Love’s Work: The Attention Ecology of Simone Weil

This article examines the ecological dimensions present in the thought of Simone Weil (1909–1943). From Weil’s early social and political essays treating the rise of fascism and the exploitation of the working class, to her late philosophical writings on the embodied, earthbound nature of the human soul, I track the development of Weil’s strikingly original ideas on modernity, physical labour, artistic production, and love, showing their fundamental ecological-conservationist orientation as well as their relevance to contemporary environmental thought. Against the grain of the traditional reception of her thought, I argue that some of Weil’s religious notions — in particular her concept of ‘attention’ — not only have a demonstrable basis in the material relations and sensuous beauty of this world, but also are highly fruitful for understanding the conceptual and practical connections that hold among ethics, ecology, and affect today. By way of a conclusion, I sketch the contours of what an ‘attention ecology’ along Weilian lines might look like, suggesting its promise vis-à-vis the eco-ethical task of finding a way of thinking about not just how our relationship with nature is but how it could be.