her later works, The Need for Roots and "Human Personality". Her

understanding of the defilement that accompanies force led her to deve)op the non-

economic dimensions of oppression that have profound consequences on workers' self-

interpretation and moral language.

If workers ... felt that by being the victim they are in a certain sense the accomplice of sacrilege, thcir resistance would have a very different

51

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f

force from what is provided by the consideration of personaI rights. Il would not he an economic demand but an impulse from the depth of h · be' 126 t elr mg, ...

Weil's analysis of force confirmed that oppression breeds docility, not resistance, and

she investigated the nature of the docility of workers who were victims of force. "An

obviously inexorable and invincible form of oppression does not engender revoIt as an

immediate reaction, but submission."127 Weil found the three dimensions of

affliction: physical pain, psychologica1 torment and social degradation, present in the

lives of labourers. Labourers' self-interpretations have been abased by force - a force

whose instrument is the organization of labour. The later Weil saw that what was

attacked by the modem organization of labour was something sacred. Factory labour

produced in the worker a self-interpretation " ... as being one who doesn't count. "128

The brutality and agony of degrading labour manifests the "imitation of

nothingness" and prevent~ the emergence of a revolutionary agent, according to Weil.

Her analysis of affliction reftects in part a deepening of her understanding of the

nature of docility, the psychologicallayer of affliction was intended to capture the

docility.

ln Weil's later work, the instrument of the violation of the worker remains the

organization of labour. The essential feature of labour under capitalism is the

transformation of the worker into a means of manufacturing. The worker exists to

work and the object of work is existence. When the object of survival is survivaI, life

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is "without fonn" like "an amputated stump" .129 Survival becomes the end rather

than " ... the framework upon which ail good ... may he built. "[10 Labour as force

{osters the process of uprooting and the absence of relatedness that are central features

of the social dimension of amiction.13I Weil found physical pain, the physical

dimension of affliction to be part of the worker's daily life. m

Labour as Renunciation

Labour as force contrasts sharply with labour as renunciation, the latter manifests

the exercise of attention and it is through attention that one has access to the real.

"Physicallaoour is a certain contact with the rea1ity, the truth, and the beauty of this

universe. ,,\33 But for labour to become such an occasion requires a transformation of

the workplace such that: " ... the things which our needs and obligations force us to

look at must reflect what they prevent us from seeing directly."I34 Weil continued:

" ... the whole of society should tirst be constituted 50 that work does not demean those

who perform il. "IlS In The Need for Roots, Weil argued for manual labour as the

"spiritual core" of society. Weil's attempt to attack the social dimension of the

a1H.iction of workers necessitated a cultural transformation; a respect for the act of

labour. This view moves beyond, although one could argue it incorporates, the

relation between the worker and her work, the object of Wei)'s prescription in an

earlier essay: "Reftections Conceming the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression".

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Through the organization of labour, modems produce the conditions of their

existence. Labour is ambiguous; it provides an occasion for the exercise of attention

and as such is the spiritual core of society, or labour is an instrument of force that

defiles the labourer and produces affliction. The ambiguity of labour cao be captured

by the distinction between destruction and decreation. Labour as renunciation is only

possible within a social context that permits the exercise of attention. Weil's analysis

of oppression and affliction reveal the perversion of "labour as renunciation" into

"labour as force. "

CONCLUSION

Force inhibits attention and the formulation of a language that makes manifest

the consequences of force. Il is one thing to argue that language is an instrument of

force; it is quite another to argue that our relation to language is mediated by force.

Weil's prescription for the abased self-interpretation of the afflicted reveals her views

on the dominant modem moral language. We will tum to these in the next chapter.

Force drives the impairment of moral agency. In this chapter 1 have pointed to

the virtue of attempting to see the consequences of force. Wei},s category of

affliction, fruit of her penetrating analysis of the consequences of force, respects the

inner and social dimensions of ethical analysis. Exploration of the consequences of

force, such as the imitation of nothingness, informs the moral agent in a manner that

S4

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is distinct from adherence to a positive standard. Weil was of the opinion that modem

'-social practices, labour for example, sacrificed renunciation to force.

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-

CHAPTER THREE

RIGHTS

INTRODUCTION

Why is rights language unable to play the critical and explanatory funetions of

a moral language which adequately captures the violation of moral ageney, as Weil

understood it? The aim of this ehapter is to interpret Weil's critique of rights language

through her account of moral agency and her analysis of force. 1 will argue that these

two elements undergird the critique of rights language. The approach in this ehapter is

descriptive. A critical conversation with Weil's theory is beyond the scope of this

project. l36 The importAnt points that Weil makes May be eclipsed by, and therefore

deserve to be laid out in full prior to, a critical analysis of her work.

Weil's critique of rights language discloses the question: Does rights language

expose the Iink between atrocities and the forces which con tribu te to sueh praetices?

Clearly, the language used to describe a practice shapes the understanding of the

practice and consequently the proposais for goveming conduct. 1 will argue that the

application of rights language to practices commonly referred to as "violations of

rights tl can be a consolation in the Weilian sense. Rights language does not a1ways

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provide an adequate articulation of our moral outrage.

In this chapter 1 will describe, but not lay out in full. three arguments Weil

made ta challenge the hegemony of rights language; methodological, sociological, and

political arguments. The objective of this chapter is ta retrieve Weil's rejection of

rights language, nat to polemicize about rights language. 1 win argue that Wej}'s work

sheds light on the tension between regulatian and interpretation and compels an

examination of the abject of regulation.

PART 1 - WEIL'S CRITIQUE

Moral discourse legitimizes a particular view of the agent. A language of

lament, for example the psalms -and Weil's category affliction has an affinity with this

kind of language- carries a particular moral antology. Rights language is unable to

convey the exercise of moral agency as Weil conceived il. The bearer of persona)

rights is not the moral agent conceived by Weil. Weil wrote her critique of rights

language in her 1943 essay "Human PersonaJtty." She fervent)y described the abject

of critique:

The notion of rights, which was launched inta the world in 1789, has proved unable, because of its intrinsic inadequacy, ta fulfil the role assigned ta it. To combine two inadequate notions, by talking about the rights of human personality, will not bring us any further. J37

ln this section 1 will review sorne of Weil's difficulties with rights language with

57

particular attention to the relation between Wei!'s critique and her analysis of force.

Object of Violation

Rights language does not disclose the question: "Why am 1 being hurt?" , and

this is precisely the task of a moral language, aecording to Weil. The question is

difficult to reveal for two reasons: first, this is a silent question and second, people

are not disposed to hear it. Since this is a silent question il is revealed only through

the practice of attention. The language of personal rights does not focus on what Weil

considers to be the object of violation. Weil found not that personality,but something

mueh deeper was wounded by the praetices that were being described by the language

of personal rights.

Weil investigated what it was "exactly, that prevents me from putting that

man's eyes out if 1 am allowed to do so and if it takes my faney."138 Rights

language cannot convey the depth of harm done to the vietim, aeeording to Weil.

"What would stay it [putting that man's eyes out] is the knowledge that if someone

were to put out his eyes, his soul Y'ould be lacerated by the thought that harm was

being done to him. "139 The harm that is done is the removal of the ability to

decreate, the possibility of exercising moral ageney. Contrary to personalism, Weil

argued in favour of a moral language that serves "to safeguard, not their persans, but

whatever frail potentialities are hidden within them for passing over to the

l J

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impersonal. "140 Weil wanted to describe practices that impair the potential to

decreate:

When the inDiction of evil provokes a cry of sorrowful surprise From the depth of the soult it is not a personal thing. Injury to the personatity and its desires is not sufticient to evoke it but only and always the sense of contact with injustice through pain. Il is always, in the last of men as in Christ himself, an impersonal protest. 141

Weil found a moral language that rested on the notion of personal rights

inadequate because: "Perfection is impersonal. Our personality is the part of us which

belongs to error and sin. The whole effort of the mystic has always been to become

such that there is no part left in his soul to say 'l'. 142 The impairment of the

striving toward perfection, the consent to the dissolution of the "1", was the object of

violation, an object Weil felt could not he captured by the language of personal rights.

False Assimilation

The false assimilation argument refers to an inability of rights language to

convey the severity of the damage to the human being induced by certain practices.

The false assimilation argument for the rejection of rights language is found in Weit's

example:

If someone tries to browbeal a farmer to sell his eggs al a moderate priee, the farmer can say:'I have the right to keep my eggs if 1 don't get a good enough priee.' But if a young girl is being forced into a

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brothel she will not taJk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate. 143

The application of rights language falsely assimilates the later situation to the former.

The false assimilation argument suggests that the relation between outrage and the

object of outrage can be diminished by a language which does not capture, according

to Weil, the "cry of protest from the depth of the heart" .144 The purity of the cry is

abased bya moral language that subsumes the question: "Whyam 1 being hurt?" to

"Why does someone have more than 1 have?"14S, a cry which cannot convey the

depth of harm.

The Bargaining Spirit

Weil's ethic of renunciation has little affinity with the articulation of claims.

"It[rights language] has a commercial ftavour, essentially evocative of legal claims and

arguments. "146 The "spirit" or orientation of the juridicallanguage constitutes the

posture of the one employing the language. Weil is looking for the posture of

attention and finds instead a spirit of contention. Weil wrote:

1 f you say to someone who has ears to hear: "What you are doing 10 me is not just", you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. But it is not the same with words Iike '1 have the right. .. ' or 'you have no right to ... ' They evoke a latent war and awaken the spirit of contention. To place the notion of rights at the centre of social confticts is to inhibit any possible impulse of charity on bath sides. 147

Weil required a moral language that fostered the exercise of attention and argued that

60

the spirit of contention engendered by rights language inhibits the exercise of

attention. The subject of the bargain was the human subject, in other words, at stake

in the bargain was the capacity to exercise moral ageney, as Weil understood it.

Weil eonceded a use of rights language to regulate cireumstances surrounding

the question: Why has somebody else got more than 1 have? Weil wrote, "We must

.. do all that is possible, as gently as possible, to hush the [question] ... with the help of

a code of justice, regular tribunals, and the police." Weil's rejection of rights

language is definite but not absolute.

Ideological Funetion

Weillamented that virtually the only moral language in currency was one that

was not immune from force. She wrote, " ... power is not fully efficacious unless

clothed in a few ideas, and to this end they made use of the idea of rights, whieh is

admirably suited to il. -1411, Weil argued that rights language has been employed in a

manner that masks power relations and she pointed to the example of property under

Roman law whieh "was defined by the jus Ulendi et abundi. And in faet the things

which the property owner had the right to use or abuse at wi 11 were for the most part

human beings. "149 The illusion cast by rights language was palticularly odious to

Weil because of her project to serve the oppressed by finding "the words which

express the truth of their aftliction, the words which can give resonance, through the

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crust of extemal circumstances, to the cry which is always inaudible: 'Why am 1

being hurt?'"uO This is the heart of the Weilian appeal to analyze the consequences

of force.

Rights language is unable to convey the impairment of moral agency as Weil

conceived it. Weil found that not only was rights language unable to capture the

consequences of force, but that rights language was often employed within a context

govemed by force. "Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this

tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed

al."1.51 Weil pointed to a relation of dependency between the exercise of rights and

force. Weil could not reconcile herself to a moral language with such a relation to

force because of her understanding of the consequence of force as reification.

Conclusion

The relation between the language and the outrage is inadequate in both the

nature of harm and the false assimilation arguments. The violations in both of these

cases involve deep, identity-defiling acts. What Weil argues ID these cases is that:

"Relying almost exclusively on this notion [rights], it becomes impossible to keep

one's eyes on the real problem. "1~2 "Keeping an eye on the problem" is the strength

of Weil's category of affliction. m Rights language, according ta Weil, cannot serve

the explanatory function of a moral language within a context of defilement. This is

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the context for the interpretations which follow.

PART II - INTERPRETATION

Methodology

Weil's critique of rights language contains a methodological argument. Il is an

appeal to delve into the nature of practices that horrify and repel modems (therefore

the repulsion must be fought). This is an argument for avoiding "consolation", a term

which a1ways carries the pejorative sense of avoiding reaJity, for Weil.

Even in her early writing, Weil was passionately concerned with understanding

the consequences of oppression. Weil proposed a method for analyzing oppression in

her Lectures on PhiloSQPhy. The choice of subject matter is an important step in the

method. Weil was delving into the agony, in a sense producing a "negative" standard.

The question motivating the study is not what kind of society would guarantee respect.

She began by analyzing the nature of oppression, examining first its positive and

second its negative consequences. She then examined whether sorne of the positive

consequences of oppression, for example increased production, could be met in other

ways. The analysis culminates with the suggestion of action in relation to the analysis.

The analysis reveals that "unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed,

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to feel with them, one cannot understand. "1S4 This is a methodological principle for

Weil. It is such a principle because "Human beings are 50 made that the ones who do

the crushing feel nothing: it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. "us

Non-economic dimensions of oppression

Can nghts language help modems interpret reifying practices? Central to

Chapter Two was the argument that contact with force has consequences on identity. 1

would Iike to clarify in the following section why the analysis of force revealed both

the construction of an unauthentic self and the inability of rights language, according

to Weil, to contribute to the dismantling of this constructed self.

Affliction, in part the fruit of Weil's critique of Marx's conftation of

exploitation and oppression, provides an ethical tool which clarifies the distinction

between economic exploitation and the psycho-social dimensions of human misery.

Weil imposed psycho-social categories where Marx employed economic categoriesU6

and this contnbuted to her furthering of Marx's critique of rights language.

ln working out her criticism of Marx, Weil developed an analysis of

oppression that reveals the inability of rights language ta play the explanatory and

critical functions of a language of victimization. This is a critique of rights language

64

that goes beyond, although contains, the Marxist view of rights language as

ideological, as masking power relations. U7 Weil's contention is not only that humans

are unable to extract themselves from social and economic relations in order to appear

equal on the politicallevel but a1so they are unable to extract themselves from the

consequences of force. In Weil's Lectures she stated: "It is obviously quite impossible

for men to be treated like things in the labour market and in production and to be

treated as citizens in public life." 158

According to Weil, nghts language not only prevents power relations from

becoming transparent, but rights language ignores the consequences of power relations

on the self-illterpretation of the victim. Force defiles the victim's self-interpretation

and consequently mediates her relation to language. One cannot say: "1 have become

a thing" because to be afllicted or ~o have one's ability to articulate removed.

AfIliction is by its nature inarticulate. The affticted silently beseech to be given the words to express themselves. There are times when they are given none; but there are also times when they are given words, but iIl-chosen ones, because those who choose them know nothing of the a1Iliction they would interpret. 159

Weil's analysis of aflliction is an attempt to acknowledge the depth of the violation.

The inability of the afDicted to articulate is masked by the moral languèlge of rights.

The afIlicted cannot abstract themselves from their social relations to be equal citizens

in a political sphere, nor can they abstract themselves from the self-interpretation that

"theyare nothing."

65

What does Weil Mean by: "the affticted are inarticulate"? A distinction may be

drawn between two aspects of Weil's argument. First, the amicted are rendered

inarticulate by our inability to practice "attention", to listen. The muteness of the

aftlicted is a function of our deafness. " ... Deafness is complacently cultivated because

it is agreeable and it offers a positive satisfaction."ulO Second, the amicted lose the

ability ta make articulations. Affliction is by definition the most extreme form of

oppression. It is literally turning a person into a thing and things do not soUcit our

respect. The muteness of the afflicted is a function of the consequences of force and

this level of the argument is most interesting in relation to the practice of

interpretation. An examination of Weil's assertion that the affticted lose the ability to

articulate in a discussion about her view of rights language is legitimate since the

assertion comes from the same work as her most pronounced views on rights

language, namely; "Human Personality."

Rights language does not provide an adequate articulation of violation. Weil's

analysis of force coupled with rights language reveals the incongruence between

practices that humiliate the victim, that teach the victim that she has no worth, and a

moral language that purports that each person has worth. Weil's category of a1Diction

and analysis of force indicate that a counter-Ianguage cannot emerge because the

aftlicted, by definition, are inarticulate. The development of an alternative language

is stalled because: "those who could utter them cannot formulate them and those who

could formulate them cannot utter them. ,,161

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Weil's critique of rights language, even if we accepl il only in part, compels us

to examine the consequences of force on the victim's self-interpretation and

participation in the public sphere. Rights language may advocate respect for the

victim's moral autonomy without acknowledging lhat moral autonomy as the object of

force may be damaged. The righl can never be exercised; the language, the

evaluation, is inadequate.

Procedural Justice

Weil's work contributes to the articulation of alternatives to Rawlsian ethics.

Teuber finds in Weil's writing a focus on the other, through compassion, that is

distinct from procedural accounts of justice. 162 While she wrote no theory of justice

as such, Weil's "lliad" puts forth a view of justice that confers authority on the one

who sees and regrets the consequences of force and Weil demands understanding of

the depth of harm done as a precondition of justice. The understanding of the point of

view of the victim is not arrived at through sorne veil of ignorance or a hypothetical

formulation such as "how wouid 1 feel if 1 was the victim" or even the stronger: "how

do 1 feel as the victim" but by the concrete recognition of what the actual viclim

experiences. 163 The recognition is only possible through the practice of attention.

The deterrent to practices which defile lies in the object of attention itself and

not in the standard of conduct. Weil argues for attention, not to the rights, but to the

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object the right is designed to proteet. Compassion, not adherence to a principle,

fosters renunciation, moral agency.

The madness of love tums compassion into a far more powerful motive for any kind of action, including fighting, than splendour, glory or even honour. It compels one to abandon everything for compassion. and, as St. Paul says of Christ, to empty oneself. l64

The idea of justice resulting from calculations of our combined self-interest, as some

modem procedural Iiberals argue, is antithetical to Weil's ethic of renunciation.

Justice for Weil js a virtue; and rights, for the most part, are merely fictions.

PART fil - LANGUAGE OF HUMAN MISERY

Introduction

The question of whether sorne sufferers are beyond the ability to articulate is

distinct from whether sorne suffering is beyond articulation. Weil's critique of ri~hts

language incorporates reftection on sutfering, oppression, silence and the capacity to

articulate experience. In the following section, 1 would like to bring Weil's work into

conversation with the problem outlined by John O'Neill in the following quotation

from his essay entitIed "Violence, Language and the Body Politic":

The experience of violence tests in us the sense of our own humanity. Il may provoke in us the cry of our own anger, rage and sorrow telt for

68

the very first time. In some it willlead to despair and silence. Terror commits its deepest injury when it tempts us to silence. Yet it is not easy to say what we feel in the face of terror for at such times to speak at all is to depend upon the very human motives and situations which terror destroys. Thus terror hollows and empties our language, threatening it with destruction and ultimate silence. How, then are we to speak of terror and violence which obliterate the human landscape and wither the look of man?165

Weil's critique of rights language cao serve as a caution against: denying ~he muleness

of the victim, precision, regulation, and a hegemonic ethical discourse; features of

modem moral discourse. 1 will argue in this section that Weil's work maltes a

contribution to contemporary questions.

Muteness

What tums a person into a thing is force; but the nature of "thing" is to be

inarticulate. Matter is sUent. Force destroys the foundations of political speech. IM

The category of amiction discloses, not the absent voice, but the absence of a voice.

Weil finds in the employment of rights language a denial of the muteness, the absent

voice. The first thesis on Weil's view of language and human misery is that it is

important to talk about muteness, to cease to deny the consequences of force and the •

presence of the mute. Weil's work contains an argument for disclosing the muteness

because recognition of the muteness furthers understanding of the depth of violation.

There is a source of muteness in the victim and a source in the language. A

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facet of Weil's critique of the ideological use of rights language focuses on how the

language compounds the muteness of the amicted. The inability to articulate as a

result of the imitation of nothingness, the impairment of expression and inner

dialogue, are features of the muteness. However, Weil's critique of rights language

goes beyond the masking of the muteness by the language. The relationship of the

victim to language is distorted by force. The victim is not the only object of force;

language is al50 an object of force. Relations of power are not distinct from relations

of meaning. Milosz emphasized in his Nobel Lecture:

... whoever wields power is also able to control language and not only with the prohibitions of censorship but al50 by changing the meaning of words. A peculiar phenomenon makes its appearance: the language of a captive community acquîres certain durable habits; whole zones of reality cease to exist simply because they have no name. There is, it seems, a hidden Iink between theories of literature as ecriture, of speech feeding on itself. and the growth of the totalitarian state.167

. Hegemonic discourse involves suppression of the non-dominant discourse. Weil

argued that those who employ force are also the victims of il and this is a1so true

when language is the instrument of force.

Precision or Understanding

White the issue of muteness relates to a problem of articulation and

communication, practices of human misery also infect the meaning of language.

Discourse may delegitimize. normalize, reveal, mask, evaluate.

70

"

----~~~-----------------

In describing what happened to language within an inhuman context George

Stemer wrote: "Something immensely destructive has happened to it [language]. Il

makes noise. Il even communicates, but it creates no sense of communion. "\611 It is

important for Weil that sutfering he "attended toIt and that the muteness of the victim

be recognized. When Weil attempts to articulate the consequences of force an

inextricable element of the articulation is the "biUemess" she praised in the language

of the lliad; the bittemess as a moral posture. This essential posture is absent from

technical language of human misery, for example Stanley Cohen laments the

substitution of "moderate physical pressure" for "torture" .\69 The phrase describes

the practice but without the moral posture of a language of amict ion which, by

definition, wou Id have to convey "with bitterness" the psycho-social consequences of

the practice. In essence, 1 am arguing that Weil's development of the ethical category

of affliction cannot be divorced from the Weilian appeal which was the subject of

Chapter Two. Weil's argument is not for "an immense outpouring of precise,

serviceable words. "\10 The function of such phrases is precisely what Weil criticized

as false assimilation and ideological in the employment of rights language. The idea is

not to employ an antiseptic language; but to reveal the horror. An element of

"precision" for Weil is attention, love, recognizing with bittemess, and therefore

making manifest, the consequences of force.

An ethic of "knowing the worst" implies that the object of knowledge in this

case is regretted. 171 The regret or bittemess is part of knowledge; without it there is

71

no knowJedge of these objects (victims of atrocities). Consequently, Weil's appeaI to

anaJyze the consequences of force can never be reduced to an argument for precision;

it is an argument for understanding. The possibility of an objective precision about

inhuman acts is a )je. For Weil, "understanding the world begins to merge with

morality."\12 Understanding, in this context, presumes the regret and bitterness.

Interpretation over Regulation

Notions of moral outrage are distinct from notions of understanding. Does

moral outrage articulate repulsion more than it provides articulation of what precisely

constitutes the object of outrage? Moral outrage is ambiguous; it can propel us

forward to delve into and analyze the object of repulsion or it can repel us, marking

the end of contact with the object of repulsion and the beginning of regulation against

what we have only a hazy notion of. Would a move from moral outrage exclusively

toward regulation be ideological in the sense that it avoids or even disguises reality?

Moral outrage can, and this section will use Weil's critique of rights language

to argue that moral outrage should, be followed by a move into the interpretive as

weil as the regulative domain. Moral outrage that retreats to regulating against the

object of outrage without interpreting the consequences of the practice in question

serves to console us; it does not propel us to anaJyze the consequences of force. In

Weil's work one can find a preference for the second move from moral outrage

72

(interpretation) over the first move (regulation). Is this distinction avai1able if the only

moral language in circulation is rights language? The rnoral question inspired by

Weil's critique of rights language is which way are we looking from the boundary of

moral outrage: toward the object of outrage or away from it?

The application of a positive standard to practices that violate the standard does

not provide enough information. A violation of a right tells us that the practice is

short of the standard but, when the practice is interpreted against the positive

standard, the subtleties of the nature of the practice are not disclosed. The function of

the term "violation" is to tell us what the practice is nOl, what standard the practice

fails to meet, or, violates. Weil's rejection of rights language contains an appeal for a

moral language that tells us what the practice is.

There is no room in rights discourse, according to Weil, for the kind of

distinctions she made between affliction, defilement and humiliation, for example. But

we cannot expel from reality these distinctions that represent the depth of what is done

and as such are a part of the human condition. Weil's rejection of rights language as

an inadequate articulation of moral outrage contains, a1beit al the margins of her

argument, articulation of distinctions that make a critical contribution to contemporary

moral discourse. The most significant feature of WeiJ's work is her insistence on

interpretation of practices of atrocities, her analysis of "force". Without the Weilian

emphasis these distinctions are relegated to sorne vacuous area beyond a:-ticulation and

73

as sueh contribute neither to self-understanding nor to the courage required to get at

the source of sueh praetices.

Ethical Categories

A moral language serves as an evaluation of our moral practices.173

Describing a practice shapes views of the praetice, for example, describing a praetice

as a violation of rights can shape the view of the practiee through false assimilation,

and by masking the object of violation, power relations and the depth of harm.

Descriptions play ideological roles. Weil understood rights language as masking or

iIIuminating certain features of practices. Interpretations of practices, interpretations of

human experienee, eonstitute human relation to those practices. Weil's critique of one

of modem society's dominant moral languages, offers a new way of relating to these

practices. This is, in part, why the Weilian critique of rights language may be read as

a corrective for the modem practice of regulating against that which we do not full y

understand. Weil's work enables us to see the moral cowardice involved in such a

move.

A specifie interpretation of practices can change a general framework for

understanding whieh in tum influences the specifie interpretation. 174 Il would seem

that the uniform interpretation PTQvided by rights language can be replaced by a

plurality of interpretations whieh help us to understand what is going on. There is an

74

argument at work here; namely, that the practice of ethics consists in, or is served by,

having access to a number of such categories. Ethical categories are not exempt from

evaluation. It is no surprise, given this view of the field of ethics, that 1 argue that the

fruit we can reap from a retrieval of the Weilian critique of rights language is the

ethical category of affliction.

CONCLUSION

ln summary, Weil's critique of rights language contains an argument for the

recognition of muteness. Weil understood the subordination of interpretation to

regulation as analogous to the subordination of understanding to precision.

1 do not wish to argue that affliction is Weil's alternative to rights language;

but merely that the kind of terrain explored by this term is not disclosed by rights

language. Contributions to moral discourse, ethical categories, can reveal what we had

no access to through more limited articulations. An exclusive reliance on one moral

language may strip us of other, c1arifying, moral concepts.

Weil's view on rights language is rooted simultaneously in her account of

moral agency and ber analysis of force. In large part the rejection of rigbts is made

simultaneously with an appea.l to analyze the consequences of force. An ethie of

renunciation makes sense as a response to the victim of such consequences of force as

75

the imitation of nothingness. An ethic of character or moral choice lacks content when

the "1" has been destroyed. If there is a source of resistance to political bestiality it

lies perhaps in facing and penetrating the consequences of force.

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•

CONCLUSION

The Weilian ethic of renunciatio.n and her appeal to analyses the consequences

of force undergird her critique of rights language. This thesis presents an argument

for a plurality of moral discourses, a retrieval of a useful ethical category and an

example of the relation between a particular moral ontology and moral discourse.

This thesis has clarified certain key elements of Weil's account of moral

agency: renunciation, decreation and attention. Within Weil's paradigm of

renunciation, decreation is the antithesis of reificaticn. Murdoch applauded Weil's

account of moral agency,

We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy. Our CUITent picture of freedom encourages a dream-like facility; whereas what we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place. Simone! Weil said that morality was a matter of attention not of will. We need a new vocabulary of attention. 175

Weil's ethical category of affliction represents a "vocabulary of attention".

Weil was passionately concerned with describing reification in intimate detail

and in analyzing the ways in which the absence of renunciation diminishes the public

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sphere. The public sphere argument in Chapters Two and Three pointed to "the

political context of knowledge, speech, and action. "116 Weil argued that rights

language does not adequately interpret reifying practices. The victim of force is not

only unable to extract herself from social and economic inequalities in order to

participate equally in politlcal life; she has no resources to extricate herself from the

consequences of force. Weil engages both the social and inner poles of ethica1 analysis

in her assessment of the psycho-social dimensions of reification.

Wh en describing practices that approach what Weil calls "affliction" modems

are faced with the added obstacle of the relation between language and muteness (or

force and discourse). This thesis has pointed to the difficuIty of talking about the

imposition of dumbness. The silence that proceeds from force finds not a voice but is

recognized by the category of affliction. Sorne extreme forms of victimization inhibit

the ability to articulate experience. While muteness presupposes speech, the

recognition of muteness is powerful because it lends credence to the view that pain is

not texl. Sorne things cannot he spoken.

The Weilian appeal to analyze the consequences of force focuses on attention

to the object of violation and not on a positive standard. Moral inquiry involves

uncovering the object of violation, to examine in detail the consequences of reifying

practices, according to Weil. Weil would prefer to understand wretchedness and

human mi sery rather than articulate a standard of conduct because virtue lies in seeing

78

,

things as they really are. The imperative is to look because attention discloses reality.

The moral language we employ to describe atrocities, humiliation, defilement

constitutes our understanding of the object of violation. Weil held that rights discourse

can normalize and falsely assimilale practices ln the na me of expediency. Resistance

10 false assimilation demands compassion, not adherence to a rule.

Weil's project was, it seems, qui te ambitious: to reassert a moral language that

was immune from force. Whether she found such a language with the category of

affliction remains to be seen. She was, however, successful in describing the problem

of the mute;-.i.!SS of the afIlicted rooted as il is in indifference and the imitation of

nothingness.

In 1937 Weil wrote: "To clanfy thought, to discredit the intrinsically

meaningless words, ar'd to define the use of others by precise analysis - to do this,

strange though it may appear, might be a way of saving Iives."m To clarify the

meaning of "rights violation" seems parlicularly urgent. But when Weil argues for

clarifying meaning, a constitutive element of this is clarifying relations of force.

The purpose of this study was to retrieve a particular "no" to rights language,

examine what undergirded the rejection in terms of concepts of the human being,

language and society, and to explore the consequences of this critique of a moral

language in terms of the emphasis contained in the critique on interpretation of

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ft

practices that, sacHy, continue ta plague the human condition. It is on the basis of

what Weil's critique of rights language reveaJs about agony that this study is justified.

Hope without penetrating the agony is iIIusory, it is a "consolation" in the Weilian

sense.

80

1. Simone Weil, "Are We Struggltng for Justice?," trans. Marina Barabas PhilQsQpbical Investi~ations JO (January 1987): 5.

2. Simone Weil, "The Power of \Vords" III SlI1lOne Weil: An Antholog)', ed. Sian Miles (London: Virago Pres~,1986), ~5~.

3. Richard Woods, ed., Understandlllg r-.lyStiCISIIl (New York: Image Books 1980),536.

4. Weil IS clted 10 Bruce Lmcoln, "RevollillOnary Exhumations ln Spain 1936" Comparative Siudles III SocIety and HI!lIOr}' vol '27, 1985, 250. Lmcoln argues that reflections on atrocltles msplred Wel!'s /lwcl. Poem of Force: "HIs also worth nolmg tbat it was shortly after her return from service ln the Paffldo Obrero de Untficaci(1n Marxista (POUM) mihtia in Aragon and Catalonia where she was profoulldly shaken by the atrocities of the revolutlon, that Sllllone Weil pllblJ~hed her essay, lliad: Poem of Force."

5. Paul West, The Wme of Absurduy' b\ay~ 011. Llterature and ron~olatlQn (University Park: Pennsylvama Slate Unlver~lIy Pre~~, 1966, 141. For the detimtlve biography of Simone WeIl see Simone Petrement, Simone WeIl' A Llfe, translated by R. Rosenthal (New York: Schocken Books, 1976).

6. Charles Taylor "The Nature and Scope of DI~tributlve Justice," chap. in PhiloSQphy and the Human SClencesuPhllosophlcal Papers Il (Cambndge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 291.

7. Weil, "Are We Strugghng for Justice," 1.

8. Weil's early account of human agency was based on the employment of melhod. For the most complete account of Well's early wntmg on human agency see Peter Winch, Simone Weil: "The Just Balance" (Cambndge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

9. Simone Weil, "Forms of the lmpllclt Love of God" in Waitine for God trans. Emma Craufurd (New York: G.P. Putnalll's Sons, 1951; New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 145.

10. Simone Weil, Intimations of ChrislIanity Amone the Ancien! Greeks (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1957; London: Ark, 1987), 183.

11. Weil, "Are We Struggling for Justice?," 3.

12. For an excellent critique of Weil 's paradlgm of creation see Jeffrey Eaton, "Simone Weil and the Problem of Analogy," Theology 87 (January 1984): 13-19.

13. Simone Weil, Waiting for God, trans. Emma Craufurd (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1951; reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 197), 148.

81

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14. Simone Weil, Gravit y and Grace, tran~. Emma Craufurd (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1952; London. Ark, 1987), 33.

15. Ibid., 29.

16. Simone Weil, GravJty and Grace, 33.

17. Ibid., 35.

18. Simone Weil, IntImatIons of ChnstlanJty Among the Anclent Greeks, 175.

19. Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. SIan Mile!. (London: Virago Press, 1986), 293.

20. Ibid., 283.

21. Edwin Heaven and David Heaven, "Some Influences of Simone Weil on George Granr's Silence," In George Grant 111 Proce~~. ed. Lawrence Schmidt (Toronto: Anansi, 1978), 77.

22. Weil, Gravit y and Grace, 28.

23. Simone Weil, IntImatIOns of Chrrsuanity Al110ng the Ancient Greeks, 175.

24. David McLI~Jlan, Utoplan Pesslmist: The Llfe and Tholl~ht of Simone Weil (New York: Pmeldon Press, 1990). 200.

25. Weil, Gravit y and Grace, 29

26. SJnlOnc Weil: An Anlhology, 231.

27. Simone Weil, WaJtmg for God, 113.

28. Simone Weil: An Anthology, 233.

29. "Orientation" IS Murdoch's preferred emphasis. See her essay "On God and Good" in The Soverei~nty of Good (London: ARK, 1985), 46-76 where she relies on Weil.

30. Eric Spnngsted, Christus Mediator: Platonic Mediation in the Thollght of Simone Weil (Califorllla: Scholars Press, 1983), 122.

31. Judith Van Henk, "Simone Well's Rehgiolls Imagery: How Looking Becomes Eatmg." In Immaculate and Powerful-- The Female in Sacred Ima2e and Social Reality, ed. C. Atkinson, C. Buchanan, and M. Miles, 260-282 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 271.

32. Ibid.

82

33. Weil, Gravit)' and Grace, 3.

34. For WeiJ's vlews on educauon seè her essay "RetleclIons on the Rlght Use of School Studies WIth a Vlew To The Love of God" III Wallm~ for God (New York: G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1951; reprint, New York: Harper and Ro"" 1973),105-116.

35. Weil, Gravit)' and Grace, 1:2:

36. Weil, Waiting for God, 153

37. Weil, Simone Weil' An Antholog)', :!3~.

38. Iris Murdoch, The Soverelgnt)' of Good, (Londnn: ARK, 1985), 89.

39. Ibtd, 34.

40. Weil. Gravit)' and Grace, 58.

4l. Weil, Walttng for God, 150.

42. Ibid, 148.

43. Ibid, 149.

44. Ibid.

45. This term is used by Paul West in The WlIle of Absurdlt)': Essa)'s on Literature and Consolation. (Umverslty Park: Pennsylvania State Umversity Press, 1966), 143.

46. Martin Buber, On Judalsm (New York: Schocken Books, 1967), 211.

47. George Panichas, preface to The Simone Weil Reader (New York: McKay, 1977), xxii.

48. Weil, Gravit)' and Grace, 144.

49. Throughout this section 1 rely on Weil's phrase: "!lUman environment" which she explored in greatest depth in her last work: The NeeJ for Roots. The concept of roots prevents any bracketing of questions of cultural IdF.:ntity from those of moral agency. History, language, tradition and communuy he between people, they constitute a web of relations in whlch people partlclpate, an envlronment which is inhablted. Weil wrote: • A human being has roots by vlrtue of hls real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future." Simone Weil, Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of DUlies Towards Mankind trans. A.F. WilIs (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952; reprint, London: ARK, 1987),41.

83

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50. WeIl. Gravit)' and Grace, 149.

51. WeIl. Gravit y and Grace, 41.

52. IbId, 39.

·3. WeIl, GravJty and Grace, 39.

54. Although, ln her faetory Journal, Weil records moments such as: "On day~ of pourmg ram, It'~ qUlte a ~Ight to see the herd of women who have arrived before the gate "opens" kt'ep ~landlllg III the rall1 next to that small ope' door waiting for the bell tu nng ... Nu prot~~t, no reaCIJon at aIl.

A lovely gIrl, ~trong, radiant, and healthy, says one day in the c1oakroom, after a lOhr. day: l'm fed up wlth worklllg ail dé' j long How 1 wlsh If were Bastille Day 50

1 could dance Me: Vou can thmk of danclI1g after 10 hrs. on the Job? Her reply: Of course! 1 could dance ail nlght, etc. (Iaughmg). Then, senously: ifs been 5 years since l've danced You feel IIke danclflg, and then you dance over the washing.

Two or three melancholy women with sad smIles are not of the same common type as the other~. One asks me how \l'S gOlllg. 1 tel: her that l'm in a quiet corner. She, with a gentle and melancholy smlle: l'm glad! Let's hope il will last. And she repeats it once or tWlce ln this kmd of IIfe those who suffer aren 't able to complain. " Simone WeIl, "Factory Journal" ln Formative Wntings 1929-1941 ed. Dorothy Tuck McFarland and Wilhelmllla Van Ness. (Amherst: Umverslty of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 202-203.

55. Moltmann-Wendel. LIberty. Eguality. Sisterhood: On the Emancipation of Women in Church and SocIety (PhiladelphIa: Fortress Press, 1978), 73._

56. Beverely Hamson, "Theologleal Reflection in the Struggle for Liberation: A Feminist Perspective," in Maklllg the Connections, ed. Carol S. Robb (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 240.

57. Ibid, 242.

58. Ibid, 240.

59. Dorothee Soelle, The Strength of the Weak trans. Robert Kimber and Rita Kimber (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984).

60. Weil, Gravit y and Grace, 106.

61. Weil, Waitin~ for God. 151.

62. Weil, Gravit y and Grace. 58; quoted in Ann Margaret Sharp, "Simone Weil on Friendship" Philosophy Today 22 (Winter 1978), 271.

84

63. Weil, Waitlng for God, 147

64. Judith Van Henk, "Simone WeIl's RellglOlIs Imagery: Ho\\' Lookmg Becornes Eating," ln Irnmaculate and Powerflll-- The Female ln Sacred Ima~e and Social ReaUt)', ed. C. Atkinson, C. Buchanan, and M. Mlk~ (Bo!,[on: Beacon Press, 1985), '276.

65. Simone De BeauvOIr, MemOlrs of a DlItlful Dallghter (New York: PengulI1 Books, 1963) 239.

66. Simone Weil, Lectures on PhJlosophy, Iran!' Hugh Priee; Wllh an Illlroductlon by Peter Winch (Cambndge: Cambndge Unlver~l!y Pres!I, 1978), 75.

67. Simone Weil, "The J/Uld: Poem of Force," 111 SlIllone Weil: An Antholo~):', ed. Sian Miles (London: Virago Press, 1986), 208.

68. Ibid., 208.

69. Ibid., 183.

70. Ibid., 188.

71. Ibid., 188.

72. Ibid., 201.

73. Ibid., 203.

74. Ibid., 190.

75. Ibid., 203.

76. Ibid., 204.

77. Diogenes Allen, Three Outsiders: Pascal. Kierkegaard. Simone Weil, (USA: Cowley Publications, 1983), 102.

78. Simone Weil, "The Self", in Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. Sian Miles (London: Virago Press, 1986), 99.

79. Paul West, The Wine of Abslirdity: E~say!l on Literature and Consolation, 139.

80. Simone Weil - An Antholo~y, 215.

81. West, Wine of Absllrdity, 150.

82. David McLellan, Utoplan Pesslmist: The Lire and Thollght of Simone Weil, (New York: Poseidon Press, 1990), 75.

85

83. Gabnel Marcel, "SlIllone Weil," III The Month 2 (1uly 1949): 15.

84. WeJllal11cnt~ the modern abandon ment of the moral language of vlrtue: " ... the very word virtue ha~ now ~oJ11ethlllg ndJ(.:uloll~ abolit Il - that word which at one time held 50

much meanmg, IJke the ",ord!> hunesty and goodne~~ also." Simone Weil, Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Dutle~ Towards Mankmd (London: ARK, 1987),223. For more on the abandon ment of the moral language of virtue see Alasdair MacIntyre, After Vlrtue, (Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).

85. Simone Weil - An Anthology, 246.

86 Ibid., 223.

87 Ins Murdoch, Ihe Soverelgnty of Good (London: ARK, 1985), 73.

88. Simone Weil, Need for ROOIS' Prelude to a Declaration of DUlies Towards Mankind, 219 and Simone Weil, Intllnatlons of Chnstlanltv Among the Ancienl Greeks, (London: Ark Paperback~, 1987), 223

89. Weil wrote' "The service of the false God (of the SOCial Beasl under whatever form il may he) punfles eviJ by ehmmatll1g Ils horror. Nothll1g seerns evi1 to those who serve it except failure In ilS service The ~ervlce of the true God, on the other hand, allows the horror of evll to rematn and even makes Il more intense." Simone Weil, Gravit y and Grace (London Ark Paperbacks, 1987), 147-148.

90. Simone Weil, "The Love of God and Affliction," 111 Simone Weil Reader ed. George Pamchas (New York: McKay, 1977),440.

91. Ibid.

92. Dorothy Soelle, SlIffering (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 16.

93. The Simone Weil Reader, 440.

94. Ibid., 441. The SOCial dllnenslOn of affliction was rarely explored in traditional Christian Iiteratllre on suffenng, according to Soelle. See Dorothy Soelle, "Critique of Christian Ma~ochism," in Suffering (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 9-28.

95. Simone Weil - An Anthology. 235.

96. Simone Weil, "AdditlOnal Pages on the Love of God and Affliction," in Gateway to QQd (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1985), 94.

97. "HumiliatIOn is also a vIOlent condition of the whole physical being, which wants to rise up against the outrage but IS forced, by impotence or fear, to hold itself in check. " Simone Weil Reader, 440.

86

L ____ _

98. Simone Weil - An Anthology, 20~.

99. Ibid., 187.

100. Weil, Gateway to God, 95.

101. Simone Weil - An Anthology, :;02.

102. Weil, Gravit)' and Grace, 121.

103. Iris Murdoch, The Soverelgnty of Good, 91.

104. Ibid.

105. Soelle, Suffering, 36.

106. Ibid., 178.

107. Simone Weil - An AnthoJogy, 204.

108. Ibid. Weil wrote, "And both, at the tOl1ch of force, expenence its inevitable effects: they become deaf and dumb. "

109. The Simone Weil Reader, 441.

110. Soelle, Suffering, 76. The pOSSlbihty of forgiveness is removed when the subject is destroyed. If the victim 's ability to articl1late her suffering is impaired then the victim's ability to forgive IS removed.

111. The Simone Weil Reader, 442.

112. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 519-520.

113. Gabriel Marcel, "Simone Weil," in The Month 2 (July 1949): 14.

114. David McLellan, Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone Weil (New York: Poseidon Press, 1990), 200.

115. The Simone Weil Reader, 452.

116. Diogenes Allen, "Natural Evil and the Love of God" in Reli2ious Studies 16 (December 1980): 449.

87

117. "It is wrong to desire afflictIon; it IS against nature, and il is a perversion; and moreover il IS the essence of aftllcuon that Jt IS suffered unwillingly." Weil, Gateway Jo Q,Qg, 87-88.

118. "But whal lS in facl al ways present, and what II is therefore permitted to love, is the possibility of aftliction." Ibid., 88.

119. Ibid., 87.

120. Simone Weil - An Anthology, 191.

121. SoeHe, Sufferin~, 155.

122. Hanna Arendt has described Weil's Journal as: " ... the only book in the huge literature on the labour question which deals wllh the problem without prejudice and sentimentality." The Human CondItIOn (Chicago: Umversity of Chicago Press, 1958), 131.

123. On the conditIon of factory workers see Weil's factory journal. For example "Indeed, in thls shop, not one second in a 9-hr day is not spent in work. 1 have not once seen a woman raise her eyes from her work, or two women exchange a few words. No need ta add that in this place the seconds of the women's lives are the only things that are economlzed on so carefully; in other respects, waste, waste to spare." Weil, Formative Wntings, 202.

124. Jeffrey Eaton, "Simone Weil and Feminist Spintuality" in Journal flf the American Academy of Religion 54 (Winter 1986): 694.

125. "Rape is a terrible caricature (Jf love from which consent is abseljt. After rape, oppression is the second horror of human existence." Si mone Weil, "Are We Struggling for Justice?" trans. Marina Barabas Philosophical Investieatlons 10 (January 1987): 3. It is clear that the analogy might just as easily be developed through an examination of love as force instead of labour as force.

126. Weil, "Human Personality, " Simone Weil - An Antholo~y, ed. Miles (London: Virago Press, 1986), 80.

127. Weil described her own experience of abandoning re'/olt in her Factory Journal, "AT Alsthom, 1 rebeUed only 011 Sundays ... At Renault, 1 had arrived at a more stoical attitude. Substitute acceptance for submission." Weil, Formati~ Writin~s, 226.

128. Simone Weil, Seventy Letters (London: Oxford University Press, 1965): 35, quoted in Lawrence Blum and Victor Seidler, A Trller LIberty: SImone Weil and Mantism (New York: Roateledge, Chapman and Hall, 1989), 154.

88

[

129. SImone Weil - An Anthol~, 101.

130. Simone WeIl, "PrerequlsJte 10 the Dlgnity of Labour" in Simone Weil - An Anthology, 265.

131. Weil descnbed the dlftiClIlty of developlIlg relatIOns among the factory workers. She wrote ln her faclory Journal, "The next mornmg, at my machine again. 630 per hr., desperately stralnmg for ail "rn worth. Suddenly Martin, who cornes over with Gautier behind hlm, say!l, "Stop." 1 stop, but remam seated in front of my machine, not understanding what IS wanted of me. ThIs gets me a bawling out, for wh en a foreman says "Stop" Il seems you have to be Immedlately standing at attention, ready to pounce on the new Job he is gomg 10 glve yOll ... .lndeed, in thls shop, not one second in a 9-hr. day is not spent ln work. 1 have nOlonce seen a woman raise her eyes from her work, or two women exchange a few words." Weil, Formative Writings, 201-202.

132. Well's factory Journal provides very concrete examples of the physical dimension: "When, 3 months earlier, , had heard the story of the milling machine cutter that had gone through a woman' 5 hand, 1 lold my5.elf that with slIch an image in my memory it would never be easy for me to work on a milling machine." Weil, Formative Writin~s, 206.

133. Weil, "Human Personality" in Simone Weil - An Anthclogy, 80.

134. SImone Weil - An Anlhology, 270.

135. Ibid., 276.

136. Throllghollt thls chapter Weil's rejection of rights language is fleshed out by drawing on the relation between her moral ontology outlined in Chapter One and the analysls of force which was the subject of Chapter Two. Weil ignored the emancipatory potential o~ the moral language of nghts. The sl'bject of this thesis is the retrieval of a "no" to rights language but there is little doubt that Weil's project is open to the criticism of being insufficiently dialectical. 1 began this retrieval of Weil 's critique of rights language wlth her accouni of moral agency. Critical conversation with Weil' s view of rights language may also have the same startmg point. See Jeffrey Eaton, "Simone Weil and the Problem of Analogy," Theology 87 (January 1984): 15-19.

137. Simone Weil, "Human Personality" in Simone Weil: An Anthology (London: Virago Press, 1986), 71.

138. Ibid.

139. Ibid.

89

140. Ibid., 78. Weil argues against personaltsm and the movement associated with Emmanuel Mounier that affirmed "the absolute value of the human person." See 10hn Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier and the Nev/ Catholic Left 1930-1950. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.

141. Ibid., 74.

142. Ibid., 75.

143. Ibid., 8~.

144. Ibid. 84.

145. Ibid.

146. Ibid., 81.

147. Ibid., 83.

148. Ibid., 82.

149. Ibid.

150. Ibid., 87.

151. Ibid., 81.

152. Ibid., 83.

153. Weil asserted in the same work: "One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assissi talking about rights." Ibid.

154. Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy, trans. Hugh Priee; Wilh an Introduction by Peter Winch. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 139.

155. Ibid., 139.

156. David McLellan, Uto.pian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone Weil, 72.

157. See Karl Marx, "On the Jewish QuestIOn" in Karl Marx: SeJected Writin&s, ed. David McLellan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)

158. Weil, Lectures, 130.

159. Simone Weil: An Anthology, 85.

160. Ibid.

90

"

\. 161. Ibid., 83.

162. Andreas Teuber, "SImone WeIl: Equality as Compassion." in Philosophy and Phenomenologlcal Research 43 (December 1982).

163. Ibid., 234.

164. Simone Weil, "Are We Strugghng for Justice?" translated by Marina Barabas. Philo')ophical Investigations 10 (January 1987): 9.

165. John O'Neill, "Violence, Language and the Body Pohtic" in Sociology as a Skin Trade: Essays Towards a Reflexive SoclOlogy (New York: Harper and Row, 1972),57.

166. IbId., 59.

167. Czeslaw MIlosz, Nobel Lecture, (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1981) 13. In his Nobel Lecture, MIlosz acknowledges hls "profound" mdebtedness to Simone Weil.

168. George Steiner, Language and Silence: Essays on Language. Literature and the Inhuman (New York: Atheneum, 1972), 96.

169. Stanley Cohen, "Talking About Torture m Israel," Tikkun 6 (November/December 1991): 23-30, 89-90.

170. Steiner, Language and Silence, 99.

171. Paul West, The WlI1e of Absurduy: Essays on Literature and Consolation, 139.

172. Eric Spnngsted, ChrIStus Mediator: Platonic Mediation in the Thouf:ht of Simone Weil (Cahfornia: Scholars Press, 1983), 54.

173. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambndge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 35.

174. James Tully 1 Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and his Crities (Cambridge: Polily Press, 1988), 495.

175. Iris Murdoch, "Against Dryness - - a Polemical Sketch" Encounter 16 (January, 1961), 20.

176. John O'NeIll, "Violence, Language and the Body Politic." in Sociolo~y as a Skin lrade: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. (New York: Harper and Row, 1972),59.

177. Simone Weil, "The Power of Words" in Simone Weil - - An Antholo~)! ed. Sian Miles. (London: Virago Press, 1986), 242.

91

SELECTED BlBUOGRAPHY

Works by Simone Weil: English Translations

Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1951; reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

Gravit y and Grace. London: Routeledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1952; reprint, Translated by Emma Craufurd. London: Ark Paperbacks, 1987.

Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind TransJated by A.F.WiIIs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952; repnnt, London: ARK, 1987.

Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ud, 1957; reprint, London: Ark Paperbacks, 1987.

Oppression and Liberty. Translated by Arthur Wills and J. Petrie. London: Routledge and Paul, 1958.

First and Last Notl:!books. Translated by Richard Rees. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Lectures on Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Priee; With an Introd';cuon by Peter Winch. Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 1978.

On Science. Necessity and the Love of Gad. Translated and Edited by Richa~d Rees. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Seventy Letters. Translated by Richard Rees. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Gateway to God. London: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1974: reprint. ed. David Raper. London: Fount Paperbacks, 1985.

The Simone Weil Reader. Edited by George Pamchas. New York: McKay, 1977.

Simone Weil: An Antholo.~. Edited by Sian Miles. London: Virago Press, 1986.

Formative Writings. 1929-1941. Edited and Translated by Dorothy Tuck McFarland and Wilhelmina Van ness. Amherst: UOIverslty of Massachusetts Press, 1986.

92

"Are We Strugghng for Justice?" Tran!.lated by Marina Barabas. Phi)osophica) Investi&atlOn5> 10 (January 1987): 1-10.

"The Legltimacy of the Provisionai Government" Trans1ated by Peter Winch. Philosophical InvestigatIOns 10 (April 1987): 87-98.

Secondary Sou .. ce~

Books

Allen, Diogenes. Three Outsiders: Pascal, Kierkegaard. Simone Weil. USA: Cowley Publications, 1983.

Arendt, Hanna. Human ConditIon. ChIcago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.

___ . Men in Dark TImes. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968.

___ . Eichman in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil. New York: Viking Press, 1964.

Baum, Gregory. Theo)ogy and Soci~. New Yorl :: Paulist Press, 1987.

Blum, Laurence, and Victor Seidler. A Truer Liberty: Simone Weil and Marxism. New York: Routeledge, Chapman and Hall, 1989.

Buber, Martin. On Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 1967.

Calder, James Gordon. "Labour and Thought in the Philosophy of Simone Weil: Preface to a Philosophy of Education." Ph.D. diss., Dalhousie University, 1985.

De Beauvou, Simone. Memoirs of a Dutlful Daughter. New York: Penguin Books, 1963.

Edwards, Thomas. Imagination and Power: A study of Poetry on Public Themes. New York: Oxford UmversIty Press, 1971.

Grant, George. English - Speitkmg Justice. New Brunswick: Mount Allison University, 19',4.

Gutierrez, Gustavo. We Drink From Qur Own Wells. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1984.

93

Hauerwas, Stanley and Alasdalr Maclntyre, ed. Re\'lslons: Chjm~in~ Perspectives in Moral Philosophy. Notre Dame: Ul1Iwrslty ot Notre Dame Press, 1985

Hellman, John. Emmanuel Mounier and the New Cathohc Left l<nO-1950. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.

MacIntyre, Alasdalr. After VJrtue. Notre Dame: UniversIty of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

McLellan, David, ed. Karl Marx: Selected Wntlllgs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

___ . Utopian Pessimist: The Llfe and Thought of SImone Weil. New York: Poseidon Press, 1990.

Milosz, Czeslaw. Emperor of the Earth' Modes of Eccentric Vision. Berkely: UniversIty of CalJforOla Pres~, 1977.

___ . Nobel Lecture. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1981.

Moltmann-Wendel. Liberty. Eguality. Sisterhood: On the EmancIpation of Women jn Çhurch and SocIety. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978.

Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. London: ARK, 1985.

Pennock, J. Roland and John Chapman. Human Rlghts. New York: New York University Press, 1981.

Petrement, Simone. Simone Weil: i\ Life. Translated by R. Rosenthal, New York: Schocken Books, 1976.

Pierce, Roy. Contemporary French Politlcal Thought. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Rees, Richard. Simone Weil. Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UOIverslty Press, 1966.

Soelle, Dorothee. Suffenng. Philadelphia: Fortress Prc!ls, 1975.

___ . The Strength 1)[ the Weak. Translated by Robert Kimber and Rita Kimbt:f. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984.

Springsted, Eric. Christus Mediator: Platonic Mediation in the Thoul:ht of Simone Weil. California: Scholars Press, 1983.

94

Stemer, George. Language and Silence: E~~ays on Language. Literature and the Inhuman. New York' Athenellm, 191'2

Taylor, Charle!,. Hlirnan Agency and Language: Phllosophical Papers 1 Cambridge University Pre~s, 1985.

___ . SOllrce~ of the Self. Cambndge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Tully, James Meamng and Context· Quentm Skmner and his Cri tics. Cambridge: Polit y Pre~,>, 1988.

West, Paul The Wme of Absurdl!y' Essays on Literèltllre and Consolation. University Park: Penmylvama State University Press, 1966.

White, George Abbott. S' mone Weil: InterpretatIOns of a Life. Amberst: University of Ma~~achu~clts Pres~, J 981.

Winch, Peter Sllllone Weil -- The Just Balance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Articles

Allen, Diogenes. "Natural EVII and the Love of God." Religious Studies 16 (December 1980): 439-456.

Andic, Martm. "Simone Weil and Kierkegaard." Modern Theology 2 (Dctober 1985): 20-41.

Andrew, Edward. "Simone Weil on the Injustice of Rights-Based Doctrines." ~ Reviewof Politics 48 (Wmter 1986): 60-91.

Baum, Gregory. "Spirituality and Society," In The Social Imperative. New York: Paulist Press, 1979, 129-147.

Cohen, Stanley. "Talkmg About Torture in Israel," in Tikkun 6 (November/December 1991): 23-30, 89-90.

(

Coles, Robert. "Simone Weil: The Mystery of her Life." Yale Revjew 73 (Winter 1984): 309-320.

95

-------------------- ----

Eaton, Jeffrey. "SImone Weil and Femlnlst SpIrltuahty " JQlIrnal of the American Academy of ReligIOn 54 (WlI1ter 1986): 691-7ü-t .

. "SImone WeIl and the Problem of Analogy." Theolo1!Y 87 (January 1984): 13-19.

Ferber, Michael. "Simone WeIl's Ihad " 111 Simone WeIl, ed. George Abboll White, 63-86. Amherst: Umverslty of Mas~achmett~ Pres~, 1981.

Galta, RaImond. "Vlrtues, Hllman Good, and the UllIty of a LIfe " J.n.m!.!!Y 26 (1983): 407-424.

Galilea, Segundo. "LiberatIOn as an Encollnter wlth Pohtlcs." In Understandin~ Mysticism, ed. RIchard Woods, New York: Image Books, 1980, 529-540.

Gunnemann, Jon P. "Human RIghts and Modermty: The Truth of the FictIon of Indivldual Rights." JOllrnal of RehglOlls EthlCS 16 (Spnng 1988): 160-1~9.

Harrison, Beverely. "Theologlcal RetlectIon III the Struggle for LIberation: A Feminist Perspective." ln Making the ConnectlOn!l, ed. Carol S. Robb, Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.

Heaven, Edwm, and David Heaven. "Some Influences of Simone Weil on George Grant's Siknce." ln Geor~e Grant III Process, ed. Lawrence Schmidt, 68-78. Toronto: Anansi, i 978.

Henle, R.J. liA Catholic Vlew of Human Rights: A Thomistic Retlection." ln Ih.ç Philosophy of Human Rlghts, ed. Alan Rosenballm, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980, 87-93.

Lincoln, Bruce. "Revo1utionary Exhumations III Spain July 1936." ÇQmpAru;3 S!Mi.es in Society and Hlstory 27 (1985): 241-260.

Marcel, Gabriel. "Simone Weil". In The Month 2 (July 1949): 9-18.

Martin, E. W. "Simone Weil and Existential Commitment." Hibbert JQurnal 63 (Autumn 1964): 9-12.

McMammon, John. "Simone Weil and the Tyranny of Self over Spirit." In Chical:o Review 16 (Winter-Sprmg 1964): 189-192.

Merton, Thomas. "Pacifism and ResIstance ln SImone Weil." In Faith and Violence. Notre Dame: UniverSIty of Notre Dame Press, 1968, 76-84.

96

Murdoch, lm "AgalO~t Drynes~ -- A Polemlcal Sketch" Encounter 16 (January, 1961), 16-20

Nelson, Ralph. Revlev. of Weil' Formative Wntmgs 1929-1941, by Dorothy Tuck McFarlane and WJlhemma Van nes~ ln Canadlan Journal of Politlca1 SCience 20 (September 1987): 669-671

O'Neil, John. "DecolOnlzatlon and the Ideal Speech Community: Sorne Issues in the Theory and Practlce of Communicative Competence." In Critlcal Theory and Public ~. edlled by John Forester. Ma~sachu~etts: MIT Pres~, 1988, 57-76.

__ . "VIOlence, Language and the Body Polltic." in Sociology as a Skin Trade; Essays Toward~ a Reflexive Soclology. New York: Harper and Row, 1972, 57-67.

Rosen, Fred. "Marxl~m, Mystlclsll1, and Liberty: The Influence of Simone Weil on Albert Camus." PolJtlcal Theory 7 (August 1979) 301-319.

Sharp, Ann Margaret. "Simone Weil on Fnendshlp." Philosophy Today 22 (Winter 1978): 266-275.

Sontag, Susan. "Simone Weil," 10 Agamst Interpretation. New York: Farrar, Straus and GiroUX, 1966,49-51

Soelle, Dorothee. "Martha and Mary," 111 The Window of Vulnerability: A Political Spirituality. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990, 93-96.

Springsted, Eric. "The Works of Simone Weil." Theology Toda~. 38 (October, 1981): 389-392.

"The Religious Basis of Culture: T.S.Eliot and Simone Weil." Reli~ious Studies 25 (March 1989): 105-116

Stewart-Robertson, Charles. "Philosophical Retlections on the Obligation ta Attend." fbilosophy Today 31 (Spnng 1987): 54-68.

Taylor, Charles. "The Nature and Scope of Distributive Justice." In Philosophy and the Human SClences-- Philosoplllcal Papers II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Teuber, Andreas. "Simone Weil: Equality as Compassion." Philosophy and Phenomeno10~ical Research 43 (December 1982): 221-238.

97

,

l

Van Henk, Judith. "Simone Wel!'s ReltglOlis Imagt!ry' How Looklng Becomes Eating." In ImmaclI!ate and Powerful-· The Femak ln Sacred Image and fu!illll Reality, ed. C. Atkinson, C. Buchanan, and M. MIII!~. Boston: Bc"con Press, 1985, 260-282.

Woodhead, Lmda. "SImone Wel!'s ConversatIOn wtth Ihe Bhagavad Glta." Theolo&y 90 (January 1987): 24-32.

Woolger, Roger. "Against Imagination' The Via Negatlva of Simone Weil." In Sprin~ (1973): 256-272.

98