Ethics, Moral Blindness and Liquid Modernity: Discussions on José Saramago and Zygmunt Bauman

Abstract

Liquid modernity has brought us countless repercussions, especially for human relations. The turmoil of information, due to negative globalization, makes people less and less empathic in the face of catastrophic situations, such as airplane crashes, dam breakages, pandemics, hurricanes and etc..The new individualism linked to the weakening of human bonds and the dissolution of compassion have repercussions on a kind of moral and ethical blindness of individuals. The aim of this article is to relate the passages of José Saramago’s Blindness (2017) with Bauman’s concept of moral blindness. The novel narrates the story of an epidemic of white blindness that spares throughout the city causing chaos. The blindness experienced by characters in the book is not due to physical problems, but related to the loss of empathy to the suffering of others, that is to say, moral blindness.