The Road to Jericho – The Moral Significance of Attention

The opening lecture will introduce the Loving Strangers project and develop a methodology for reading biblical parables as philosophical thought experiments. We will then begin to practice this method with the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.

We’ll start by practicing what St. Ignatius of Loyola describes as “composition of place” looking at the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and the situation travelers would have found themselves in. We’ll consider the situationist challenge to developing a love ethic, revisiting the landmark Darley and Batson “Good Samaritan" study at Princeton. We’ll consider whether it is coherent to blame someone for a failure of Samaritanism.

This lecture will argue that common failures of Samaritanism are not necessarily due to heartlessness but to a failure of perception; the state of being hurried or "task-oriented" effectively closes the moral aperture, rendering the stranger invisible. Drawing on the insights of Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch and Emmanuel Levinas, we’ll consider the two forms of attention that are most salient to the love ethic. One form of attention requires being interruptible, prioritizing attention to a person over attention to a task. The other requires looking again, challenging the impersonal stereotypes that harden our perception of others. The love ethic demands a shift from seeing others as "non-playable characters" to recognizing them as particular, dignified selves.

All are welcome to attend the lectures, but please register at: https://tinyurl.com/wildelectures1