• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Ep. 250: Simone Weil on Human Needs (Part One)

August 18, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/partiallyexaminedlife/PEL_ep_250pt1_7-26-20.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:37 — 43.7MB)

On "The Needs of the Soul" from The Need for Roots (1943) and "Meditation on Obedience and Liberty" (1937).

What are human needs that should drive what kind of society would be best for us? Weil says we need liberty yet obedience, equality yet hierarchy, security yet risk... and none of these words mean quite what you'd think.

For one, we need "order," and by this she doesn't mean a government exerting an iron fist, but a clear ordering of our obligations with a minimum of conflict between them.  It's not a matter of social convention but of something "eternal" (think Kant's categorical imperative, but she has a largely unstated religious basis for this insistence) that we owe each other consideration. If someone is in trouble to my right and to my left, and I can only help one of them, that doesn't remove my obligation to the one I wasn't able to help. A society can help here by clarifying my duties so that I know which to help, and can also work to make it rare that I'd be faced with such a dilemma. If a society declares, however, that one of the lives is not grieveable (to use Butler's term), like I'm only obligated to help my fellow countrymen, then it's doing damage.

A lot of the elaboration of these needs likewise turns into some specifications of optimal political circumstances, or more often present puzzles as to what society could possibly serve these extensive and complicated needs. We have a need for private property, but also communal property, so what sorts of social situations would optimize our opportunities for both kinds of experiences? We have a need to be obedient, but only to obey with consent: A dictator robs ironically robs us of the ability to obey in this way. We also have the need for leadership, at least some of the time. So what social configurations would optimally allow for these contrasting experiences? She denies Aristotle's "golden mean" as not actually fulfilling either need. What we instead require is to have each need fulfilled completely, but in alternation, so maybe we lead in one role that we play, but obey in another.

Her conception of societies, or really groups at any size and level of complexity, is that they should serve individual human needs. They are only valuable insofar as they are food for individuals. Creating a group, with its infrastructure and customs and functions, is a real achievement, and most groups do their members some good, so we should usually try to reform rather than destroy them, but they also exhibit pernicious tendencies like making their members conform in their opinions. Weil thinks that groups should never be allowed to excommunicate members based on what they believe. If a group is oppressive, it's not serving its function. In short, a group is our food.

Conversely, what is our responsibility toward a group? Just the same responsibility that we have toward food. If the food is in danger, and I must fight for the death for it lest everyone starve, then I should do that. But the group itself has no interests, no needs, no mind, no obligations, and while we should respect it for its function as food, there's no place for worship of the group or its representatives. We're all just human, and deserve the same amount of respect as human beings. We all exert that eternal obligation on each other, and groups should function in service of that, not to create hierarchies without function or oppress minorities or the like.

One of our needs is for truth, and because of that, she thinks that we have no right to lie to each other, and so while government should give us absolute freedom of thought and speculation, insofar as we're speaking to convince others, to effect political change, we can legitimately be prevented from hurting each other with words, which includes lying, irresponsible gossip, praising morally pernicious behavior. She really ends with a pretty restricted view of free speech despite her demand that free thought is absolutely necessary for us to to use our minds properly, and that being able to articulate ourselves is a necessary part of thought.

I've been describing "The Needs of the Soul" so far, which we go through at length (the public release for this episode will run over three weeks instead of the usual two; we recorded the last third of this discussion on a different day). Before getting to this, we considered the short fragment (about 6 pages) "Meditation on Obedience and Liberty," where Weil asks "why do the many obey the few?" Her answer: Because the many aren't organized and, because there are so many of them, they can't be, whereas the few that oppress them do organize themselves. But it's odd, isn't it, that if by practical necessity someone lords over us, because that person understands and controls the means of production or whatever the ruling apparatus is, that we naturally feel inferior as a result of this situation. This natural, detrimental hierarchy is what she wants to head off, even as she recognizes other kinds of hierarchies as actually fulfilling human needs for recognition.

Buy The Need for Roots, which contains "The Needs of the Soul," or try this online version. Buy Oppression and Liberty, which contains "Meditation on Obedience and Liberty," or try this online version. For episode 251 we'll cover "Theoretical Picture of a Free Society," which is also in this latter volume.

This is merely part one of three, covering "Meditation" and only the very first of the needs. You don't want to wait for another two weeks to get parts two and three, do you? Get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL! Support for this discussion came from listener Charles, who dedicates it to Temple Grandin, whose work he describes as similar to Weil's. You might want to listen to our previous Weil episode before this one, but it's not really necessary.

Picture by Genevieve Arnold.

Have you listened to Wes's (sub)Text podcast yet? It's great!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: existentialism, philosophy podcast, political philosophy, psychology, Simone Weil

Comments

  1. Greg says

    August 18, 2020 at 2:05 pm

    One of my favorite episodes. I am eager to read the source materials.

    Reply
  2. Charles Dahl says

    August 20, 2020 at 5:00 pm

    Here is a podcast that covers more of her life and thought.
    http://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/category/Simone+Weil

    Reply
  3. Charles Dahl says

    August 20, 2020 at 5:06 pm

    and I can’t help comepair her thoughts on God to Spinoza.
    https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2017/05/29/reissue-ep24-spinoza/

    Reply
    • dmf says

      August 23, 2020 at 10:36 am

      not
      https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2015/08/10/ep121-1-augustine/
      ?

      Reply
      • Charles Dahl says

        August 23, 2020 at 10:49 pm

        I haven’t listened to that one yet, I’ll put it at the front of my queue. Thanks for the suggestion.

        Reply
      • Charles Dahl says

        August 30, 2020 at 5:21 pm

        I am going to say that I’m not seeing it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. It doesn’t help that Seth was missing given that his few comments did a lot to help me understand what was discussed. What made me look more into what Weil thought about God’s role in the universe was wondering what sort of being she would have faith in given her views on force in 225. I still haven’t gone back over the two to compare them again but I remember thinking that Spinoza and Weil had more compatible views on God with each other than with there contemporarys.

        Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Oct. 2020: Consuming and Producing says:
    October 8, 2020 at 2:48 pm

    […] Partially Examined Life “Ep. 251: Simone Weil’s Ideal Society” and “Ep. 250: Simone Weil on Human Needs“ […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 302: Erasmus Praises Foolishness (Part Two)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • MartinK on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • Wayne Barr on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in