Out of Sight and beyond Speech: State of Nature and Morality in Saramago

I firstly analyse how Saramago in his novel "Blindness" evokes the idea of morality as an individual process, which leads to the emergence of compassion and hospitality, and then as a collective process based on the achievement of a shared idea of justice. Then I focus on the relation between the “gaze” (or look) of the other, social rules and compassion, and refer to some contemporary and non contemporary literature that theorizes this relation. I then conclude with some remarks suggesting that Saramago’s work might be considered utopian in nature.