Jeff Mason

For people who try to be ethical, there is a problem concerning the relation of Sartre's philosophy and ethics as traditionally conceived. Traditionally, ethics is conceived to be a set of rules for living that derives from God, nature, or reason, which stand firm despite the objections and denials of individuals.

The individualism of Sartre's thought seems to banish morality from serious consideration. It undermines the belief that God gives us values that are universally binding. It corrodes the Kantian belief in the existence of universal moral laws that are objectively valid for all moral agents. The denial of a fixed human nature also corrodes an ethics based on human pleasure or happiness, like hedonism and utilitarianism. What is judged `good' or `bad' is a matter of individual choice. The individual must give weight and substance to values. In themselves, therefore, they are all weightless.

Sartre is a voluntarist where values are concerned, believing that it is because we value things or actions that they have value. In themselves, they are without value. Take money. Money has a value only because we believe we can use it to exchange for goods and services. You can't eat or drink it. If we all lost the conviction that we could buy anything with our money, it would become worthless. The fact is that in choosing to do one thing rather than another, we give values to the things and people in the world that confronts us, but those values are not intrinsic to the objects in the world. Instead, they rely on the continuance of our choice to maintain them and to give them efficacy in our lives.

Perhaps I can make this more clear by invoking Plato's ancient question, posed by Socrates in the Euthyphro dialogue. He ask a young Seer who claims to know the will of the gods, named Euthyphro, whether what is pious is pious because the gods love it, or whether the gods love
it because it is pious? Replace `pious' with `good', and you get the question whether what is good is good because the gods love it, or whether they love it because it is good? Plato, of course, argues that the Good exists in itself and is the source of all goodness in the world. The gods love it because it is good. Sartre would argue that what is good is good because the gods love it, and not the other way around. If we now drop the fiction of the gods, we get the argument that what is good is good because we value it as such, not because it is that way in-itself.

This line of argument can easily lead to an extreme relativism or situationalism in ethics. If we are the measure of all values, then whatever we value has the value we put upon it as long as we continue to value it in the same way. If you change your mind tomorrow, then yesterday's values will cease to matter to you, and the new ones will take their place. This question becomes acute when a person chooses to be anti-social, and to disregard normal standards of moral conduct. These standards are roughly based on the Golden Rule, `Do to others what you would have them do to you.' We are supposed to respect the rights and dignity of others, and not to act so as to prevent others going about their lawful lives. But why? Why not use others to do one's bidding? Why not cheat them or lie to them? Why not rob or kill them, if one chooses to do so and has the strength and cunning to carry it out? In short, why should an existentialist be moral and respect the rights of others?

At first sight, there does not seem to be anything in pure existentialism to prevent me choosing the life of an authentic Nazi. All I have to do is accept responsibility for my choices and actions and live with the consequences without bad faith. Can one derive an acceptable ethics from an ontology of such severe individualism?

This is not a question that Sartre had considered to any extent, but it is clear that he thought he could derive an ethics from his existentialism. He tries to sketch one out in Existentialism as a Humanism. What are other people like? How do we relate to them? These are prior questions that must be raised before answering the question about conventional morality. The first question is how the solitary consciousness, separated from the world and other people by nothingness, is aware of other people in the first place. Is there any room for intersubjectivity in Sartre's universe of abandoned consciousnesses?

In Being and Nothingness Sartre describes how our consciousness of ourselves undergoes a radical transformation upon the recognition of the existence of other conscious beings beside ourselves. Awareness of the look of another person marks a fundamental change in our consciousness of ourselves. I do not have to infer the existence of other conscious beings by observation. I am directly aware of the gaze of the other, of being fixed by another consciousness, or having an outside perspective that I can never achieve for myself.

Sartre describes three modes of being, being-in-itself (self-subsistent being), being-for-itself (consciousness being), and being-for-another. Your `being-for-another' is how you appear to other people. Everyone you meet makes up their own minds about you, and you have limited control over their opinions. Of course, how you are perceived by others is influenced by what you do. If you get a reputation for lying, then no one will believe you when you tell the truth. Reciprocally, if people think you are a liar, when you are not, you might be tempted to become one. There is nothing more hurtful than being condemned for something you did not do.

There are many fruitful lines of enquiry radiating off this analysis of our being-for-others. For now, it is enough to note that Sartre takes the view that human relations are fraught with conflict about the possession and use of power. He is famous for saying that "Hell is other people." The Look is a method of domination. Either my freedom will subdue yours, or yours will subdue mine. It seems we must all be either masters or slaves. This does pose a problem for ethical thought.

Sartre takes an altogether different tack in Existentialism as a Humanism. He claims that if we analyse the for-itself, we can see a reason to be moral. The reason is that though we are all ontologically free, we are not all actually free. Freedom limits freedom, and the freedom of others is an important constraint. `My freedom is inscribed within the freedom of others.' Slavery still exists. There is still exploitation and subordination of people. We still exist in relations of superiority and inferiority, despite our egalitarianism and democracy. It will be possible to be truly moral only in a world which has overcome these dichotomies. They include unequal classes, sexes, peoples, ages, etc.

All these ways of relating to others are based on the misconception that others are thing-like, but we know from our own example that people are not thing-like in any way. They are conscious beings in the same condition as myself, and face a similarly uncertain future.

The project of exploiting other people is based on self-deception. We must pretend that those we exploit are not fully human, and therefore fit to be made instruments of our will. All racism, sexism, and ageism are rooted in bad faith. No group of people has a nature that makes them inferior or dangerous to others. We suppose that somehow it is not a free being who stands before us, but we know deep down that it is. Since existentialism tries to remain truthful, the project of exploitation in any form must be wrong. Sartre tries to base ethics on a recognition of our ontological freedom.

Once we see that all of us are in the same condition, we will fight against any who treat others as things. From this point on, Sartre battles for human freedom wherever it is suppressed. He adopts an ethics of liberation. We must strive for universal recognition that one cannot be partly human and partly not, partly free, and partly not. Belief in determinism is the crutch of the exploiter.

In Existentialism as a Humanism, Sartre utilises the test by which Kant proposes to determine whether one is working with a self-consistent moral principle, the Categorical Imperative. This imperative calls on us to universalise the maxim under which we propose to act. If we are not willing to legislate it for everyone, including ourselves, then it is not suitable as a moral principle. For example, take "Thou shalt kill" as a possible moral principle. Can we desire the universalisation of such a rule? I think not, for it implies that you will be killed, and no one wants that. "Thou shalt not kill", on the other hand, can be universalised and turned into a law without bad consequences for anyone; the world would be a better place without murder.

Sartre uses two other ways of getting at what is being expressed in the Categorical Imperative. One way of putting it is, "Never treat another person as a means to an end, but always as an end in herself or himself." The other is, "Try to bring about a kingdom of ends, in which we all respect one another as persons."

These are good sentiments, but do they follow from the ideas of existentialism? Even if we grant a feeling of solidarity with other free conscious beings like ourselves, how can a morality be generated from respect for freedom alone? It remains abstract in much the way that Kant's ethics does. We can test our moral maxims, but where do they come from in the first place? Take "Thou shalt not steal". This passes Kant's test for moral principles. One can consistently universalise it. Reason tells us that the world would be better without theft. However, it is only in a world that has the institution of private property that the notion of `stealing' makes any sense at all. In a world where we possesses all things in common, there would be no need of a moral rule about stealing. Kant's ethics gives us only the form of morality, not its content. The same can be said for Sartre's ethics in Existentialism as a Humanism.

We are to respect others as ends in themselves and never treat them as means to our ends. How does this work in practice? It means that we fight against colonialism. Sartre was against the French occupation of Algeria in the forties and fifties. He was against capitalist exploitation of workers, anti-Semitism, the subjection of women (with some backsliding), racism in America, and American exploitation of South America. He took up many causes and wrote in support of everyone trying to be free of various self-deceived exploiting groups.

All this tells us more about Sartre's choice of his own life than it tells us about ethics. The importation of Kant seems strangely ad hoc, given his antipathy to God and the Moral Law we must obey. I speculate that he used Kant as a generally intelligible way to make sense of his own moral and political orientation. It remains an interesting question whether one can derive an ethics from existentialist first principles. Sartre himself promised to write an ethics, and some of his notes have been published, but they are not fully worked out. Difficulties abound, and this may be the reason that Sartre partially abandons the full blooded individualism of his earlier work, and turns toward philosophical anthropology and politics in his later writings.