“Justice is the attention to the unhappy as to the most important of persons.”
— Simone Weil[commonly attributed] Summary of Weil's ethics of attention in Gravity and Grace and The Need for Roots; not a verified line
Commentary
This summary condenses Weil's view that justice consists in attending to the suffering of others with the seriousness that their situation demands. The formulation links the ethics of attention to the obligations of social life, and it reflects her conviction that the modern world treats the unhappy as statistics rather than persons. Simone Pétrement's biography (1976) describes how Weil's experience in factories shaped her view of injustice as a matter of lived humiliation. Eric Springsted (1986) argues that justice, for Weil, is grounded in the recognition of the other's reality, which attention makes possible. Robert Coles emphasises the practical character of this ethic in Weil's own work with the poor and the sick. The sentence is a summary of positions expressed across her writings and should not be cited as a direct quotation.
Commentary
This summary condenses Weil's view that justice consists in attending to the suffering of others with the seriousness that their situation demands. The formulation links the ethics of attention to the obligations of social life, and it reflects her conviction that the modern world treats the unhappy as statistics rather than persons. Simone Pétrement's biography (1976) describes how Weil's experience in factories shaped her view of injustice as a matter of lived humiliation. Eric Springsted (1986) argues that justice, for Weil, is grounded in the recognition of the other's reality, which attention makes possible. Robert Coles emphasises the practical character of this ethic in Weil's own work with the poor and the sick. The sentence is a summary of positions expressed across her writings and should not be cited as a direct quotation.