Morality and the Sphere of Attention

We are born, we attend, we die—but what then of morality? If existence precedes essence and if human being is a sphere of attention, so that our “essence” is simply a dynamic embodied processing in the world, then there seems to be little room to argue that we can live our lives with others in a way that is genuinely moral. My approach will be different from Sartre’s infamous Kantian-like proposal delivered as a speech in France, ideas which he later acknowledged as half-baked thoughts on ethics and existentialism (Sartre 1976 and 1985). It will also not involve the embrace of a socialistic ethics, as Sartre tended to do later in his career. Instead, this chapter draws its primary inspiration from existentialist philosopher and theologian Martin Buber.