Attending to the Virtue of Attention: The Historicity and the Futuring of See, Judge, Act in Constant Crisis

In this paper, I will argue that the virtue of attention is a liberative virtue that is necessary to think about the future constructively. Looking to the historical thread of the method of “See, Judge, Act” and to the theology of attention by Simone Weil, I investigate the virtue of attention in the midst of constant crisis. Attention is a necessary tool for the “See” in the See, Judge, Act Method, for the first step of charity is the attention to see the other; the poor are considered non-people, and attention heals in granting visibility. However, this vision is not an abstract gaze; rather, it is a communal act of prophetic hope. The good is never static but dynamic, requiring an attentiveness that allows beauty to become liberating justice. The liberative virtue of attention is transfigurative; it leads to a theology that attends to the world with patience.