The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (Routledge, 2022). ISBN 9780367756932

Abstract

Attention, Iris Murdoch tells us in ‘The Idea of Perfection’, is ‘the idea of a just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality’ (Murdoch, 1999, p. 327).1 She takes this to be the characteristic and proper mark of moral agents, a claim that is both descriptive – a claim about what in fact characterises us as agents – and normative – a claim about how we should act, what we need to do more of in order to become better moral agents. Silvia Caprioglio Panizza followsMurdoch inmaking both of these claims. Her new book The Ethics of Attention is an extended discussion of the role and importance of attention within our moral lives. Panizza here draws on the work of Murdoch and Simone Weil to explore the nature andmoral importance of attention. This commonplace and recognisable activity, she suggests, is both essential for accessing moral truth and also morally significant in and of itself. Moreover, it is ‘fundamental to morality’ (p. 16) in that many of the other things we care about morally (such as moral knowledge andmoralmotivation) arewell understood as depending on attention. The first chapter outlines Panizza’s conception of attention and makes a case for its moral significance. Her basic understanding of attention is that it is a ‘truth-seeking engagement of the individual with reality’ (p. 24), though she stresses that this is a non-exhaustive characterization of it. This notion of attention as engagement underlies her explanation of why attention is inherently morally significant: it is morally significant, she suggests, because in attending we engage with reality, with truth, rather than with our own selfish concerns and