Hunger as Ethical Practice: Reimagining Asceticism with Simone Weil

This study rethinks Christian asceticism through the lens of hunger, drawing on Simone Weil’s work. For Weil, hunger is not something to be overcome but a concrete exposure of human vulnerability, where bodily need, spiritual truth, and ethical responsibility converge. The paper proceeds in three parts. The first section situates her view of renunciation—not as a pursuit of spiritual advantage but as relinquishing all that is not grace—within the history of ascetic mastery, emphasizing consent to human vulnerability. The second section examines Weil’s account of hunger on multiple interrelated levels: as a physical reality, as an expression of desire, and as a source of ethical awareness. The third section proposes a reimagined Christian asceticism that distinguishes genuine need from manufactured appetite, reorients practice from mastery toward consent, and extends personal discipline to an awareness of structural oppression and systemic injustice.