Humanism and human racism: A critical study of essays by Sartre and Camus 9783111343112, 9783110991611

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DE PROPRIETATIBUS

LITTERARUM

edenda curat C. H . V A N

SCHOONEVELD

Indiana University

Sériés Practica,

41

HUMANISM A N D H U M A N RACISM A Critical Study of Essays by Sartre and Camus

by

ROBERT CHAMPIGNY

1972 MOUTON THE

HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1972 in The Netherlands Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated, or reproduced in any form, by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission the publishers.

print, from

L I B R A R Y OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N U M B E R : 77-189701

Printed in Hungary

CONTENTS

List of abbreviations

7

Introduction

9

1. The Agent Temporality Freedom Responsibility Bad Faith and Theatricality Conclusions

11 11 16 20 23 28

2. Goal and Ideal Authenticity Alienation Ethics and Morals My Neighbor

31 31 33 45 47

3. Absurdity and the Tragedian The Question of Suicide Meaning of Life and Ethical Sense The Character and the Tragedian

55 55 56 60

4. Suffering and Death Revolt The Tragic and the Pathetic The Bishop and the Dog

66 66 70 74

Conclusion

78

Bibliography

83

Index

84

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

For references to writings by Sartre: EN : L'Etre et le néant (Paris: Gallimard, 1943) EH : L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Paris: Nage], 1946) QJ : Réflexions sur la question juive (Paris: Morihien, 1940) SO : Saint Genet comédien et martyr (Paris: Gallimard, 1952) lìT): Critique de la raison dialectique, I (Paris: Gallimard, 1960) For references t o writings b y Camus: E : Essais (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1965)

INTRODUCTION

The first two chapters of this critical study bear on essays by Sartre, the last two on essays by Camus: only part of the production of these two writers will be covered. The first chapter will be concerned with L'Etre et le néant (Being and Nothingness). The second chapter will extend the critical attention to L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a humanism), Réflexions sur la question juive (Reflections on the Jewish Question), Saint Genet comédien et martyr (Saint Genet comedian and martyr), Critique de la raison dialectique (Critique of dialectical reason). The third and fourth chapters will be devoted to Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) and to L'Homme révolté (Man in Revolt). I shall also comment upon a passage taken from L'Incroyant et les chrétiens (The Unbeliever and the Christians). Allusions to other writings by Sartre and Camus will be made in the notes. My purpose is to evaluate the contribution which these texts can bring to the conception of moral sense. Do they point in the right direction? Do they map out the conceptual road with enough precision? What I mean by moral sense will gradually appear as the study progresses. The reader may, of course, come to realize that his own conception of moral sense differs from mine. An essayist is not bound to take words in the sense in which "everybody" takes them. For, in the case of many terms, in particular in the case of the term moral, relying on common usage would result in a mass of incoherences, even of contradictions. And the first duty of an essayist is to t r y to be coherent, within the confines of a single piece of writing. On the other hand, if he is not required to adopt all recorded meanings, he must at least justify his use of a term on the basis of an agreement with some common uses. Otherwise, he should have used another term, or he should have coined a word.

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INTRODUCTION

The meaning which an essay gives to a term, the way in which it articulates and composes certain notions, are not intended to pass as a linguistic law: this would be a ludicrous pretension. If it is published, an essay such as this one endeavors only t o provide the reader with an opportunity to test and sharpen his own ideas on the issue. This is what the author has attempted to do. The objective is not to force an agreement between reader and a u t h o r at all costs, but to come to an agreement with oneself and to determine where the agreement and disagreement with others lie. Should the case arise, the objective is to agree about the disagreement.

1

T H E AGENT

TEMPORALITY

An ontology may be designed so as to provide a foundation for an ethics. This is the case of L'Etre et le néant (1943).1 The last three pages, entitled "Moral Perspectives", point out how the foundation has been laid. In fact, L'Etre et le néant is more than a foundation: it encroaches upon ethical theory, as evidenced by the choice of terms like mauvaise foi (bad faith ) and responsabilité ( responsibility ), to name ontological protagonists. 2 The second of these terms has a direct bearing on my topic. For moral sense, as I conceive it, is not simply the ability to judge a state of affairs morally good or bad. I t is the sense of a value as a goal, or ideal, of an action. And the action in question is first of all the action which one feels one should undertake: moral sense is, among other things, the apprehension of oneself as responsible agent. The conception of responsibility which Sartre presents is what interests me in this first chapter. I t goes with a certain notion of freedom, which, in turn, rests on a certain notion of temporality. This is where my examination must begin. I n my opinion, the analysis of temporality which can be found in L'Etre et le néant (EN, pp. 150-218 and 255-268) suffers from a weakness which extends to the whole work. I t also has its own special flaws. 1 A m o n g t h e commentaries which stress this orientation, the s t u d y of Francis Jeanson, Le problème moral et la pensée de Sartre (Paris: Le Myrte, 1947), has received Sartre's approval. 2 One m i g h t even apply to L'Etre et le néant w h a t Sartre says of Sein und Zeit: "Heidegger's description shows too clearly his intention of giving an ontological foundation t o a n E t h i c s for which he claims to have no concern" (EN, p. 122).

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I t is for and by a type of being which Sartre calls réalité humaine (human reality), or pour-soi (for-itself), t h a t there is temporality. H u m a n reality is defined as a type of being which is what it is not and is not what it is (see, for instance, EN, p. 33). This definition is intended to stress what Sartre calls an "internal negation". I t might more simply be stamped as contradictory. 3 According to Sartre, consciousness, which is presented as specific of human reality, lies beyond the pale of the principle of identity. I t may be objected that, if such is the case, consciousness lies beyond the pale of philosophical discourse. Through the device of contradiction, Sartre intends to point out that consciousness, or human reality, has no "nature", no "essence". But the phrasing he selects is insufficient to distinguish, for instance, human reality from processes in general. Indeed, it is so vague that it can be used to say almost anything about human reality. This lack of orientation becomes obvious in the treatment of temporality, t h a t is to say, of the past-present-future triad. Each of these "dimensions" is supposed to illustrate a play of being and non-being: "Everything that the for-itself is beyond being is the F u t u r e " (EN, p. 171); " I t is to the extent t h a t I am my past t h a t I am able not to be it" (EN, p. 161); "The present is precisely this negation of being in so far as being is there as what one escapes" (EN, p. 167). The only way to confer a temporal meaning on the terms of past, present and future is to define as past any moment anterior to the moment posited as present in the description of a process and as future any posterior moment. The past-present-future triad thus appears to be grafted upon a neutral temporal order (before and after, becoming). The addition of the triad can be likened to the substitution of a positive and negative notation (the present is the zero moment) for a positive notation (first moment, second moment).

3

According to L'Etre et le néant, "the idea of God is contradictory" (EN, p. 708), a remark which seems intended to deny the existence of a being which would be causa sui, except as an ideal. Why would it not be the same with a human reality whose definition is contradictory ? In fact, in a sense, defining human reality through freedom, responsibility, authenticity, is to give it the status of an ideal. For the divine ideal (desire to be), a human ideal is substituted. Some commentators (Francis Jeanson, Simone de Beauvoir) say that human reality is "ambiguous" rather than contradictory. It is better not to use this euphemism.

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13

Sartre proceeds otherwise. He posits being-in-itself and being for-itself (human reality) as basic ontological terms, but ignores becoming. He thus has to do as if the contradictory pseudo-definition of human reality in terms of being and non-being entailed temporality, without the mediation of becoming. I t does not work. I n the following passage: "As present, it is not what it is (past) and it is what it is not (future)" (EN, p. 168), we have only to switch the words past and future to realize t h a t their temporal meaning cannot be determined through a manipulation of intemporal being and non-being. No longer and not yet cannot be derived from a neutral negation, even if it is assumed to be "internal". No doubt, we might say that the only way to make an internal negation intelligible, t h a t is to say, free of contradiction, is to introduce space and time: I am no longer what I was, I am not yet what I shall be. But this would apply to things as well as to men, to becoming as well as to making oneself. Sartre seems to insist t h a t it is now that I have to be my past and future. Thus, the definition of human reality would remain contradictory even if we substituted a temporal use for an intemporal use of the verb to be: I am what I am not yet. This would be supposed to ensure the originality of the human condition. But this inclusion of the past and future within the present amounts to denying their temporal status. The paradox of human reality is obtained in the same way as the paradoxes of the Greek sophists on being and becoming: through a confusion between intemporal and temporal logic. This confusion is abetted by Sartre's accumulation of images. Thus: "As for-itself, it has its being outside itself, in front and behind. Behind, it was its past; in front, it will be its future" (EN, p. 168). Behind and in front cannot help determine the temporal meaning of past and future. Besides, the contradictory definition of human reality does not favor these particular images. Consider also this passage which leads to well-known paradoxes: "The future cannot be overtaken; it slips into the past as former future" ( E N , p. 173). And again: "The future which I have to be . . . is such in its being that I only may be it: for my freedom gnaws at its being from beneath" (EN, p. 173). This last passage also introduces the danger of a confusion between future and possibility. Possibility is multiple, whereas, for a single process, the future is singular, as well as the past and the

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AGENT

present. In ten minutes, I may still be here; which implies t h a t I may be elsewhere. But I shall not be here-or-elsewhere. However, for the purpose of my study, such technical considerations should not be given undue importance. Concerning the treatment of the question of time, it is possible to leave aside the dubious dialectic of being and non-being which, under the influence of Hegel and Heidegger, Sartre considered convenient to use. I n spite of the treatment inflicted on the past-present-future triad, it is possible to bring out something important and valid in the perspective of my study. No doubt, the assimilation of the future to possibility provides Sartre with a means of removing the obstacle of determinism which I find unsound. To give a properly temporal meaning to the notions of future, past and present, one must accept the principles of temporal logic: what happened happened, what is happening is happening, what will happen will happen. Temporal determination excludes alternative. B u t this univocal determination bears on what is temporalized (in the future, past, or present). I t does not apply to what temporalizes: what temporalizes determines what is temporalized. I n this respect, something can be kept from the theory of Sartre, for it emphasizes human reality as temporalizing and bases what is temporalized on what temporalizes. My only criticism would be that, in trying to place present, past and future on the level of what temporalizes, Sartre blurs the distinction between temporalizing and temporalized. A second distinction must be introduced at this point: between historical temporalization and fictional temporalization. The writer of fiction, or the reader, temporally structures a certain world (the world of the novel), but does not posit himself as an individual in this world. On the contrary, in the case of historical temporalization — and by this I mean predictions and plans of action as well as reports on the past —, the temporalizer posits himself as an individual in the spatio-temporal field: he temporalizes himself. In his ontology, Sartre takes only historical temporalization into account. To temporalize is a privilege of the Sartrean man. I n this respect, he is not in time. But it is a privilege which he cannot choose not to exercise. Furthermore, he cannot temporalize without temporalizing himself. Since, on the other hand, to temporalize involves choices, decisions, the conception of freedom which will be developed in the fourth part of L'Etre et le néant already emerges in the

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15

treatment of temporality. Indeed, the characteristic formula is already proposed: "To be free is to be sentenced to be free" ( E N , p. 174), t h a t is to say, to be compelled to temporalize oneself. This is the first step toward a kind of ethical totalitarianism. These remarks help understand the lack of understanding which the supporters of a strict or moderate determinism have sometimes shown when faced with the Sartrean theory of freedom. They did not manage to lay aside the vision of time which tends to emphasize the first moment, or the zero moment of Creation. 4 If, on the contrary, we follow the lead of Sartre, it is the present moment which is privileged: the present is the zero moment. And this is the appropriate approach in the case of historical temporalization. A critic has wondered whether Sartre does not unduly transfer to man the kind of freedom which belongs to God. 5 Yet the differences are easy to see. First, the Sartrean conception of freedom does not imply an automatic efficacy. Second, except for the supporters of continued creation, the divine creation takes place once and for all, while human temporalization determines in each case what is to be taken as present. Finally, in creating the world (or unworld), God (or the demiurge, or the devil) temporalizes, but does not temporalize himself: he does not posit himself as an individual inside the created domain. The divine creation is thus the paradigm of fictional temporalizations, whereas, in the case of the Sartrean man, we are dealing with historical temporalization. From the standpoint of a Creator who does not incarnate himself in our created world, we are fictional characters. A revealing analogy could be obtained only if we substituted a Christie incarnation for demiurgic creation. For, in the case of such 4

A s it is m o s t often upheld, determinism tends t o confuse t w o kinds of determination : t h e determination of singular e v e n t s b y a general law and t h e determination of singular event b y singular event. T h e n a m e of causality could be reserved for t h e former kind, the n a m e of destiny given to t h e latter. I n t h e case of causality, it is not t h e anterior e v e n t which determines t h e posterior event, b u t the general which determines t h e singular. I n t h e case of destiny, anterior and posterior events determine each other: destiny can be viewed indifferently as predestination or post-destination. I n either case, t h e determinist thinks on the basis of the before-and-after relation, b u t leaves out t h e past-present-future differentiation which alone can, in practice, specify a temporalization as historical. The determinist's perspective t h u s turns history into fiction. 5 G. Galluce, "Sartre, Descartes et le problème de la liberté", in Revue de l'Université Laval, X X I (October 1966), p. 125.

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incarnations, the god temporalizes himself. 6 The mystery of Incarnation is a way of positing the transcendent relation between the I who temporalizes and the temporalized self. Rather than being embodied, the Sartrean man embodies himself. But, in this case, there is no cause for a pious amazement at divine condescension: for he cannot avoid embodying himself; he cannot choose not to temporalize himself. FREEDOM

According to ordinary language, there are free wheels and fixed wheels, freeways and turnpikes, free men and slaves. An animal may be free or in a cage. A taxi, a plot of land, a moment may be free. You may be free, or busy. And there are cases when one feels free, and cases when one does not. Metaphysicians have not bothered about the freedom of wheels, taxis or animals. They have been interested in human freedom, sometimes in divine freedom. And they have not lent much attention to the fluctuations of a feeling of freedom, according to circumstances. The have asked themselves whether Man, by nature, is free, and in what way. Sartre's treatment of freedom is faithful to this tradition. But it has another aspect: it is based on a certain lived experience, an experience which he presents as a model, so t h a t it may serve to characterize human nature, or rather human condition, since, according to Sartre, human and nature should not be coupled. This existential grounding is important for my topic. For moral sense is not simply the sense of an ideal state of affairs which would be morally satisfactory. I t is also the sense of oneself as responsible agent. I t thus differs from the esthetic sense, which may be confined to the taste of the amateur, without involving a creative vocation. The philosophical position of freedom can thus have some importance for the conception of oneself as a moral agent. One of the conditions is t h a t the treatment of freedom find echoes in the intimate experience of the reader, instead of appearing to contribute to the definition of a mythical character: his majesty the Demiurge or Lord Man. * In Western annals, it is, in theory, the apparition of Christ on earth which determines the zero moment.

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In other words, the question of freedom can concern the conception and emergence of the moral sense only if the fundamental perspective is one of self-comprehension, rather than of knowledge (about some object). This is what Sartre has in mind in the following sentence: "What I am concerned with is my freedom" (EN, p. 514). I t is likewise the difference between a perspective of comprehension and a perspective of knowledge which Sartre stresses in his discussion of the concept of motivation. A perspective of knowledge would invite us to treat motives as causes, so as to set up general laws of behavior to be used for prediction. I n a perspective of selfcomprehension, the purpose is rather to make intellectually explicit a certain experience, or a certain aspect of experience: "To be a motive, a motive has to be experienced as such" (EN, p. 512). The experience in which Sartre grounds his concept of freedom is the experience of choosing. Thus in this extract: "The freedom of the for-itself is always committed: we are not concerned here with a freedom which would be an indeterminate power and which would preexist to its choice. We never apprehend ourselves except as choice in the making" (EN, p. 558). The trouble is that the experience of choosing is particularly refractory to a philosophical explication. In the perspective of L'Etre et le néant, choosing is roughly synonymous with temporalizing oneself. And I should add t h a t choosing is more precisely on the side of what temporalizes, not what is temporalized: in what is temporalized, one can find only objects of choice and chosen behaviors, more generally states of affairs, events, processes. The words "apprehend ourselves" and "choice in the making" in the preceding quotation might give the impression that choice is a temporalized object, a process. There are, however, experiences linked to the experience of choosing which lend themselves better to an objectification as states of affairs: having chosen, being able to choose, having to choose. I t is by concentrating on the last named experience t h a t we can circumscribe most closely what Sartre means by freedom in L'Etre et le néant. I t shows the limits of the concept and it suggests the dominant atmosphere. True, Sartre insists on saying t h a t human freedom is total, which, in itself, would suggest being-able-to-choose as model experience. Thus, in this sentence: "Man cannot be free at times and a slave at other times: he is entirely and always free or he does not exist" ( E N , p. 516) And again: " I choose myself entirely in the entire

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world" ( E N , p. 538). These sentences illustrate a temptation to which Sartre often yields: to speak in terms of all or nothing, or still more tempting, all and nothing (thus: man as entirely free and entirely enslaved). But what matters for my purpose is to note that, if the Sartrean man is totally free, the Sartrean notion of freedom is rather precisely limited. The Sartrean man cannot choose not to temporalize himself. Besides, if he is totally free, it is in the way a yellow triangle is totally yellow: it is also triangular. To choose is to choose in a situation: you cannot choose when there is nothing to choose from. And the Sartrean concept of situation includes both physical and psychological factors. Only these factors cannot be posited by themselves: it is in relation to a decision, made or to be made, t h a t they can appear as relevant factors. The concept of situation is what becomes of the notion of cause or motivation when one turns from the perspective of what is temporalized (first moment, second moment) to the perspective of historical temporalizing (the present moment as zero moment). Finally, Sartre takes care to point out that choosing to do something does not imply t h a t one will succeed. He goes even as far as saying that "success does not concern freedom" (EN, p. 563). Thus, the experience of being in a position to choose is not quite what can give root to the Sartrean conception of freedom. We should rather call to mind the experience of having to choose. Similarly, an exclamation such as: "Free at l a s t ! " does not suggest the typical atmosphere of Sartrean freedom. We should think instead of what someone may feel when he is told: "Make u p your mind, you are free"; or again: " I t ' s for you to decide, it depends on you." Sartre himself proposes the term of angoisse (anxious concern). He does not mean fear or horror in the face of an event considered as inevitable. And he does not simply mean the anxiety which we feel when thinking of what might happen. He means more precisely the feeling which is experienced when we probe what may depend on our decision to act in one way or another. Thus Sartre's notion of freedom is coextensive with t h a t of responsibility. His presentation of human freedom as total is to be interpreted as leading to an ethical totalitarianism. I t does not mean that Sartre would be ready to accept all the meanings which the word freedom has been given. I t is designed instead to orient the

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conception of freedom so that man be fundamentally conceived as responsible agent. Human freedom appears as binding on us. The tight situations which Sartre fashions in his plays and novels are not intended to give the impression that the characters have no choice left, but to sharpen the impression that they have to choose. The extent to which he is successful, the extent to which a fictional character can be likened to a historical person, is another matter. I t would be unfair to criticize Sartre for not having used the word freedom as everybody uses it, in view of the fact that the various uses of the term (think, in particular, of political speeches) could fill a bric-à-brac shop. The author of L'Etre et le néant has drawn his concept of freedom from certain accepted uses of the term; which is all that can be required. We may simply regret that he did not drop this eroded term since he had at his disposal less ambiguous words which fitted his purpose: choice, decision. In keeping the hallowed word, he was running the risk of forgetting the semantic restrictions which he had imposed. The strength of the Sartrean treatment of freedom lies in any case in the fact that the notion of decision may, from a certain angle, function as a common denominator. We may fail, we may be mistaken. But failures and mistakes require decisions. I t is in this way that the assertion that "success does not concern freedom" could be justified. 7 Knowledge is like a grammar for plans of reasonable action: it does not compose the text by itself. Besides, knowledge does not impose itself with the necessity of an experienced phenomenon: we have to hold that the information is true, which implies a decision. Will the kind of things that has happened so far continue to happen? This goes even for the past: I have to decide, among other things, that there has not been a mistake, that nobody lied, and that my own memory is not deceiving me. Sartre mentions the question of efficacy, but he considers that the treatment of "the transcendent efficacy of consciousness" belongs to what he calls "metaphysics" (EN, p. 720). B y metaphysics, he seems to mean a genetic explanation of the state of affairs which ontology analyzes: " I n this sense metaphysics is to ontology as history is to sociology" (EN, p. 713). Thus, the Platonic theory of See what R a y m o n d R u y e r says about t h e " a x i o l o g i c a l c o g i t o " in 'Finalisme (Paris: P U F , 1952).

Néo-

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Ideas would belong to ontology, while the Timaeus would be a piece of metaphysics. In the eyes of Plato, the Timaeus developed a myth and as a matter of fact I do not see how a genetic explanation on the level of ontology could avoid using a mythical space-time, that is to say, confusing history and fiction. One might also wonder whether, through his distinction between ontology and metaphysics, Sartre has not too conveniently provided himself with a dumping ground for bothersome questions. I feel myself t h a t the notion of experienced power would have its place in an existential type of ontology. This would imply an analysis of the "metaphysical" notion of efficient cause into power as a feature of experience on the one hand and the formal causes which are illustrated in general scientific laws, on the other. Unanalyzed, the notion, or idol, of efficient cause is afflicted by the confusion peculiar to myth, or metaphysics in the Sartrean sense.8 The experience of power, as mine or not mine, appears to me implied in a treatment of freedom which is derived from the experience of choosing and having to choose.

RESPONSIBILITY

Sartre introduces the notion of responsibility as follows: "The essential consequence of our previous remarks is that man, being sentenced to be free, carries the weight of the entire world on his shoulders: he is responsible for the world and for himself as a way of being. We take the world 'responsibility' in its banal sense of 'consciousness (of) being the incontestable author of an event or object'" (EN, p. 639). The parentheses around the preposition of are meant to indicate that the awareness of responsibility need not reach the reflective level. We are dealing with the feeling of one's own responsibility: the feeling of " m y " responsibility corresponds to the feeling of " m y " freedom. This is a preliminary condition for the treatment of responsibility to concern moral sense. The "responsibility" of a brake which failed to function would, on the contrary, be irrelevant. Likewise, the juridical responsibility which is defined by the laws of 8

Compare Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus (London : Routledge, 1922): "Belief in the causal nexus is superstition" (5.1361).

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a country a t a certain time does not interest us. F u r t h e r m o r e , the responsibility which other people ascribe t o us also lies outside t h e subject, except t o t h e extent t h a t their a t t i t u d e m a y contribute t o developing our own sense of being responsible agents. The introduction of t h e word monde (world) serves t o present h u m a n responsibility as " t o t a l " . Here again, this portentous adjective calls for qualifying remarks. B y world, we are t o u n d e r s t a n d t h e situation which delimits t h e decision a n d which is delimited by t h e decision as it projects a goal. W h a t constitutes t h e world depends on t h e information a t t h e disposal of t h e agent a n d on t h e interpretation which he p u t s on it. The introduction of t h e t e r m world, on t h e other hand, serves t h e purpose of reminding us t h a t we embody ourselves in a field which is spatially and temporally homogeneous a n d which extends a t least t o t h e whole planet. This domain is implicitly posited b y our decisions, whatever t h e magnitude of our action m a y be. There are m a n y things we do not know, b u t we are conscious of this ignorance; a n d this awareness is enough t o t e a r us away f r o m animal innocence. W e u n d e r s t a n d t h a t , in theory, we might know more. Of course, in order t o act a n d while we act, we are compelled t o isolate within t h e planetary field a zone which we consider autonomous, t h u s imitating t h e physicist who posits a closed system within space-time. B u t , in doing so, we become implicitly responsible for t h e way we delimit a zone. A literary critic m a y speak of t h e " w o r l d " of a novel. B u t , by world, Sartre means t h e historical field exclusively. 9 This field is t h e domain of objectivity, where knowledge is applied a n d verifications t a k e place. B u t it is also t h e practical bond between t h e subjectivities, which, without strictly belonging t o it, embody themselves in it. I t is as such, as interworld between subjectivities, t h a t it can be t h e field of application of moral agency. And it is as interworld t h a t Sartre views it: " T h e responsibility of t h e for-itself extends t o t h e entire world as peopled-world" (EN, p. 642). H e considers this interworld as being t h e only one. F o r m y p a r t , I would not be so sure. B u t it must be acknowledged t h a t it is t h e 9

I n Qu'est-ce que la littérature? (Situations II; Paria: Gallimard, 1948), Sartre endeavors to reduce, concerning the writer, esthetic requirements t o ethical responsibility: the relationship between author and audience dominates t h a t between author and work; and he avoids setting forth t h e auton o m y of the created esthetic world outside the historical and practical field.

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one which concerns moral t h e o r y a n d practice: moral sense is one thing, mystical sense another. The question of determining who, f r o m a moral standpoint, are t h e others who incarnate themselves in this practical interworld, will be dealt with in t h e next chapter. U n t i l now, we have not moved beyond a philosophical recognition of h u m a n responsibility. Of course, t h e Sartrean conception of responsibility, like t h a t of freedom, is grounded in t h e experience of choosing a n d having t o choose. B u t it suggests more. The t r e a t m e n t of responsibility in L'Etre et le néant includes striking uses of t h e word devoir (ought to, must). Thus it is said t h a t m a n must assume his situation with t h e awareness of being its a u t h o r (EN, p. 639). I t is also said t h a t one must always keep in m i n d t h e supreme possibility of killing oneself ( E N , p. 639). Another example can be drawn f r o m this passage: " I must be without remorse or regrets as I a m without excuses, since, f r o m t h e m o m e n t of m y emergence to being, I carry t h e weight of t h e world b y myself, without anyone being in a position t o make it lighter" ( E N , p. 641). W h a t kind of d u t y is involved in these uses of must ? We may, t o begin, t h i n k of a n intellectual d u t y : If I acknowledge t h a t m a n is like this, a n d if I consider myself human, t h e n I must acknowledge t h a t I am like this. B u t I am not like this: I am not i m m u n e t o remorse a n d regret; I plead excuses; a n d I do not contemplate t h e alternative of suicide whenever I make a decision. Let us t h e n modify t h e reasoning as follows: if I wanted my behavior t o agree with m y intellectual principles, I should be like this. Hence t h e question: why should I be consistent with myself? And t h e r e we have reached t h e end of t h e chain of reasons. The d u t y which is involved m a y be felt or not ; it m a y be felt more or less sharply and constantly: t h a t is all t h a t can be said. I n view of t h e context out of which t h e question arises, this d u t y is already an ethical requirement. I t can be seen t h a t , on this point, Sartre's ontology is not content to prepare t h e ground for an ethical theory: it encroaches on t h e province of ethics by presenting t h e a t t i t u d e of t h e responsible agent, responsible in particular for deciding a b o u t goals, as being itself a n ethical goal, or ideal (a d u t y , a requirement). The style which Sartre selects t o characterize this a t t i t u d e is not without lyrical swelling. B u t it must be pointed out t h a t t h e sense of oneself as responsible agent is not a detached acknowledgement. And it is n o t experienced as a privilege one could peacefully enjoy. I t is

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23

experienced as a call, as a vocation. On this point, it is not easy to distinguish a situated, practical self, from a stylistic, philosophical I . Moral sense is rooted in sensibility in two ways. A man who would be impervious to disgust, compassion, revolt, might be well-trained: this would not make him into a moral agent; he could participate in moral activities only as a tool, comparable to an ambulance or a pain-killer. But these emotive capacities themselves are not enough. A conversion of the perspective is needed and this conversion must be experienced as an internal call.

BAD FAITH A N D THEATRICALITY

I n a footnote designed to open an avenue to ethical theory, Sartre himself speaks of a "radical conversion" which might eliminate the type of behavior which he has just described (EN, p. 484). This type of behavior is characterized by what he calls mauvaise foi (bad faith). The ethical significance of this term is outlined in another footnote: "If it is indifferent to be in good or bad faith, because bad faith takes hold of good faith and finds its way into the very origin of its project, this does not mean that bad faith cannot be radically avoided. But a reassumption of the self-poisoning being is needed which we shall call authenticity and whose description has no place here" ( E N , p. 111). The ethical significance of bad faith becomes more precise at the end of the chapter on responsibility: "Most of the time, we seek a shelter from angoisse in bad faith." I t will be recalled that angoisse names the kind of concern attendant upon the awareness of oneself as reponsible agent. By "bad faith", Sartre means self-hypocrisy, the games of psychological hide-and-seek which we play with ourselves. In theory at least, bad faith is distinguishable from stupidity, stolidity, ignorance, madness, as well as from simple hypocrisy. In practice, these distinctions, like other psychological distinctions, would be difficult and uncertain. Bad faith provides a way of concealing from oneself one's own condition as a responsible agent. I t operates a merry-goround of being and non-being: "The objective of bad faith is to constitute human reality as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is" (EN, p. 103). We can see here the advantage which Sartre expects to draw from his contradictory definition of human reality. This definition

24

THE AGENT

is made to order lor the games of hide-and-seek we play with ourselves. The trouble is that the fit is too perfect. Not only does the definition show how bad faith is ontologically possible, natural as it were; it also tends to make it appear inevitable. Since it is in unison with the ontological inner contradiction, lying to oneself would be truth to oneself; and bad faith could not be distinguished from authenticity. Viewed in this way, Sartre's theory would be caught in a kind of paradox of the Liar: what is said about bad faith would apply to the ontological theory itself and make the pseudo-definition of human reality in terms of being and non-being appear as bad faith tactics on the philosophical level. Technically, as I have intimated, the trouble can be traced back to the uneasy connection between the definition of human reality and the theory of temporality, more precisely to the lack of a clear distinction between the temporal and intemporal meanings of the verb to be. For that is, in stylistic terms, what bad faith thrives on. True, one might attempt to justify Sartre's procedure by viewing it as part of a global strategy. To do so, one would have to emphasize a distinction which Sartre makes between reflexion complice (conniving reflection) and reflexion purifiante (purifying reflection): see, for instance, EN, p. 670. Conniving reflection would be in bad faith or the theoretical accomplice of bad faith. I t would be responsible for the definition in non-temporalizing terms (category of essence) of a being who is not only temporal (category of becoming), not only temporalizing (a non-incarnated god might do that), but selftemporalizing (category of existence in Sartre's sense). Purifying reflection, on the contrary, would try not to cheat with this selftemporalizing condition; it would be oriented by the sense of oneself as responsible agent. Conceived as an attempt to define human reality in terms of being, that is to say, as incapable, by stylistic tradition, of getting rid of a non-temporalizing language, ontology would be a victim of conniving reflection. Sartre's ontology would play the old game, but in the spirit of Socratic irony: it would push toward patent contradiction dualistic conceptions (body and soul, temporal and intemporal). 10 The whole being-and-nothingness aspect of the work 10 For a detailed discussion of pure and conniving reflections, see Gilbert Varet, L'Ontologie de Sartre (Paris: PUF, 1948): "The ontology of Sartre might precisely be aimed at an ontological failure, in the way of the Critique

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25

would thus be comparable to Plato's Parmenides, which proceeds from encountered contradictions to the conclusion t h a t the One is beyond beingness (ousia). To extract some kind of philosophical coherence from the maze of human experience, one would have to drop the kind of definition which Sartre proposes at the start. In L'Etre et le néant, the passages which present human reality under the category of action (self-temporalization, decision, responsibility) would belong to purifying reflection. The practical conversion of bad faith to authenticity would correspond to a conversion of the philosophical framework. In both cases, the purpose would be to agree with oneself. On the philosophical level, a coherent terminology would be needed: a vocabulary consistent with the perspective of action would have to be adopted. 1 1 I t must be confessed, however, that the procedure of Sartre in L'Etre et le néant does not unfold in this simple manner. Down to the last lines, in which the question of authenticity is formulated, the philosophical style remains under the charm of the sophistic games of being and non-being. I t seems t h a t Sartre, at this point of his evolution, did not intend to change his terms, but to find a way of distinguishing authenticity from bad faith by means of the same terms. And the stylistic situation will remain the same in Saint Oenet. Let us now return to the examination of bad faith and see how it can pervert the awareness of one's own responsibility. As a whole, it can be said t h a t it manages to substitute gesture for action. Innocence, a good conscience, become the moral goals. The objective is to justify oneself, to naturalize oneself as it were. Think, for instance, of the parable of the Pharisee and t h e Publican. Each of them passes judgment on himself. The Publican beats his breast. He is bad to the extent t h a t he is judged (the breast); but he is implicitly good to the extent t h a t he judges (the hand). The Publican will enjoy a good conscience if he thinks he is of good of pure reason or t h e Treatise of human nature" (p. 126). H o w e v e r , a s V a r e t recognizes it h i m s e l f , t h e s i t u a t i o n is n o t so simple. 11 R e g a r d i n g t h e c h a n g e in t e r m i n o l o g y , t e r m s like n o n - b e i n g , t e m p o r a l i t y , v a l u e , freedom, h u m a n reality, w o u l d b e replaced b y verbal s u b s t a n t i v e s s u c h as: n e g a t i o n , temporalization, v a l u a t i o n , liberation, h u m a n i z a t i o n . V a r e t n o t e s : " B y transforming n o n - b e i n g i n t o a n a c t i v e p o w e r o f 'nihilation', a n d b e y o n d this, t o w a r d being, b y m a k i n g i t a c o n s t i t u t i v e d y n a m i c s , Sartre h a s surreptitiously g i v e n t o t h e t r a n s c e n d e n t a l t h e characteristics o f w h a t , a f t e r Husserl, a L a v e l l e , for instance, s i m p l y calls act" (op. cit., p . 125).

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THE AGENT

faith as a judge. Hence the usefulness of God. As judge, the Publican identifies himself with God and who would dare judge God ? God serves to prevent the reproduction of the judgment ad infinitum,. The Pharisee, on the other hand, is supposed to enjoy a good conscience at the start. But this good conscience is in danger. For he too cuts himself in two, to judge himself. He plays the role of the defender, while the Publican prefers the role of the accuser. I n the case of the Publican, the internal duplicity occurs mostly between accuser and accused; in the case of the Pharisee, between judge and defender. The tactics are different; the global scheme is the same. Bad faith is self-hypocrisy, internal theatricality. To schematize the pseudo-ethical attitudes to which it gives rise, it appears to me best to use the theatrical framework of the character, the actor and the spectator. I shall distinguish between kinds of attitudes according to which of the three terms is emphasized. Laying stress on the character (or role) which we perform supposes t h a t we recognize ourselves implicitly as actor and spectator: otherwise, no character. But we try to lose ourselves in the character and forget that, as actor, we choose to play the role. In order to identify ourselves with the gestures we make, we try to forget that we do make them. And we also endeavor to dim the spectator's awareness t h a t the actor is performing a role and thus t h a t actor and role are not one and the same. I n a word, we aspire t o make ourselves mythical. By mythical, I mean a perspective, or an entity, in which the distinction between historical and fictional, practical and esthetic, thus between actor and character, is obscured. To achieve this result, it is recommended to adopt a consecrated role. Thus it is that socio-religious idols have traditionally been used to prevent moral sense from emerging. Some people still invoke "religion" or "society" in matters of morals as they would allege a heart condition in the matter of physical exertion. The mythical spirit, which L'Etre et le néant calls esprit de sérieux (spirit of seriousness) is not a monopoly of the groups commonly labeled religious. Thus there is a religion of science, more precisely of sacrosanct Research, which enables modern inquisitors to justify the torments inflicted on non-human animals, and on human animals as well if political conditions are favorable. Let us go further. Since, in a mythical perspective, what matters is to be protected and justified by a consecrated role, the role of the villain is not excluded ajpriori. For this role too is hallowed. In this

THE AGENT

27

case, however, as Sartre shows in his study of Genet, the actor threatens to come out of the shadows: it is not easy to be quietly absorbed in the role of the villain. Substituting the character for the agent is so "natural" a device t h a t some commentators of dramatic works still picture certain characters as models to imitate. Generally they recommend the righteous hero, not the villain. But whatever the selection may be, what should be noted is that, in the world of a drama, there can be no practical action, only gestures, mostly verbal. Some would object t h a t these gestures are designed to represent actions and that the art of the dramatist is to pass off his characters as flesh-and-blood persons. But this kind of interpretation is precisely what I mean by mythical confusion. Such a perspective is detrimental both to esthetic sense and moral sense. In particular, if you mistake fictional characters for historical persons, you are ready to reduce historical persons to the condition of fictional characters. I do not intend to imply that no moral lesson of any kind is to be drawn from dramatic performances. But we must start from the principle that the theatre can represent life only to the extent t h a t life is theatrical. The moral lesson to be drawn from dramatic works thus appears negative. I t will be all the clearer as the characters in the play are shown as comedians to the second degree. As characters of comedians playing roles, they can contribute to breaking the spell of myth. 1 2 Instead of the character, the actor in us may be stressed. As actors, we assert a certain amount of freedom regarding the roles we assume: we choose them, change them, play them in our own way. Don Juan, rather than Creon, puts Antigone in her place. The spirit of play dissolves the spirit of myth. From a Sartrean point of view, the attitude of the actor, of the esthete, of the adventurer, has the advantage of not concealing one's freedom: "As soon as a man apprehends himself as free and wants to apply his freedom, what12

These remarks summarize what I developed in Le Genre dramatique (Monaco: Regain, 1965). The theatre of Sartre exposes bad faith by letting the character of a performer appear under the mask of the character he plays (the theatre of Genet pushes this revelation to cynicism). Sometimes, however, Sartre seems to forget that the drama is fitted to represent us as actors, rather than as agents. Thus, in the case of Orestes (Les Mouches) and of Goetz (end of Le Diable et le bon Dieu), the dramatist proceeds as if he could make his characters escape from the theatrical cave altogether, instead of simply suggesting that there may be something outside this cave.

28

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AGENT

ever his anxious concern may be, his activity is an activity of play" (EN, p. 669). To determine the ethical status of activities of play, we would have first to decide on which goals are moral. But the person who tries systematically to adopt the attitude of the actor in life is not a pure player. He pretends to be. He does not play in order to play, but to see himself play. He needs a spectator: someone else perhaps, in any case himself. True, he does not identify himself with the gestures he makes: he wants to define himself as doing, rather t h a n being. But the doing he has in mind is play-acting. We shall adopt a more contemplative form of estheticism if we t r y to identify ourselves with the spectator rather t h a n the actor. We attempt to detach ourselves both from the roles we perform and from our performances: as performers, we are only puppets of the gods, chance or fate, of some biological or sociological mechanism. The awareness of oneself as responsible agent shifts to the disabused apprehension of one's agitation and that of others as a show, either tragic or comic. The sage contemplates the human comedy from above. Even more than the actor, the spectator can break the spell of myth. But he tries to convert mythical confusion into esthetic detachment instead of moral commitment.

CONCLUSIONS

I n this chapter, my critical remarks have been mainly directed at the definition of human reality in terms of being and nonbeing. This definition is contradictory; besides, there is a gap between this definition and the conception of human reality as selftemporalization and responsible agency; finally, the definition tends to make bad faith appear not only possible, but inevitable. My intention was not exactly to criticize L'Etre et le néant for having failed to propose a coherent definition of human reality. For I would consider t h a t human reality, or better, human experience, is not just ambiguous: it is variegated and disparate. The goal of ontology as I conceive it would not be to reduce the welter of experience to a consistent, contradictory, or dialectical definition, but to build some coherent configurations against the background of experience accepted as not coherent. Human reality cannot be one of these configurations. In other words, I do not think t h a t man

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29

is fitted t o n a m e a basic ontological figure. L i k e god, it is r a t h e r fitted t o n a m e a m y t h i c a l character. Sartre, o n t h e contrary, conceives of ontology as philosophical a n t h r o p o l o g y . I n t h i s respect, his philosophy is a l r e a d y a h u m a n i s m . I t s u m s u p h u m a n experience in a formula. A n d it does n o t p r e s e n t t h e sense of responsibility as one sense a m o n g others. T h e ethical t h e o r y for which L'Etre et le néant is a p r e p a r a t i o n would be ent r u s t e d w i t h t h e t a s k of totalizing h u m a n reality in a more satisf a c t o r y w a y t h a n t h e c o n t r a d i c t o r y ontological definition, or b a d f a i t h . This t h e o r y is viewed as a n ethics "of liberation a n d salvat i o n " (EN, p. 484). Our whole being would be t r a n s f i g u r e d a n d u n i t e d b y a n ethical conversion. B u t , if we were t o a p p l y t h i s k i n d of ethical t o t a l i t a r i a n i s m t o each a n d every experience, o u r sense of responsibility would t u r n into responsibilitis, a m e n t a l sort of tétanos. H o w e v e r , once this h a s been said, I m u s t acknowledge t h e keenness of some S a r t r e a n analyses. B y presenting h u m a n reality as e m b o d y i n g itself, r a t h e r t h a n embodied, b y showing t h a t t e m p o r a lizing oneself involves a choice of t h e goal even t h o u g h one c a n n o t escape self-temporalization, b y stressing t h a t we e m b o d y ourselves in a field where o t h e r subjectivities e m b o d y themselves, t h e a u t h o r of L'Etre et le néant does n o t cover every aspect of experience; b u t he brings t o t h e fore a n i m p o r t a n t aspect, develops a perspective which it would b e difficult t o limit, a n d brings o u t t h e existential conditions of t h e responsible a g e n t . A philosophical exposition should not be expected t o endow t h e r e a d e r w i t h a sense of moral responsibility. At best, philosophy can only enlighten a n d s h a r p e n such a sense. On t h i s p o i n t too, S a r t r e ' s analyses are forceful. T h e y present t h e sense of responsibility as a r e q u i r e m e n t of consistency w i t h oneself. A n d it is reasonable t o suppose t h a t a reader with a t a s t e for philosophy will n o t r e m a i n deaf t o t h i s k i n d of r e q u i r e m e n t . S a r t r e ' s analyses incite t h e r e a d e r t o m a k e a t least p a r t of t h e t h e o r y his own b y showing, in t h e i r t r e a t m e n t of f r e e d o m a n d responsibility, a w a y (if n o t t h e way) of a p p r o p r i a t i n g a p a r t , or a n aspect, of experience (if n o t everything). T h e t r o u b l e w i t h t h e n o t i o n of b a d f a i t h is t h a t , o n t h e basis of t h e c o n t r a d i c t o r y definition of h u m a n reality, a n y k i n d of b e h a v i o r m a y b e i n t e r p r e t e d as in b a d f a i t h , including such i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s . To b e useful, t h e notion of b a d f a i t h should be tied t o t h a t of re-

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sponsibility: bad faith may occur only where responsibility is felt, if not explicity understood, by the person involved. Bad faith then means an attempt to turn action into gesture and moral responsibility into mythical confusion or esthetic detachment. What L'Etre et le néant does regarding the ethical sense can be likened to what logical empiricism had done with the' cognitive sense. There can be t r u t h only to the extent t h a t there can be verification. Likewise, there can be an ethical value only to the extent t h a t there is a practical commitment. The sense of t r u t h in one case, the sense of responsibility in the other, tend to be extricated from mythicism or estheticism. Besides, an ethical totalitarianism in Sartre corresponds to a cognitive totalitarianism in logical empiricism. The latter, at the outset at least, decides to reduce meaning to its cognitive aspect, which would deprive of meaning logical empiricism itself. And I noted that the theory of bad faith threatened itself with bad faith. Let us return to the line of development. Compelled to temporalize himself in a world which is an interworld, the Sartrean man is said to be for the others: "To want oneself free is to choose to be in this world confronting the others" ( E N , p. 609). But who are the others ? How are they to be conceived in a moral perspective ? How should the preposition for be interpreted in the amalgam"beingfor-the-others" ? Those are ways of approaching the question of moral goals, which will dominate the next chapter. I shall use a distinction between ethics and morals. This distinction did not have to be made concerning the agent. But the question of the goals, the question of the status of the others, the difficulties attendant upon the interpretation of authenticity, and the fact that Sartre's ethical totalitarianism appears ready to cover even activities of play, make it advisable to isolate, within the realm of ethics considered as covering any human activity, a region of activities and goals which I shall call "moral". I t is this region which interests me, for it is there t h a t the originality of the ethical sense can be found. Outside moral activities, there would remain only activities of play, which do not permit a sharp demarcation between esthetics and ethics. Shorn of moral sense, the ethical sense would be reduced to the spirit of play, to some art of living. Other subjectivities would be taken into account only as opponents and teammates, as companions of play.

2

GOAL AND IDEAL

AUTHENTICITY

In the "moral perspectives" which bring L'Etre et le néant to a close, the question of goals is reserved for a treatise of ethics: "Ontology cannot formulate moral prescriptions. I t deals only with what is, and it is not possible to draw imperatives from its indicatives" (EN, p. 720). However, I have shown that, in the chapter on responsibility, some uses of devoir (must, ought to) introduce an ethical requirement. Sartre does not take this into account; but he notes how his ontology opens the way to a study of ethical goals. He recalls that some of his analyses have dealt with value and t h a t the desire to be has been recognized as the fundamental intention of "natural" behavior. The spirit of seriousness is oriented by this goal; but it conceals from itself that it is a chosen goal: "Man blindly seeks to be, hiding from himself t h a t this search is a free project" (EN, p. 721). From the spirit of seriousness, or myth, Sartre distinguishes a more lucid attitude: we recognize that the ideal of being is inaccessible and that the roles which we perform are equivalent compared to this ideal: "Thus it amounts to the same whether we drink in solitude or lead nations. If one of these activities is superior, it will not be because of its real goal, but because of the degree to which it is aware of its ideal goal; and, in this regard, it may happen t h a t the quietism of the solitary drunkard is superior to the vain agitation of the leader" ( E N , p. 722). In the terms which I have proposed : we no longer attempt to lose ourselves in the role, which is the gestures; but we do not contemplate any other possibility than the actor playing a character or a spectator watching himself play a role. The search for being

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IDEAL

does not fascinate any more, but it still orients the perspective. I n the last page, Sartre suggests a change of orientation: the conversion to authenticity, to which allusions had already been made in footnotes. The perspective of the search for being would be abandoned: "What will become of freedom, if it turns around to face this value ? . . . Is it possible for freedom to take itself as value since it is the source of all values, or must it necessarily define itself inrelation to a transcending value by which it is haunted?" (JEN, p.722). The awareness of oneself as responsible agent had already presented itself as an ethical goal par excellence: it is in its light that other values may be given a properly ethical significance. Authenticity is the integrity of human agency. True, Sartre asks questions and does not give answers in this last page of L'Etre et le néant. But he does not ask himself whether the kind of authenticity thus outlined is suited to orient ethical action as such. He asks himself whether authenticity is possible, if it can be lived, what it means in practice. I t can thus be seen that Sartre's conception of the relations between ethics and ontology is philosophically quite classical. To act ethically would be to act authentically; and acting authentically would be acting according to the nature which ontology defines: Icata phusin. The difference is t h a t Sartre rejects the word nature as far as man is concerned: an intemporal essence cannot be a proper ideal for a self-temporalizing existence. He does recognize that the desire to be is, so to speak, "natural", or "original", for a human condition defined as lack of nature. But if purifying reflection consists, in a sense, in recognizing oneself as lack of nature, it rejects the spell cast by the desire to be. We would no longer attempt to naturalize, or supernaturalize, ourselves; we would no longer conceive ethics as the attempt t o justify oneself and make oneself innocent. Thus, according to the Sartrean way of treating ontology, faithful in part to the classical manner, and in part critical of it, to behave according to nature would become behaving according to a lack of nature. This strategy can claim the precedent of Socratic irony. But I have already noted how unnecessarily baffling it can be. To the questions which he asks regarding authenticity, Sartre announces t h a t he will reply in a "forthcoming work". At the moment I am writing, this forthcoming work still has to come forth.

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33

None of the essays which Sartre has published since L'Etre et le néant can pass for a treatise of ethics. I am going briefly to examine four of these essays. Though this is not their subject-matter, can these essays help us to elucidate what authenticity might mean in practice ? Does the fact that they do not constitute the treatise of ethics which had been announced mean t h a t Sartre has stopped considering authenticity as the correct ideal? Or does it mean that, though it remains the proper ideal, it cannot, on the other hand, pass for an accessible goal ? In which case it would be like the polar star which, though inaccessible, can nonetheless serve to direct our way.

ALIENATION

For the cautious questions asked at the end of L'Etre et le néant, L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (1946) substitutes simplistic assertions. A hasty piece of vulgarization, this short essay, derived from a lecture, is not always in the line of L'Etre et le néant. Thus, as concerns terminology, bonne foi (good faith) is now permitted to escape t h e circle which it formed with bad faith. The term of good faith regains its usual favorable connotation: "If I am told: What if I want to be in bad faith? I shall answer: There is no reason for you not to be, but I say t h a t you are and t h a t the attitude of strict consistency is the attitude of good faith" (EH, pp. 81-82). Embroiled in polemics, hitting right and left, the essay is not a model of coherence. Thus, on page 35, it is stated that the existentialist thinks "it is quite bothersome that God does not exist, for there disappears with him the possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven; there can be no a priori good". One might object t h a t a Platonist does not have to be a theist. But it is more bothersome to read, on page 95: "Even if God existed, nothing would be changed; that is our point of view." To dissolve the inconsistency between these two passages, one might say this: if you remain attached to the spirit of seriousness, to a mythical manner of conceiving ethics, not to posit some kind of god or Caesar may be disquieting; but if you recognize that, by nature (or lack of nature), you are compelled to decide on what is a value through your actions, the question of the existence of God

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loses its significance. If you decided that there is a god and t h a t this god is a perfect judge of what is good and bad, you would still have to decide what this god tells you to do, in other words, decide what is good and bad. We implicitly decide that something is worth the trouble by acting in a certain way: "We never can choose evil; what we choose is always the good" ( E H , p. 25). I interpret this blunt assertion as meaning that a value can be experienced as ethically worthwhile for us only if our behavior takes it as a goal. No doubt, we may say that we know what is good and yet t h a t we fail to do it. But this amounts either to reducing the good in question to a social convention that we do not endorse, or to turning it into an esthetic value. I t is as if we said: " I know what a good poem is like, but I have never tried to write one." And we can even do what we deem to be evil. But this perverse decision finds its good elsewhere: an actor may enjoy playing well a character he abhors. These remarks confirm what I called Sartre's ethical totalitarianism: values are conceived as the chosen goals of action, rather than as objects of contemplation. But the most interesting p a r t of L'Existentialisme est un humanisme is its treatment of intersubjective relations. Let us start with this statement: "Nothing can be good for us without being good for everyone" (EH, p. 26). This does not mean t h a t we would be incapable by nature of judging good what does not receive everyone's approval. Nor does it mean that there would be a logical inconsistency. Finally, the statement does not claim t h a t the course of action we have chosen will automatically be recognized as good and imitated by everyone. According to the context, it means that, as I decide to act in a certain way, I decide implicitly, not only t h a t my action is good somehow, but t h a t everybody should do the same: "We must always ask ourselves: What would happen if everybody acted like me ? And we escape this disquieting thought only through some kind of bad faith" (EH, pp. 28-29). Note the intervention of must, in relation with the mention of bad faith. For it could have been objected that, in fact, we do not always decide t h a t what we do should be imitated. Hence the position of a duty which can be felt only if one has adopted an ethical perspective: awareness of oneself as responsible agent. This being agreed upon, what are we to think of this requirement which, according to

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35

the letter of L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, might concern all our activities % Suppose I decide to become a baker. Short of bad faith, does this imply t h a t I decide t h a t everyone should do the same ? To parody Sully-Prudhomme, the first ripieecnt of a Nobel Prize in literature: if everybody was a baker, who would make something else than bread ? And with what would we make bread ? This example, among many others, shows the usefulness of a distinction such as the one I introduced between ethics and morals. No doubt, any activity belongs, in principle, to the perspective of the responsible agent. But this does not mean that any activity, in t h e eyes of the agent, should have a universalizable goal. This criterion might rather be used to isolate moral goals in the narrow sense. To the extent that my goal is moral, it appears to me desirable that everyone do the same and be in a position to do the same. True, we do not have at our disposal two perfectly distinct fields of action, one which would be suited to moral activities, and another where we could cultivate our garden and polish our art of living. A playing ground is closed like a fictional field; but, in a practical perspective, it lies somewhere on this earth. Though it may not always intervene, the moral perspective can be applied to any human activity. The recognition of this principle does not, however, entail that any course of action is strictly universalizable. If I decide to be a baker, I decide that this activity is better for me than some other, or at least that it is better for me to bake than to kill myself. But I do not make the moral decision t h a t everybody should be a baker. At most I decide that it is morally good t h a t there should be bakers. The unqualified exemplariness which I have just criticized is not the only way in which our relationships with others are considered in L'Existentialisme est un humanisme. There is another which is designed to suggest how taking others into account can provide the search for authenticity with a conductor, hence a resistance: " I can assume my freedom as a goal only if I also consider the freedom of others as a goal" (EH, p. 83). According to L'Etre et le néant, each of us is sentenced to freedom. B u t we have seen how this ontological basis can be turned into a goal, or an ideal. Our freedom is originally alienated. To assume one's freedom as a goal is to try to disalienate it, hence to disalienate cncself.

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I n t h e terms proposed by L'Etre et le néant, what is opposed to authenticity is b a d faith, a t y p e of alienation which, in theory, we should be able to get rid of, since we inflict it on ourselves. Bad faith is neither madness nor physical helplessness, though these two conditions may, by way of reaction, give rise to bad faith behavior. Authenticity is t h e integrity of h u m a n agency. Originally, it is not distinguishable from t h e awareness of oneself as responsible agent. The difficulty is this: t h e network of action is threatened with a short-circuit between agent and goal. I t would seem, at first sight, t h a t disalienation can consist only in lightning intuitions. Willing one's liberation would suffice to achieve one's goal. You would not be looking for me if you had not already found me. As a m a t t e r of fact, I do not see how this difficulty could be avoided if consciousness temporalized itself in only one body. The self could be experienced only as opposed to non-self; a n d under these conditions, alienation could not be of the bad faith type. Bad faith is a psychological alienation based on a bad internalization of t h e Other. I t originates in t h e experience of t h e Other. This is shown by t h e theatrical scheme I have used, not t o mention Sartre's dramatic production itself. B a d faith derives from a bad internalization of the Other. And we cannot get rid of this alienation once and for all by changing our attitude toward t h e Other in general. I n practice, we meet various others. If b a d faith is a b a d intsrnalization of the Other, it is, in p a r t a t least, because others present themselves badly. From t h e standpoint of our own authenticity, t h e y present themselves badly because their own freedom is alienated: we are caught in false situations. Thus, alienation of myself by myself is seen to depend on alienation of myself by others, which in t u r n depends on alienation of t h e others by themselves a n d by me. This chain prevents a shortcircuit from occurring in the theory of liberation. I n theory, we can disalienate ourselves simply through intuition: all we have to do is t o become aware of ourselves as responsible agents. B u t t h e others are on t h e circuit of our practical activities. "As we will our freedom, we discover t h a t it depends entirely on t h e freedom of others, and t h a t the freedom of others depends on our o w n " (EH, p. 83). I n practice, we alienate each other and we can disalienate ourselves through reciprocal action only. The question then arises of t h e ways in which this reciprocal disalienation

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37

may develop. In purely verbal ways? Would this make us come out of the theatrical cave ? I shall touch on one more point before leaving L'Existentialisme est un humanisme. In this short essay, Sartre adopts the label of humanism. There was already a humanistic tendency in L'Etre et le néant, since this ontological essay concentrated the interest on a human reality which was opposed to everything else. On the other hand, however, in his first novel, La Nausée, Sartre had ridiculed various shades of humanism. 1 This is why, in L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, he takes care to distinguish between two types of humanism. There is a humanism which "takes man as end and as superior value" (EH, p. 90). Sartre rejects humanism in this sense: "The existentialist will never assume man as an end; for he always remains to be made" (EH, p. 92). I confess I do not see how the thesis that man always remains to be made prevents his being taken as an end, if this end is ideal. And the distinction seems completely to disappear in the following passage: "I create a certain image of man which I choose; in choosing myself, I choose man" (EH, p. 27). Actually, since it identifies human reality with freedom, proposes freedom as the foundation of values and also as value of values, the philosophy of Sartre does appear to be proposing not only a human ideal, but an ideal of the human, as an end. I t remains theoretically possible, however, to distinguish this humanism from a humanism which would also take the human as end and value, but as an idol to be worshipped. Sartre rejects such a worship of man, a kind of worship which is expressed in such ecstatic sighs as: "How human !" At bottom, the difference between the two humanisms rests on the difference between the human conceived as nature and the human conceived as lack of nature. For the author of L'Etre et le néant, thi s distinction is radical. One may wonder, however, whether it change s the practical perspective radically. ' See La Nausée (Paris: Gallimard, 1938), pp. 153-155. It is Roquentin, the narrator, who voices his disgust of humanisms. But a few details, in particular a derogatory remark about "poor Guéhenno", a professor who fits better in the world of Sartre than in Roquentin's, shows that the author stands behind the opinions of his character. The Roquentin side of Sartre which, corresponding to angoisse and commitment, emphasizes contingency and nausea, reappears here and there in posterior works. Note that, inLaNausée, the key-term existence is applied to things as well as to the human condition. L'Etre et le néant, on the contrary, separates the passive becoming of things from the self-temporalization of man.

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In Reflexions sur la question juive (1946), Sartre reduces the notion of a Jewish character to t h a t of a Jewish situation. But this situation is not simply a point of departure: it remains enforced by antisemitism. The Jew is thus put in a position such that he "cannot choose not to be a Jew. Or rather, if he so decides, if he claims t h a t the Jew does not exist, if he desperately denies his Jewish character, that is precisely his way of being a J e w " (QJ, p. 115). Thus, "as far as he is concerned, authenticity consists in living to the bitter end his Jewish condition, unauthenticity in denying it or trying to escape it" (QJ, p. 117). To accept this simple alternative without qualifications, we should have to agree that it is impossible to escape the Jewish condition (by changing names, environment). We would also have to lay aside the possibility, which was still nebulous at the time when Sartre was writing these Reflections, of becoming an Israeli: the label imposed upon the individual as a stigma may then become a proud national emblem. Once this is said, what are we to think of the authenticity which Sartre defines regarding persons upon whom the Jewish condition has been imposed? True, there is a shift from what is suffered t o what is assumed: "The unauthentic Jew fled his Jewish reality and it was the antisemite who made him a Jew in spite of himself; whereas the authentic Jew makes himself a Jew, for and against everyone" (QJ, p. 179). But one cannot make oneself a Jew (or a black man, etc.) as one becomes a surgeon or a football player. Rather than into an agent, the authentic Jew turns himself into an actor. The mythical role which obsessed him becomes the dramatic role which he plays. No doubt, this shift involves a certain amount of disalienation and it would also tend to disalienate the antisemite himself by making him feel correlatively t h a t he too plays a role: the role of the True Frenchman, for instance. But we remain in a theatrical perspective. And the man who plays the Jew cannot disengage himself from this role, since he cannot choose to play another role, at least at this level. The capital letter of Jew remains stuck to him like the initial of a proper name, whereas a professional actor asserts his autonomy and his style against the roles he chooses: Olivier adopts and rejects Hamlet and Othello. Sartre himself realizes how unsatisfactory his selection of the phrase authentic Jew can be, not only from the standpoint of an ethics of happiness, but also from the standpoint of his ethics of

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authenticity. To go further, the antisemite would have to pursue his own disalienation. The "authentic J e w " cannot do it for him. And it is not through the spoken or written word that the bad faith of the antisemite is likely to be dissolved: " I t is not enough to address the freedom of the antisemite through propaganda, education and legal prohibitions. Since he is, like any man, a freedom in situation, it is his situation which must be radically altered" (QJ, p. 192). According to the author of the Reflections, "antisemitism is a passionate effort to achieve a national union against the division of societies into classes" (QJ, p. 193). In other words, it is "a mythical and bourgeois representation of class struggle" which "could not exist in a classless society" (QJ, pp. 193-194). I t follows t h a t " a socialist revolution is necessary and sufficient to do away with antisemitism" (QJ, p. 195). This rash kind of reasoning raises objections. Thus, even if a psychological connection is acknowledged between antisemitism and class struggle, it may still be claimed t h a t this connection is between symptoms, not symptom and cause. For my subject, however, it is enough to note that, in the case of the antisemite, Sartre does not present bad faith as an ontological disease. Spoken and written words would not be likely to dissolve this bad faith, not because its foundation might be ontological, but because its conditions are socio-economic. I t thus appears that the perspective offered in L'Etre et le néant might need some modifications. We shall see h o w t h i s is d o n e in Critique de la raison

dialectique.

Saint Genet comédien et martyr (1952) adopts the same basic terms as L'Etre et le néant. What is new is that being and nothingness are identified with Good and Evil. 2 But we must guard against confusing this Good and Evil with the good and evil mentioned, without capitals, in L'Existentialisme est un humanisme. The capitals are ironical: "the Good" with a capital G names a mythical value. The Good is the set of the rules of the social game, official or not, when

2

T h e ironical assimilation of t h e Good t o B e i n g a n d of E v i l t o N o t h i n g n e s s c a n a l r e a d y b e f o u n d in a n early p l a y , Les M ouches: " A s for t h i s E v i l of w h i c h y o u are so proud, a n d c l a i m t o be t h e author, w h a t is it, if n o t a reflection o f being, a n evasion, a m i s l e a d i n g i m a g e w h o s e v e r y e x i s t e n c e is s u p p o r t e d b y t h e G o o d " (Jupiter, a c t I I I , s c e n e 2).

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we t r y to pas t h e m off as a kind of nature, or supernature. Hence the identification of the Good with being. Sartre presents Genet as someone who has been branded as a child a n d who, instead of revolting or trying to become naturalized as one of t h e "Righteous", insists on willing t h e very situation to which he has been subjected, by maintaining for himself a n d in his own eyes the pseudo-ethics which was used to condemn him. H e is t h u s led to endeavor conscientiously to do Evil, t h a t is to say, t o play t h e role of t h e Villain in t h e best possible way. Hence t h e metamorphosis of mythical Good a n d Evil into esthetic values: t h e good actor a n d t h e beautiful role of t h e Villain. Correlatively, t h e Righteous are made to appear as comedians, as esthetes, of t h e Good. As presented by Sartre, Genet's choice is similar to t h a t of t h e "authentic J e w " . This time, however, Sartre avoids t h e word authenticity.3 True, he does say t h a t he has attempted " t o show t h e limits of a psycho-analytical interpretation and of a Marxist explanation and t h a t freedom alone can account for a person as a whole" (SG, p. 536). I n other words, social and psychological conditions are t h e conditions of a choice. B u t these conditions are such, in Genet's case, t h a t choosing one's way amounts to choosing how to be alienated. Genet passes from mythical to theatrical alienation. I n his own eyes, he can act only in the sense of play-acting. As he is conscious of making gestures, he asserts t h e autonomy of t h e comedian in regard to the role. B u t this authenticity of t h e actor is an alienation of t h e agent. No doubt, Genet overacts (especially as seen through Sartre's commentary). B u t overacting, overplaying t h e role which he had to play, was also the o n l y t h i n g t h e "authentic J e w " could do. I n a footnote, Sartre takes care to a d u m b r a t e what " t r u e " morality would be: " I t is a concrete totality which achieves the synthesis of Good and E v i l . . . The abstract separation of these two concepts simply expresses human alienation" (SG, p. 177). Synthèse is a word to which Sartre seems to be attached (however, dépassement remains his favorite translation of t h e Hegelian Aufhe-

3

In Jean-Paul Sartre, a Literary and Political Study (New York : Macmillan, 1960), Philip Thody proceeds as if Sartre had presented the life and attitudes of Genet as a realization of authenticity (p. 159). I fail to see what could countenance this interpretation.

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41

bung; in his wake, t h e word became for some time a sickening catchword among French intellectuals). I n the context of t h e footnote, it is not easy t o decide what is meant b y synthesis. Authenticity certainly cannot consist in I do not know what psychological synthesis of Good a n d Evil. To t h e extent t h a t one is able t o escape from t h e theatrical cave, these two consecrated monsters are cont e n t t o fade away. However, it must be acknowledged t h a t practical activities are compelled to t a k e into account the social situation which, since it is social, manifests t h e power of a group manicheism in a more or less subtle or brutal way: We, the socio-mythical group, are t h e Good. The individual cannot ignore this fact: in practice, he has to be a traitor a n d an accomplice. The meaning of "synthesis of Good a n d Evil" might be sought in this direction. Let us note, a t any rate, t h a t in his s t u d y of Genet Sartre deems it appropriate t o behave half as a critic, half as an accomplice, of Genet's b a d faith. H e t h u s adopts, in regard to t h e idols of Good and Evil, t h e tricky tactics already a t work in L'Etre et le néant. The footnote which deals with " t r u e morality" ends on a pessimistic judgment. Breaking t h e sway of social manicheism would not be possible for us, any more t h a n for Genet: "Thus any Ethics which does not posit itself explicitly as impossible today contributes t o t h e alienation and mystification of men. The moral 'problem' derives f r o m t h e fact t h a t Ethics is for us b o t h inevitable a n d impossible" (SO, p. 177). Does this mean t h a t authenticity is to be thrown away ? Probably not, since it is in relation t o authenticity t h a t we can speak of alienation. But, if it maintains its position as a n ethical ideal, it would now seem t h a t it cannot function as an attainable goal. Are we to understand t h a t social alienation is more hopeless now t h a n ever before ? If so, how ? I n t h e last pages of his study of Genet, Sartre alludes to some features of our time which t e n d to increase t h e feeling of alienation a n d t h e impression of helplessness. Under these conditions, "what resort do we still have at our disposal? I see one which I shall present elsewhere" (SO, p. 549). Does this sentence mean t h a t , at t h e time, Sartre had not abandoned t h e project of publishing t h e treatise of ethics which he had announced ? I leave unanswered these questions about t h e impossibility of ethics " t o d a y " a n d t h e secret resort which would nonetheless be left to us, as t o t h e hero and heroine of a serial. For my purpose, it

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was enough to see in Saint Genet a work of transition. I t s conceptual perspective prolongs t h a t of L'Etre et le néant. But the alienation which it pictures, though it can still be recognized as bad faith, no longer finds its foundation in it. Critique de la raison dialectique (1960) alters the philosophical framework erected in L'Etre et le néant. There is a shift in the center of gravity. The interest is still concentrated on the human being. But he is defined on a biological, rather than psychological, basis: as body rather than consciousness, as a conscious organism rather than as consciousness of being. The notion of lack retains its importance. But it is identified with need rather than desire. The desire to be is no longer presented as the original intention: there is instead a return to the will-to-live (see RD, p. 255). Correlatively, fear takes the place of angoisse. I n view of the needs of the organism, material scarcity is the origin of alienation. I n particular, it gives rise to the social manicheism which was stressed in Saint Oenet: "Man is objectively constituted as inhuman and this inhumanity appears in praxis through the apprehension of Evil as the structure of the Other" (RD, p. 208). No doubt, L'Etre et le néant had already implicitly acknowledged this possibility, since it stressed t h a t the others dispose of the meaning of our actions and define us as we cannot feel we are. But this alienation of one consciousness by another now appears to be founded on material scarcity: the struggle between subjectivities is now grounded in the struggle of organisms in the midst of scarcity. Hence a more "realistic" concept of freedom: " I do not mean, above all, t h a t man is free in every situation, as the Stoics claimed. I mean exactly the contrary: namely that all men are slaves in so far as their living experience unfolds in the lifeless practical field and to the extent t h a t this field is originally conditioned by scarcity" (RD, p. 369). But it is not only from the Stoics, it is also from L'Etre et le néant t h a t one may gather the idea that man is free in every situation, since he is ontologically sentenced to be free. Thus it was t h a t Sartre presented the slave in chains as "free to break them" ( E N , p. 635). Now, on the other hand, it would seem t h a t freedom and slavery are incompatible, instead of correlative. Actually, Sartre's evolution from the first to the second of his major philosophical essays is not so radical as some intemperate

GOAL A N D

IDEAI.

43

formulas would have us believe. According to the passage which has just been quoted, one might think that Sartre now rejects the notion of human freedom, since scarcity, though it is not an ontological necessity, is nonetheless factually inevitable. But this cannot be the case: the notion of alienation, the notion of action (now called praxis, a more Marxist and phonetically more impressive term) imply the idea of freedom as a correlative. We might simply say t h a t the idea of freedom is now more clearly split between an alienated freedom which defines the slave as slave, not as a pure object; and disalienated freedom, or ideal freedom. 4 Thus, the sense of a goal distinguishes itself more clearly from the sense of oneself as a responsible agent. The nature of the obstacles is also clearer. And the notion of agent is better separated from t h a t of actor. According to L'Etre et le néant, "since to will one's freedom is to choose to be in this world facing the others, someone who wills his freedom also wants to live the passion of his freedom" (EN, p. 609). This sentence might have led the reader to think that selfliberation could be achieved simply through the assumption of alienation and the authenticity of the agent exemplified by that of the actor. I was bothered by this possibility when I dealt with the phrase "authentic Jew". By grounding psycho-social alienation in scarcity, t h a t is to say, in the organism and in materiality, the Critique allows us to distinguish between a liberation which would remain theatrical and a more concrete liberation, in other words between gesture and action. B u t , at the same time, since scarcity remains the lot of the human species, full authenticity, or concrete freedom, can only be an ideal, not a goal in sight, whatever the social environment and political regime may be. I n this respect, there is nothing special about our era, a suggestion made in Saint Genet to the contrary. Let us note,

1

Since t h e Critique, Sartre has been prone to stress his evolution. This goes with his fondness for dépassement; besides, " H o w wrong I w a s " implies " H o w right I am". A t times, he appears not t o remember t h e content of his previous works very well. A t least, he shows a tendency t o exaggerate t h e e x t e n t of his evolution. Thus, in an interview published in Le Nouvel Observateur (January 26, 1970): "The individual internalizes economic relations, his childhood environment, the historical past, contemporary institutions; t h e n h e externalizes all of this again into actions and choices which refer back t o w h a t h e has internalized. N o t h i n g w a s said about all t h a t in L'Etre et le néant" . Y e t , this w a s precisely w h a t the concept of situation was supposed t o cover.

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in particular, that, in the face of worsening overpopulation and pollution, the hope which Réflexions sur la question juive placed in a "socialist revolution" now appears ludicrous, as long as socialist revolution means a control of production without a control of population. Anti-conceptional dams, not anti-constitutional barricades, a r e t h e first t h i n g t h a t i s needed. The trouble, of course, for inspiring and inspired writers like Sartre, is that, under these conditions, it is not easy to picture oneself in a Romantic painting by a disciple of Delacroix entitled "Freedom guiding Praxis". The elimination of scarcity would not be enough to do away with the alienation of one consciousness by another: human perversity cannot be treated so lightly. But this alienation would at least lose its economic roots. We would then return to the perspective of L'Etre et le néant, t h a t is to say, to a purely theatrical bad faith. And the falsity of the situations would depend on the individuals concerned, rather than on an inevitable group manicheism. I n Critique de la raison dialectique, Sartre describes with favor, even with fervor, the phenomenon of the group "in fusion", that is to say, of a group which, in its action, not in already frozen institutions, fugitively achieves, if not the substantial unity of men, at least a unity of action. 5 At first sight, this kind of relationship does not alienate the individual: the We brings to the I a power of which he could not dispose by himself. Let us note, however, that being members of such a group alienates us toward those who do not belong to it: in the midst of scarcity, alliances can be formed only to fight someone else. No We without a They: this is particularly obvious in the case of economic clashes and in the dialectic of racial or national groups and myths. Besides, this external alienation leads to an alienation within the group itself. Each of the members is a potential traitor: manicheism thus infects relationships within the group. This is what Sartre calls "fraternity by terror". The collective We becomes an idol and a role for the individual I: the authenticity of the agent degenerates into t h a t of the comedian.

5

See RD, p. 417. Sartre does not fall into a social mysticism: he opposes the conception of communities modelled after the living organism's. L'Etre et le néant had already denied the status of an ontological revelation to the experience of the We as subjectivity (EN, p. 600). L'Existentialisme est un humanisme defines man as action. But the unity of actions which is achieved through a group "in fusion" concerns only certain activities of its members.

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45

ETHICS A N D MORALS

This brief examination of four essays posterior to L'Etre et le néant has not resulted in discrediting authenticity. I t has rather permitted us to see how authenticity could be an end as well as a revelation. I t has also shown t h a t this end should be conceived as an ideal, not as an accessible goal. My question is now whether authenticity correctly defines t h e moral ideal, and not simply an ethical ideal, on the basis of the distinction I have proposed. I n order to do this, I have to resort to an external kind of criticism: I have to posit what I consider to be the properly moral goal, or ideal. For, on this point, I cannot be content to call common sense to the rescue and hide behind what everybody means by moral and good. Even the synchronic uses of these words are incoherent. Such incoherences in common usage allow and motivate philosophical reflection: if socio-religious prescriptions were coherent and constant, it would be impossible to philosophize on moral matters. Philosophers have been reproached for flouting common sense. But, if a philosophical critique is possible, it is because, on a certain point, there is not one common sense. Coherence and incoherence depend on the kind of logical and ontological découpage which is implicitly or explicitly adopted. A natural language such as English is not tied to one basic system. Nor is experience: the very existence of language, t h a t is to say, of attempts to bring experience to reason, shows t h a t experience is lacking in logic and that Being is not a world in the strong, esthetic sense of the word (cosmos, mundus). If language were structured by a tight implicit ontology, it would leave no opening to philosophical creation. If Being were a world, it would leave no opening for language. Metaphysical attempts to justify evil, among other rationalistic endeavors, illustrate the paradox of the Liar. On the other hand, when we t r y to make a term function coherently within the limited conceptual framework of an essay, we should remain faithful at least to some common uses of the term. Otherwise, it would be more appropriate to select another, or coin a neologism. For my part, I shall rely on the uses of the term evil which tie it t o unwanted suffering: actually, one might say that, to the extent t h a t it is wanted and accepted, suffering ceases to be suffering. An action would be morally good to the extent that it would endeavor, and contrive, to prevent, dissolve, alleviate, unwanted suffering.

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IDEAL

Of course, this principle does not eliminate dilemmas: does this creature feel pain or not ? To what degree ? Which suffering should be fought? In what way? But we should not expect a moral principle to be applied as a program is fed into a computer. 6 The moral ideal (we cannot speak of an attainable goal) is thus posited as the elimination of unwanted suffering in any center of experience, excepting oneself. For, in the perspective of moral action, we apprehend ourselves as responsible agents, not as recipients of actions. Taking one's own suffering into account, as to be sought or avoided, belongs to the ethical perspective in a broad sense, considering ethical practice as the art of living. However, moral sense would still be concerned in this matter to the extent that decisions in regard to our own suffering may affect our abilities as moral agents. I t must be noted that, in the perspective of moral action, the others are viewed as suffering, or threatened with it. They are not considered as responsible agents: this point of view belongs to them. No doubt, since I act in a field where others act, I have to take their ability to act and their actions into account. But this consideration is subordinated to the goal I have chosen: the others appear as allies or enemies, means or obstacles. I may voice my indignation, t r y to put someone to shame, appeal to his moral sense. But these are simply tactics whose virtue varies according to the case. The way in which someone else experiences his own behavior, and the goal which he adopts do not matter in themselves. I might, for instance, judge t h a t someone is interested only in playing a mythical or dramatic role, b u t at the same time t h a t this is how his behavior may have the best moral results. No doubt, as I interpret it, his behavior will be lacking in integrity. But this judgment is ethical, rather than moral in the narrow sense. Let us simply acknowledge that these practical coincidences between a morally good result and a theatrical or mythical goal are not reliable. As I understand it, Sartrean authenticity is an ethical ideal. Broadly conceived, ethical theory determines the good forms of experience. If we agree t h a t coherent action may provide one of these forms, Sartrean authenticity, in this domain, is the appropriate 6

B y suffering, I m e a n above all physical pain. This is where unwanted suffering is concentrated, though t h e t w o ideas do not coincide. Psychological and physical suffering, wanted and unwanted pain, these distinctions m a y be difficult to apply. B u t this is the c o m m o n lot of distinctions. Think for instance of the distinction between blue and green, or prosaic and poetic.

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47

ideal; for it is the integrity of human agency. 7 But I am mainly concerned with the relations between this ethical ideal and the moral ideal which I have posited. They are not identical. Does the ideal of authenticity imply at least what is in my eyes the moral ideal? On the basis of L'Etre et le néant, putting an end to "the reign of values" involves a rejection of mythical and theatrical attitudes. But is cruelty, or indifference, always reducible to a theatrical or mythical type of conduct: playing the role of the villain, or trying to lose oneself in it ? On the basis of Critique de la raison dialectique, disalienation appears to presuppose the end of the social manicheism which rests on material scarcity. But, if material scarcity results in suffering, it does not account for every kind of physical alienation. There is a common zone between the perspective of authenticity and the moral perspective I have delimited: thus the awareness of oneself as responsible agent is indistinctly ethical and moral. But they do not coincide. And the perspective of authenticity does not recognize the primacy and originality of the ideal and goals which I have isolated as properly moral. For there is a difference in the way other centers of experience are considered. This difference is made obvious by t h e fact t h a t it corresponds to a difference in the extension of the concept of the Other. I t is time to ask the question: Who is my neighbor?

MY N E I G H B O R

L'Etre et le néant grounds the notion of the Other in the awareness of a consciousness other than mine. Besides the opposition between self and non-self, experience provides t h a t between oneself and another self. Thus understood, the experience of the Other is not necessarily tied to the perception of a physical object recognized as embodying the Other: "My fundamental link with the Other as subjectivity must be thought of as the possibility of being seen by the Other" (EN, p. 314). 7 I n "Existence and ethics, I " (The Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume, X X X V I I , 1963), A n t h o n y Manser writes: "The existentialists seem t o be offering us only a 'Do it yourself' kit for ethics" (p. 25). H e is alluding in particular to Sartrean authenticity. This remark appears appropriate as concerns morals in t h e narrow sense. B u t , as concerns ethics in t h e broad sense, I don't think t h a t general prescriptions should be given t o action, e x c e p t t h a t of being authentic action.

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This conception suggests an animistic atmosphere. Suppose I am alone in a forest and yet experience the feeling of another presence. I may picture this presence imaginatively as a god, angel or devil, faun or dryad, rabbit, monster, or human being. On the strength of what currently passes for knowledge, some of these interpretations would be viewed as superstitious. But, in so far as knowledge is practically defined by the contemporary state of affairs in the sciences, it is animism itself, it is the very idea of subjectivity, or consciousness, which is a superstition: for knowledge can bear only on objects. It would not be enough to eliminate angels, devils and ghosts; it would not be enough to reduce animals to machines in a Cartesian way; human beings too would have to fall under this lot. Even I, as a suffering, contemplating and acting subjectivity, would have to be considered as a superstition. The Other as subjectivity is a notion which may be posited by philosophical comprehension, not by the scientific knowledge of objects. The latter can apprehend neither agency nor suffering, only processes, or types of processes.8 The conception of the Other presented in L'Etre et le néant should welcome any type of individuation: the Other might be a "spirit", an animal, or even be embodied in a mountain, a tree, a fountain, as well as in human form. I have nothing to say against this ontological conception. In fact, however, Sartre proceeds as if the Other was incarnated only as human being.9 8 This does not mean that, for the determination of means and tactics, reasonable action can do without what passes for knowledge. Suffering is not a scientific object. Yet it is not unreasonable to expect scientific technique to provide an instrument which could be interpreted as an algometer. 9

I n Une Idée fondamentale

de la phénoménologie

de Husserl

: l'intentionalité,

an

article dated 1939, Sartre writes: " I t i s not in I do not know what retreat that we shall discover ourselves: it is on the road, in the city, in the midst of the crowd, a thing among things, a man among m e n " (Situations, I ; Paris: Gallimard, 1947; pp. 34-35). Betweenhuman subjectivity and the objectivity of things, there apparently remains no room for anything else. A s I had asked him one day what his ontology would do with animals, Sartre told me that we still lacked the knowledge which could allow us to imagine what the experience of this or that species could be like. Coming from a philosopher for whom the original notion of the Other is not grounded in knowledge, the argument struck me as strange. Besides, even if one introduces the issue of knowledge, does this make the difference between the human and the nonhuman Other so radical Î No doubt, we can communicate with men with the help of words. B u t there are lies, comedy, let alone foreign languages. In any case, even if I judge him to be sincere, the relation between what a human being says and what he feels is not, properly speaking, an object of knowledge.

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For Sartre, the idea of being seen involves the idea of being judged. His choice of shame to illustrate the original experience of the Other is significant. The glance of the Other is supposed to brand us, not simply as prey or danger, obstacle or means, but as a set of ethical properties. This is what constitutes our original alienation according to L'Etre et le néant: "As an object of values which may define me without my being able to interfere with this definition, without my even knowing of it, I am in bondage" ( E N , p. 326).10 Conceived simply as someone's opinion, as a judgment comparable to a reader's appreciation of Shakespeare or Plato, this bondage would not be too serious. But the essays which follow L'Etre et le néant show the gravity of the others' opinion: it rests on a social manicheism which threatens the individual organism in the midst of scarcity. I n any case, what interests me here is that the conception of the Other as a judge, and as an ethical judge in particular, orients us toward a human limitation of the idea. Still, this limitation is not quite accomplished: the god of the Christians, the wolf imagined by Vigny, are designed to put us to shame. To confine the embodiment of the Other to the human species, we must go one step further: the Other will be fully the Other, that is to say, my kin, my neighbor, to the extent t h a t he is sentenced t o be free and theoretically able t o assume his ethical responsibility. For this is a Sartrean definition of human beings. But this ethical definition of the Other cannot pass for a moral definition of my neighbor. For, in the moral perspective which I have proposed, my neighbor is defined as any being subject to 10 Sartre's d r a m a s e m p h a s i z e t h e b o n d a g e i m p o s e d b y t h e others. This is h o w t h e aphorism a t t h e end of' Huis-clos: " H e l l is t h e o t h e r s " should b e interpreted. A c c o r d i n g t o t h e fictional premisses, t h e characters in t h e p l a y are "dead": t h e y c a n n o t project a liberation i n t o a n o p e n future. B u t their alienation o n l y p u s h e s t o t h e limit d r a m a t i c alienation in general: i t repres e n t s h u m a n alienation t o t h e e x t e n t t h a t h u m a n beings are confined t o m a k i n g gestures. On t h e basis of L'Etre et le néant, h u m a n alienation appears, as a m a t t e r of fact, essentially dramatic: hell is t h e theatrical c a v e , rather t h a n t h e p h y s i c a l prison. I t is significant t o n o t e , in t h i s respect, t h a t t h e d r a m a t i c capacities of t h e a n i m a l s d e v o i d of l a n g u a g e are generally rather limited, e v e n if w e t a k e i n t o a c c o u n t t h e results of recent research: see, for instance, V i t u s B . Droscher, Die Freundliche Bestie (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1968). I w o n d e r whether, in t h e e y e s of t h e a u t h o r of L'Etre et le néant, being a good c o m e d i a n is n o t a prerequisite for b e i n g a c c e p t e d as " m y neighbor".

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suffering. This includes human beings. I t might include a man-god like Christ, though it is to be assumed that, as god, he willed his suffering as man. But it certainly includes animals, those at least which, on the strength of judgments analogous to those we use regarding human beings, we consider as subject to pain. I n the perspective of L'Etre et le néant, suffering can take place only as alienation of freedom. And the freedom involved is not the organic well-being of human and non-human animals; it is the dignity of the responsible agent. A reduction of the range of moral goals to the range of ethical agents is thus encouraged; and the humanism of Sartre assumes the appearance of a human racism, and even of an interhuman racism, if we think of certain beings who, though physiologically human, cannot reasonably be held to be responsible agents, even potentially: the mentally or physically ill and handicapped. The perspective is altered in Critique de la raison dialectique: human beings are defined as organisms. The opposition between human and non-human would thus be expected to be superseded by another. But the following passage shows that Sartre still clings to this dichotomy: Without prejudging the data of animal psychology and psycho-biology, it is clear that the presence-to-the-iuorld described by these ideologues characterizes part or all of the animal world. But, within this life-world, man occupies for us a privileged position. First because he can be historical, that is to say, define himself ceaselessly through his praocis: passive or active changes and their internalization, and then going beyond these internalized relations. Second, because he is the existent that we are. In this case, the questioner is also the one who is questioned. (ED, pp. 103-104).

Among the philosophers reduced to the rank of "ideologues", the author of Critique de la raison dialectique counts the author of L'Etre et le néant. But L'Etre et le néant had viewed presence to the world as specific of human beings. Apparently, Sartre has changed his mind. As a matter of fact, now that he is defined by physical needs, man appears to return to the animal fold. But the second sentence of the passage gives him back his privileges. Animals act and suffer, but their behavior is not granted the noble name of praxis. They do not temporalize themselves intellectually: they do not make themselves historical. And it does not seem either t h a t they wonder about goals and their own nature.

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51

The privilege involved may appear legitimate. From a moral point of view, what Sartre says amounts to asserting t h a t only human beings are built in such a way t h a t they may, in theory, be responsible agents. As they temporalize themselves, wonder about themselves, they make themselves responsible. But the Critique offers more suspicious passages: the privilege of man as a potential moral agent tends to be confused with a privilege of man as a goal or ideal. Praxis tends to turn from a duty into a right. My Parisian concierge used to point out that we who had built cathedrals were not like animals. After reproaching Heidegger for subordinating man to Being, Sartre generalizes as follows: "Any philosophy which subordinates the human to the Other than man, whether it is an existentialist or Marxist idealism, rests on, and results in, the hatred of man" (RD, p. 248).11 In the context of the Critique, there is something strange, or ludicrous, about this burst of indignation. For we are in the reign of scarcity, which means t h a t "everyone is an inhuman man for all the others and considers all the others as inhuman men" (RD, p. 206). And again: "Man is objectively constituted as inhuman and this inhumanity appears in praxis through the apprehension of Evil as the structure of the Other" (RD, p. 208). If such is the case, there is nothing special about the hatred of man with which Sartre reproaches Heidegger. How could it be otherwise? Heidegger does nothing else than what Sartre himself is doing, as he condemns him. The use of the terms inhuman and inhumanity is explained in a strange passage: Inhumanity is a relation between men and can be nothing else: no doubt, one may be cruel, and pointlessly so, with a particular animal; but it is in the name of human relations that this cruelty is blamed or punished: for who would believe that the carnivorous species which trains animals by the hundreds of thousands to kill them or use their ability to work and destroys the others systematically (either for hygienic reasons, or for protection, or gratuitous play), who would believe that this predatory species, except for castrated, domesticated animals, and according to a simplistic symbolism, has placed its values and its real definition of itself in its relations with animals? (RD, p. 207). 11

In Vber den Humanismus, Heidegger quotes a sentence of Sartre drawn from L'Existentialisme est un humanisme: "Precisely we are on a plane where there are only men" (EH, p. 36). To which he retorts: "Precisely we axe on a plane where there is mainly Being". See Lettre sur I'humanisme (Paris: Aubier, 1957), p. 82.

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To this apparently rhetorical question, one might reply that it depends on individuals and circumstances. As concerns the human race as a whole, an answer would require us to play the game of t h e fundamental motive: self-love, libido, will-to-live, will-to-power, desire to be, or, drawing one's inspiration from Nietzsche, Scheler and Celine, the determination, by living, to avenge oneself on having been made to live. If we played this game, it would be easy to demonstrate that, as a matter of fact, it is in relation to other species that the human species, as a whole, attempts to define itself: in opposition to the others. The "hundreds of thousands" which Sartre mentions are a very modest estimate. And the same goes for his allusion to cruelty "toward a particular animal". He forgets the laboratories in which animals are caged and martyred by millions each year ad majorem humanitatis gloriam. Of course, the good or glory of mankind is only a tactical argument hypocritically used by inquisitors, but the fact that they judge it an adequate shield is significant. I do not know who would believe that the human race has placed its real definition in its relations with animals. But what is strange in the quoted passage is that it would tend to make the reader believe it. Sartre presents mankind as a "predatory species". I should say t h a t a predatory species defines itself in reality in relation to its prey. And human beings resort more to non-human, than human, flesh for food. Sartre also mentions cruelty, which, unlike unthinking violence, may be deemed specific of the human race. Cruelty could thus be viewed as the way in which some human beings avenge themselves on animals for being animals themselves: this originality would help them deny that they are animals. No doubt, cruelty is inflicted on human, as well as non-human, animals. But Sartre's assertion that relations with non-human animals would draw their meaning from interhuman relations is refuted by his selection of the term inhumanity. For he uses this word to mean that men assert their humanity by picturing the human enemy as inhuman, as an anti-man. That is what the bad faith of social manicheism consists of. To a great extent, this kind of presentation appears appropriate to me. Thus, people are often blamed for treating human beings as if they were animals, in particular guinea-pigs. This does not mean t h a t men are treated as if they could not be responsible, but in a brutal, cruel manner. Which would seem to imply t h a t it is perfectly appro-

GOAL A N D

IDEAL

53

priate to treat non-human animals, guinea-pigs for instance, in this way. Think also of the frequent assimilation of animalitv, not to amorality, but to immorality. When someone likens a man to an animal, he seldom alludes to his innocence or lack of responsibility. If, then, we recognize as psychologically pertinent the way Sartre uses the term inhuman to characterize the ideology of interhuman conflicts, it appears that violence between human beings is grounded in the violence toward non-human animals and t h a t interhuman racism rests on a basic human racism. The quoted passage thus tends to show the opposite of what it asserts: if, in the midst of scarcity, interhuman conflicts are lived as a conflict between human and inhuman, it must be because the human species has placed its values and the real definition of itself in its relation with nonhuman animals. I n claiming, against the very logic of his terminology, t h a t human racism is something marginal compared to interhuman manicheism, Sartre becomes an accomplice of this racism. True, he does not glorify violence and cruelty. But he proceeds as if violence were an essentially interhuman affair and, furthermore, could be inflicted on human beings only to the extent t h a t they cannot be likened t o other species: "The only violence which can be conceived is the violence inflicted by freedom on freedom through the mediation of inorganic m a t t e r " (RD, p. 689). The freedom alluded to is the freedom which, however alienated it may be, expresses itself in praxis, t h a t is to say, in the type of action which Sartre reserves for human beings. The restriction thus imposed on the idea of violence invites us to define my neighbor, not as what is subject to suffering (human or not), but as what is capable of praxis (human only). The privilege of the species capable of praxis recalls the traditional privilege of the beings equipped with souls. The ability to make history supersedes the divine right to immortality. The racism involved has not changed. 12 Something may be kept from what Sartre says about violence: namely, that scarcity makes it inevitable. As a matter of fact, 12

Note also that the ability to make history rests on the hypothesis that human actions can be coherently totalized. The first volume of Critique de la raison dialectique which dwells on the multiplicity of movements, aggregates, and on recurrence, makes this hypothesis very implausible. As for the second volume, in the same way as the treatise of ethics announced at the end of L'Etre et le néant, it has not been published yet, at the moment I am writing.

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positing non-violence toward the others as a practical moral principle is to present suicide as the only possible moral action. The choice to live, the choice to survive, is a decision to practice violence, either directly or indirectly. But, from my standpoint, two reservations should be made. The Sartrean notion of violence is too narrow in one respect, too monolithic in another. From a moral point of view, any being subject t o suffering, and not just any being capable of historical praxis, may be the object of violence. This extension of the idea of violence makes the situation presented by Sartre look even more hopeless. But the second reservation has an opposite effect. If we cannot distinguish between violence and non-violence, we can at least distinguish between violence and violence. Yielding once again to his totalitarian bent, Sartre avoids pointing this out. From a moral point of view, distinctions should be made, be it only between killing and torturing. The examination of the notion of revolt as Camus develops it will provide the opportunity to return to this point.

3 ABSURDITY AND T H E TRAGEDIAN

T H E QUESTION OF SUICIDE

At the outset of Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), Camus presents the question of suicide as follows: "To judge whether life is worth living or not is to answer the fundamental philosophical question" (E, p. 99). He writes as if to kill oneself implied the judgment that life is not worth living. And he takes care to make a distinction between this judgment and the judgment t h a t life is meaningless: "There is no necessary connection between these two judgments" (E, p. 103). As we shall see, he intends to take advantage of this distinction. But what kind of connection is there between suicide and the judgment t h a t life is not worth living ? We are not dealing with a causal law of the type: "Whenever a man thinks x, he does y." The perspective is philosophical: we stay on the plane of reasons, we are not invited to venture into the shifting sands of motives. 1 From this standpoint, judging t h a t life is not worth living does not entail t h a t killing oneself is worth the trouble. Suicide receives no more than a negative justification from this judgment. But this is all that Camus needs for his line of play. For his purpose is to discover a positive reason to go on living: if life is worth living, one should not commit suicide. What kind of logic does this entailment illustrate ? The phrases " t o be worth" and "one should not" suggest a logic of action based on ethical premisses. In the same way as Sartre's presentation of responsibility in L'Etre et le néant, Le Mythe de Sisyphe adopts, from the start, a deontological approach. Still, from an ethical point of view, there is something suspicious in the way the issue is put forward. We are told about life in general, 1 On this subject, see in particular Gabriel Deshaies, Psychologie du suicide (Paris: PUF, 1947).

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or rather about human life in general. To be relevant, the question would have to bear on the life of a certain individual, as he judges it would be if he decided not to kill himself. I t is my life that I have to live. If my decision to go on living derives from the judgment t h a t human life in general is worth living, then I do not exactly decide t o go on living my life: I decide rather to play the part of Life, princess of Man and sundry places. These remarks will pick up echoes in my examination of Le Mythe de Sisyphe and of L'Homme révolté. No doubt, ethical theory involves generalizations. But one should be wary of generalizing about life, at least in the way to which theologians are accustomed. MEANING OF LIFE AND ETHICAL SENSE

Having arranged a way out through the distinction between lack of meaning and lack of value, Camus proceeds to develop the theme of the absurd. As he himself indicates, it is a fairly traditional theme. For instance, it might be discovered at the source of philosophical reflection, in the wonder t h a t something should be, rather t h a n nothing, or something else. Camus proposes to bring the theme up t o date. To this end, he alludes to contemporary authors. The notion is rooted in a certain experience, a certain climate, which may be called the feeling of absurdity. This feeling appears and disappears. But it may have the impact of a revelation and be treated as Heidegger and Sartre treat anxiety (Angst, angoisse). Le Mythe de Sisyphe adds the feeling of absurdity to the list of existentials. To bring out its implicit content, Camus speaks of a "divorce between man and his life" (E, p. 101). Instead of life, he also uses the term world: " I said t h a t the world is absurd. This is inaccurate. This world in itself is not reasonable, t h a t is all that can be said about it. B u t what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and ofthe passionate desire for clarity whose call sounds in the inmost depthsof man. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world" (E, p. 113). The way this passage is phrased is open to criticism. Camus proceeds as if "reasonable" and "rational" were synonymous, whereas they often are incompatible. And he speaks as if the requirement of rationality could be reduced to that of clarity: coherence would be a better word. However, what the passage is driving at remains easy to determine. I n itself, the world, t h a t is to say, the state of affairs as it is conceived, or pictured, is not rational (or reasonable) in the

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sense an orange is not a saucepan. Rationality is a human requirement and it is the attempt to apply this requirement to the state of affairs that makes it appear as an anti-value. In itself, the state of affairs is such as it is, or appears. To apprehend it as absurd, one has to view it as if, in some way, it was meant to accomplish a value which it does not accomplish. Thus it appears that the feeling of absurdity manifests a disappointed demand. This demand is a demand for rationality. But what kind of rationality is demanded? In the paragraphs which follow, I shall adopt a line of development which differs from that of Camus. He proceeds mainly by allusions to philosophies he calls "existential", which were the philosophies in favor with most young intellectuals in France during the thirties. I should like to develop the significance of Camus' remarks in a broader context. Let me add in passing that, while Kierkegaard, Jaspers and Shestov provide him with good examples, his references to Heidegger and above all Husserl make me doubt that, at the time, he had read their works. Concerning "the world", the first kind of rationality one might think of is scientific rationality. It reduces individual phenomena to examples of general facts which it relates causally. Science relates generalities; but events in the world are individual. One might, of course, understand causality as probability: it is reasonable (though not rational) to take probability into account as we decide and foresee . But, in this world and in my life, it is not probable events, but actual events, that come to pass. Between probable and actual there lies a logical gap. An event has happened, is happening, will happen. Whether its theoretical probability be one, one half or zero, this is not the point. I have already noted this gap when I made a distinction between temporal logic and a causal determinism. However, Camus does not take this into consideration. The idea of death, which is foremost in his thought, he presents as a matter of knowledge: man is the being who knows he will die. It would have been possible to root the idea of death in experience: to live is, among other things, to feel oneself dying. But, since the question at issue is that of suicide, knowing that one is mortal is what matters, rather than feeling oneself dying.2 2

Philosophically, the question of suicide thus depends on the question of knowledge. And the theory of knowledge depends on the theory of being and

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To view death in this way is t o agree t h a t scientific rationality may apply not only t o types of processes, b u t to individual processes as well, and t h a t it may relate not only classes of facts, b u t also a n individual p a r t a n d an individual totality: t h e world and a particular life, mine for instance. Contemporary cosmology offers world models. We may note, t o begin, t h a t there are several world models a n d t h a t these models are bound to change according t o t h e evolution of what passes for scientific knowledge. B u t it is not their fragility a n d plurality, it is not their comparative gratuitousness t h a t should be emphasized here. I t is t h e fact t h a t , within these models, individual lives appear as world lines, t h a t is to say, as processes whose limits are fixed arbitrarily, the fundamental process being t h e totality of processes. W h a t interests our subject is t h a t t h e coherence, or cohesion, of this total process or partial processes is not designed to dispel t h e feeling of absurdity with which Camus is concerned. To bestow on life t h e status of a process does not supply it with t h e kind of meaning whose lack is felt in t h e experience of t h e absurd. This kind of meaning is to be provided by t h e logic of action: t h e word meaning is to be t a k e n in the sense of goal, purpose, ideal. Thus I am led to emphasize again the distinction between action a n d process, between what temporalizes itself and what is temporalized, which was brought out in the examination of t h e Sartrean treatment of temporality. The divorce between man and his life is t h e divorce between a subjectivity which temporalizes itself a n d temporalized life. Scientific rationality, if we accept t h e world concept which its pragmatic successes bolster, is more likely t o sharpen t h e feeling of absurdity t h a n to dispel it. I t can readily be seen how this feeling interests m y topic: t h e demand whose disappointment it manifests is, in t h e broadest sense, an ethical demand. From cosmological models let us t u r n t o cosmogonic m y t h s . Under two main forms, t h e y t r y to make room for t h e ideas of action and goal. I n the classical version (in Plato's Timaeus, in particular), t h e world is the result of t h e action of a divine engineer. I n t h e romantic version (from Hegel t o Teilhard), t h e m y t h of Creation is made immanent: t h e world is not simply in becoming: it modes of existence. I say this to set in perspective the beginning of Le Mythe de Sisyphe: "There is only one really serious philosophical problem: it is suicide" (E, p. 99). This problem can be fundamental only within the limits of the philosophy of ethics.

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makes itself. In L'Homme révolté, Camus will attack this romantic version. In Le Mythe de Sisyphe, it is mainly to the classical version that allusions are to be found. According to the classical version, the world is like a novel, or play, which features human characters. A meaning is bestowed on the "life" of the characters, but from the outside: the author decides on this meaning, or the theologian who explains the intentions of the author. The "sufferings" of the characters are like shadows which allow for a nice contrast with the lighted parts. All in all, a masterpiece: beauty is unity in diversity. In the romantic version, the favorable critic explains the intentions of the work in progress, without bothering about a transcendent author. The serial is still "to be continued", but the commentator makes bold to foresee thè contents of the last instalment. A "moral" end is assumed, which is meant to justify the rest. Here again we are dealing with an esthetic perversion. If we stopped considering "the world" and tried instead to view each life as a whole, the meaning conferred on life would not be exterior: it would be coextensive with life. But it would still be an esthetic perversion. Living beings struggle among meanings, between meanings and lacks of meaning. Meanings crop up here and there, like proud or scared flowers against the ground of nonsense and horror. But the passion for the One-and-All demands one and only one meaning for a life as a whole. It dreams of substituting for life a selective and stylized biography. Suicide could be regarded as an attempt to identify oneself, as ethical agent, with one's life conceived as a totality. The end of one's life is assumed as a goal, instead of being abandoned to nature, to accident. But this decision is only one among others. It cannot absorb the others, either as parts or as means. These various attempts to "give life a meaning" can be summed up by saying that they implicitly propose to give an esthetic meaning to a character in a fiction, or to a character coextensive with the fiction. In doing so, they spirit away the agent and smother the ethical sense. They pass off the interworld as a harmonious cosmos. Hence their aspect of escape literature. 3

3 One m i g h t explain in this w a y t h e popularity of t h e writings of Teilhard de Chardin, for instance, outside their use as a t a c t i c a l w e a p o n against M a r x i s m on t h e l e f t and T h o m i s m on the right.

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T H E CHARACTER A N D T H E TRAGEDIAN

Let us come back to Le Mythe de Sisyphe. According to the preceding remarks, it would appear that the feeling of absurdity manifests in its way a refusal of the ethical sense to be spirited away in these various mythical and esthetic solvents: to bestow, with words, a meaning on life will help you live without the burden of the ethical sense. But Camus' line of play does not take us so far. He concludes his reflections on suicide as follows: The question was to decide whether life had to have a meaning in order to be lived. It now appears that it will be lived the better for its lack of meaning. To live an experience, a destiny, is to accept it fully. And we shall not live this destiny, if we recognize it as absurd, if we do not do everything to maintain before ourselves this absurdity which has been brought to the light of consciousness.4 To deny one of the terms of the opposition is to escape it. To abolish conscious revolt is to evade the problem . . . It is this constant presence of man to himself. It is not an aspiration, it is without hope. This revolt is only the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation which should accompany it. (E, p. 138). The decision to maintain the absurd refuses meaning to the character. But it does not appear that the agent is to be the beneficiary. Identification with the role (with "destiny") is avoided, but the role is maintained. Rather than on the agent, value is thus bestowed on the actor. This is the outcome of Camus' manoeuvers: to assert the value of life while denying its meaning amounts to transferring value from the role which is played to the actor who plays it. 5 The perspective which Le Mythe de Sisyphe adopts concerning life fits this move. Being aware of one's mortality is brought into relief: the essay takes up the theme of being sentenced to death.® This is a synecdoche: one of the aspects of life is presented as the only one, or at least as the determining aspect. Certain situations may warrant this reduction. Such is probably the case of those who have been legally sentenced to death. In their cell, on the way to the 4

The text reads mis d jour (brought up to date), instead of mis au jour (brought to light). I t is an oversight. 5 In a letter dated 1943, Camus writes, regarding Le Mythe de Sisyphe: "My essay does not really come to grips with the problem of 'what can be done' within the picture" (E, p. 1423). 6 In Camus (New York: Harcourt-Brace, 1964), Germaine Bree notes that Sisyphus, immortally in Hell, is ill-chosen to represent a human condition whose mortality is stressed.

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place of execution, whether they lament their fate, or put up a bold front, or harden themselves, or again, like the Russian terrorist whom Camus mentions in L'Homme révolté (E, p. 577), kiss their condemned companions, their actions are reduced to play-acting: they can only act the part of someone sentenced to death. But, whatever its importance may be, to reduce any human life, under whatever circumstances, to this perspective alone is a rhetorical device. I have been applying my own theatrical terminology. But Le Mythe de Sisyphe favors its adoption. Thus the assimilation of " m a n and his life" t o "the actor and his setting" (E, p. 101). The following sentence also suggests a theatrical scheme: "For a man without blinkers, there is no spectacle more beautiful than the spectacle of intelligence a t grips with an overwhelming reality" (E, p. 139). This one too: "The whole of existence, for a man who has turned away from the eternal, is only a huge pantomime under the mask of the absurd" (E, p. 174). Turning away from the "eternal" effects a separation from the character, from the role. But what is refused as a face is kept on as a mask. Comedy is one of the exemplary styles of life to which Le Mythe de Sisyphe grants a special treatment: " I t is not so easy to be 'theatrical' and this word, wrongly discredited, refers to a comprehensive esthetics and morals" (E, p. 160). Does it not rather refer to a confusion between the two? A few lines further, Camus adds: " I am speaking of great theatre, of course, the one which gives the actor the opportunity to fulfill his quite physical destiny." As a matter of fact, it is with his body t h a t the actor makes gestures; but his purpose is confined to making gestures: "The actor composes his characters for display" ( E , p. 160). The goal may not be to make a spectacle of oneself; but it is at least to give oneself a show. In this respect, the other exemplary types of life which Camus composes (Don J u a n , the adventurer) can be reduced to the actor type. 7 The actor provides the basic example to the extent that he is his own spectator. This conception of life as a show is far from new in 7

In L'Existence malheureuse (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), Jean Grenier, one of the teachers of Camus, writes: "Virtue does not consist in doing the good, but in doing well"(p. 51). The phrase"doing the good" might fit a character; the phrase "doing well" would suit a good actor. B y this I mean that the former phrase risks perverting the moral ideal into a consecrated idol, while the latter suggests that one is interested in style, not in the end. "Doing some good" would be better suited to the moral agent.

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the moraliste tradition to which Le Mythe de Sisyphe belongs. I t is indeed a danger which threatens every theory of morals by the very fact t h a t it is a theory. I n practice, a moral value manifests itself as the goal, or ideal, of an action which temporalizes itself in the interworld. But, on the theoretical level, moral values are contemplated, in the same way as esthetic values. Theory thus threatens to turn morals into an estheticism. Among the values to which Le Mythe de Sisyphe pays respect, lucidity comes first. But we are not dealing with the lucidity of the agent which Sartre brings out in his treatment of responsibility. I t is rather the lucidity of the actor who asserts his autonomy from the role which he plays (life, the world, destiny, in Camus' terms). The resolve to be lucid is limited t o the decision to maintain the absurd: "What is at the basis of this conflict, of this split between the world and my mind, if not my awareness of it ? Consequently, if I want to maintain it, I must maintain a perpetual, ever-renewed, ever-tense, awareness" (E, p. 136). As a spectator of the character he portrays, the actor enjoys a certain freedom, the freedom of mind to which traditional wisdom lays claim: "Return to awareness, escape from the slumber of routine represent the first steps of absurd freedom" (E, p. 142). The experience of the absurd could thus have the effect which Sartre, on his part, expects from existential psychoanalysis: namely, in my terms, the rejection of the mythical spirit and of the idolatry of the character. If t h a t is what matters, then, assuming t h e same degree of awareness, it makes no difference "to get drunk in solitude or to lead nations" (EN, p. 721). This passage from L'Etre et le néant echoes the following sentence from Le Mythe de Sisyphe: "A post office employee will be the equal of a conqueror if they have an equal awareness" ( E , p. 150). A certain kind of coherence is another value which is implicitly adopted: "My reasoning wants to be faithful t o t h e revelation which aroused i t " (E, p. 134). Like the will to lucidity, from which it is derived, the will to consistency aims in this case a t maintaining the perspective and the attitude which are revealed in the experience of absurdity. Outside Le Mythe de Sisyphe,8 outside writing essays, "what can this mean ? On the consistency of Le Mythe de Sisyphe, see a precise discussion in John Cruickshank, Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960).

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The d e m a n d for unity which Le Mythe de Sisyphe manifests cannot be satisfied b y giving life a certain meaning: u n i t y is not to be sought in t h e character. If it is faithfully maintained, t h e revolt which is p a r t of t h e experience of t h e absurd " p u t s t h e world in question a t every m o m e n t " (E, p. 138). Is this t h e questioning which the Sartrean m a n applies to t h e world a n d to himself, through temporalization and self-temporalization ? Is faithfulness t o this kind of revolt faithfulness to t h e sense of oneself as responsible agent ? Yes a n d no: here again the agent is reduced to an actor. The actor asserts his autonomy through changes of roles. I n the diversity of roles, he can assert his acting unity through a certain style of play. Comedy, as has been seen, is supposed t o represent " a comprehensive esthetics and morals". B u t t h e conclusion which Camus gives t o this example and to t h e others reduces t h e "morals" in question t o a style: "These images do not propose systems of morals a n d they do not involve judgment : they are sketches. They represent only styles of life" ( E , p. 169). Which leads t h e reader to suppose t h a t , beyond being faithful t o t h e revelation of the absurd, t h e consistency which is prized limits itself to a unity of style. 9 More striking t h a n this demand for consistency is t h e fondness which Le Mythe de Sisyphe shows for a third value. I t has already been noted t h a t , when he praises the theatre, t h e young essayist makes it a point to specify t h a t he means " g r e a t " theatre. From t h e experience of t h e absurd one might, recalling Montaigne, draw the judgment t h a t all our activities are farcical. B u t t h e tone of Le Mythe de Sisyphe is dictated by t h e theme of t h e death sentence: tragedy is suggested, rather t h a n farce. The transfer of value from t h e character t o t h e actor could consequently be expressed as follows : since our condition is tragic, let us play tragedy. Referring t o t h e legend of Adrienne Lecouvreur, Camus. declares: "This dying woman, refusing, in tears, to deny what she 9

On this topic of consistency as a virtue, the author of Le Mythe de Sisyphe appears rather ill at ease. His malaise is confirmed in the letter which has already been quoted: "There is in the absurd attitude a fundamental contradiction. I t gives a minimum of coherence to incoherence" (E, p. 1422). In m y terms, the difficulty would be to distinguish between coherence in the behavior of the character from coherence in the behavior of the actor: how does the actor differ from the character of an actor? On the other hand, L'Homme révolté confesses that "life" is lacking in "style": "It is only a movement which pursues its form without ever finding it" (E, p. 655). Does this judgment concern only the character, or does it also bear on the "styles of life" which Le Mythe de Sisyphe had sketched?

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called her a r t , showed a greatness which she never a t t a i n e d on stage. I t was her most b e a u t i f u l role a n d t h e most difficult t o assume. To choose between heaven a n d a pointless fidelity, t o prefer oneself t o eternity or to lose oneself in God, such is t h e ageless t r a g e d y in which we have t o assume our p a r t " ( E , p. 162). F o r t h e greatness of t h e character with God, or against God, Le Mythe de Sisyphe substitutes t h e greatness of t h e t r a g e d i a n confronting t h e absurd: "This revolt gives life its proper value. Maint a i n e d t h r o u g h o u t a n existence, it restores its greatness" ( E , p. 139). This fondness for greatness, 1 0 or for t h e word greatness (grandeur), is also in evidence in t h e following passage: Spiritual conflicts are embodied and return to the wretched and magnificent shelter of man's heart. None is solved. But all are transfigured. Shall we die, escape by a leap, rebuild a convenient house of ideas and forms ? Shall we, on the contrary, assume the harrowing and wonderful wager of the absurd ? Let us, at this point, make a last effort and draw all our consequences. The body, tenderness, creation, action, human nobility, will then recover their place in this meaningless world. Man will recover at last the wine of absurdity and the bread of indifference on which his greatness feeds. (E, p. 137). My organism m u s t be lacking in magnificence a n d greatness: this thick eloquence sickens me, as well as t h e warmed-over dish of t h e misery a n d greatness of man. Of course, t h e r e is some irony in t h e use which Camus makes of t h e old t h e m e : he parodies a r h e t o r such as Pascal, in order t o entice us in a n opposite direction. The f a c t remains t h a t w h a t m a t t e r s is, without irony, t o "recover" greatness, which t h e glitter of a g r a n d s t y l e is fittingly made t o evoke. 1 1 10

In the early collection, L'Envers et I'endroit, the following remark can already be found: "I needed a greatness. I found it in the confrontation of m y deep despair with the secret indifference of one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world" (E, p. 39). Query: would it have made a difference if the landscape had been mediocre or one of the most ugly in the world ? 11 Camus himself was conscious of his rhetorical gifts and a little apologetic about them. A t the beginning of Le Mythe de Sisyphe, he tries to justify in advance his use of eloquence by saying that the subject-matter requires a certain dose of "lyricism" (E, p. 100). In his works of fiction, Camus reacts against his bent for eloquence in various ways. In great part, though not entirely, L'Etranger is like an implicit criticism of the style of Le Mythe de Sisyphe (the character of Meursault himself is not to be ranged in the gallery of "absurd men": except when he is jailed and sentenced, he does not experience a "divorce between man and his life"). Note also the insipid academicism to which Camus subjects himself in La Peste. In La Chute, he adopts the most facile solution: he gives free rein to his oratorical talent, but

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From an ethical point of view, more precisely from a moral point of view, the transfer of the emphasis from the character to the actor is an incomplete conversion: action is limited to gesture and the how alone is taken into consideration. Besides, once greatness has entered the lists, even the distinction between actor and character becomes blurred. For greatness is essentially a mythical value: it is centered on the character. If it is applied to the actor, it turns him into a pose, into the character of the actor. Lucidity and greatness illustrate the circle of theatricality: lucidity dispels the rhetoric in which the character embalms himself; but, to celebrate this lucidity, to make it radiate with greatness, the essayist resorts to theatrical rhetoric. I n the disparate enumeration of the things which will "recover their place in this meaningless world", Camus lists tenderness. But if greatness is what matters, why tenderness rather than cruelty ? To the styles of life which are sketched in Le Mythe de Sisyphe, why not add, besides the post office employee, the torturer? I t would be easy to portray him as lucidly aware of absurdity in general and of his chosen role in particular. I t would be easy to set this lucidity in a shrine of verbal greatness.

he makes a self-ironical character shoulder the responsibility. In this respect» La Chute is critical of L'Homme révolté as L'Etranger is critical of Le Mythe de Sisyphe.

5 SUFFERING AND DEATH

REVOLT

From the standpoint of ethical theory, the author of Le Mythe de Sisyphe adopts an ambiguous position. On the one hand, he states that the attitude of the actor represents a "comprehensive esthetics and morals";-and he is not content to detect certain values in the resolution to remain faithful to the revelation of the absurd: he celebrates these values and thus appears to commit himself. On the other hand, however, he tells us that his intention was only to depict "styles of life". The author's attitude is reminiscent of the Attic logographer who said " I " for his client. In L'Homme révolté (1951), the author's commitment is more definite. And it must be noted in this respect that he stresses from the outset how unsatisfactory the conclusions reached in the previous essay could be from the standpoint of morals: "This complacency, this attention to oneself, shows the deep ambiguity of the absurd position. In a way, the absurd, which claims to express man in his solitude, makes him live in front of a mirror" (E, p. 418). He is aware of the theatricality of this attitude: "We shall then contrive to substitute a tragic dilettantism for action" (E, p. 415.) These comments by Camus agree with those I made in the preceding chapter. Under these conditions, it may be asked why I formulated my own reservations instead of following Camus' development. The reason is that Le Mythe de Sisyphe is not simply a tentative first move. I t is a complete opening which compromises the middle game which L'Homme révolté develops. The disclosure of basic absurdity invites us to reject the mythical identification of the actor with the character he plays. To this extent, a moral conversion is initiated. But, among the factors which can help us abandon the attempt to "give a meaning to life",

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t h a t is to say, to mistake ourselves for t h e characters we play, Le Mythe de Sisyphe chooses death: t o represent t h e h u m a n condition as a whole, it selects t h e synecdoche of the man who has been sentenced to death. Consequently, t h e revolt engendered b y t h e feeling of absurdity appears essentially as turned against death: " I n t h e world of t h e revolted man, death exalts injustice. I t is t h e supreme abuse" (E, p. 168). L'Homme révolté is oriented in t h e same way: "This essay intends to pursue, concerning murder and revolt, a reflection which started with t h e ideas of suicide a n d absurdity" (E, p. 414). The attitude of revolt against death contains its own values. I t is in these values t h a t Le Mythe de Sisyphe finds reasons not t o kill oneself: to play t h e p a r t of t h e m a n who has been sentenced to death, we have to remain alive. Reflecting on absurdity results in transferring value from t h e life of t h e character t o t h e life of t h e actor. The attitude of revolt is designed to bolster the comparative autonomy of the actor from the character he plays. I t is the value of the individual actor's life which is thus asserted. Yet, reflecting about absurdity concerns human life in general. The value of an individual life is not upheld in so far as it differs f r o m others, but, on the contrary, in so far as it is like t h e others. At t h e beginning of L'Homme révolté, Camus is thus enabled t o move f r o m a rejection of suicide to a rejection of murder. The revolt he is speaking of is not a personal resentment; it is " t h e revolt of m a n against his condition, t h e movement which makes t h e individual stand up for the defense of a dignity common to all m e n " ( E, p. 428). W h a t does this "dignity" consist of? I t is bestowed on t h e actor's, not t h e character's, life. And since revolt is what makes t h e actor assert himself outside the role he plays, we are led to think t h a t t h e dignity which is common to all men is t h e attitude of revolt, or a t least t h e specifically human ability to adopt this attitude. 1 The notion of revolt thus plays in Camus a function similar t o t h a t of authenticity in Sartre: in t h e perspective adopted b y Camus, t h e spirit of revolt constitutes human authenticity. 2 1 "Revolt, on the contrary, requires us to recognize that freedom has its limits wherever there is a human being, the limit being precisely the ability of this human being to revolt" (E, p. 1712). 2 Except perhaps for style, this sentence of Camus might have been written by Sartre: "The goal of art, the goal of a life, can only be to increase the amount of freedom and responsibility which is in each man and in the world" (E, p. 1900).

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I t would thus be possible to justify the assertion that the revolted man perceives, not only his similarity, but also his solidarity, with other human beings. If I revolt in order t h a t t h e values inherent in the attitude of revolt be upheld, I do not revolt merely in t h e way others could revolt (each one for himself); I also revolt in order t h a t others may assert themselves in revolt. The same interpretation can be given to the "cogito" of revolt: " I revolt, hence we are" (E, p. 432). The pronoun we is designed to indicate, not just an acknowledgment of similarity, but a feeling of solidarity. On the other hand, however, it must be confessed t h a t we are dealing here with an ideal, not a factual, solidarity. The social dialectics of action can produce a we only to the extent t h a t there is a they. Even if the theoretical aim is to act in the name of everyone, we are compelled to act in alliance with some against some others. We are caught in the group manicheism on which Sartre dwells in Critique de la raison dialectique.Thus the issue of violence arises; and the question of murder recurs. This is what confronts the actor who wants to become an agent. The greater part of L'Homme révolté consists of presentations of a certain number of literary, philosophical and political events which the thread of revolt is supposed to string together. The way Camus practices the history of ideas and links it to political history does not concern me here. I am only interested in the ethical conclusions he draws from the avatars which, according to his presentations, the spirit of revolt would have undergone. According to Camus, these avatars are not such that we should abandon the spirit of revolt itself. "Separated from its origins and cynically adulterated, revolt oscillates on every level between sacrifice and murder" (E, p. 684). Against these perversions, he reasserts t h a t "murder and revolt are contradictory" (E, p. 685). Properly understood, revolt denies "a justification to murder, since, in its principle, it is a protest against death" (E, p. 689). Camus reminds us of the principles of revolt, as others would remind us of the principles of "true" Christianity. But the earth is not the garden of Eden: the refusal to kill, or to be an accomplice, can but be an ideal, not an attainable goal. The various animal species, the human in particular, do not feed on fruit exclusively; and, in any case, in view of overpopulation, the decision not to kill oneself entails the decision to kill others, or to be an accomplice. As Camus wrote his essay, and as I am writing

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this sentence, animals, in particular human, were killed for his sake and are killed for mine. His decision and my decision to live are justifications of murder. Once the mythical smoke-screen is dispelled, this is the general version of the original sin. The following would be a special version: to decide to have a child is, among other things, to decide to sentence someone to death. Camus does not push his reflections t h a t far. In L'Homme révolté, he concentrates his attack on ideological, or theological, justifications of political murder. 3 On the individual level, he is content to put forward a simple rule: the revolted man who has killed once should kill himself (see, for instance, E, p. 689). On the basis of Camus' premisses, there is something to be said for and against this rule. The rejection of murder generalizes the rejection of suicide. As in Christianity, suicide appears as a special case of murder. One may then wonder how adding one murder to another could pass for an erasure. On the other hand, such a suicide could be granted an exemplary status. The killer has contradicted the spirit of revolt. To make this contradiction clear, he has to go back to the principle: the rejection of suicide. I n other words, if you have been unfaithful to the spirit of revolt in the right direction, you should be faithful to it in the other direction, as it were. From my own standpoint, which differs from that of Camus, all I can say is that, if the rule of the exemplary suicide became accepted practice, the state of the world would probably be less immoral. I cannot say more: too many counter-examples come to mind. Out of three isolated men, two are critically wounded and they suffer so much that they ask the third one to shoot them. The latter draws lots, kills one of the wounded and tells the other: "Now that I have killed once, I must kill myself. Sorry to disappoint you." Camus is not thinking of such cases. His concern is chiefly with political murder. And he is thinking of direct murder, not of the complicity of which all of us are more or less guilty. This rule of the exemplary suicide is to be conceived as one way among others of bearing witness to an ideal. I have nothing to say against this, nor against the fact that Camus proposes an ideal, instead of a practical goal. Ideals are made to direct, not to be reached. My question is rather as follows: does the 3

I n his Réflexions sur la guillotine, Camus will e x t e n d his criticism t o legal d e a t h s e n t e n c e s in general.

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ideal of revolt, in the sense Camus moral sense in the right direction? sense has to be brought into play at Sartrean authenticity, my critique part.

gives to this word, orient the My own conception of moral this juncture. As in the case of becomes external, at least in

THE TRAGIC A N D T H E PATHETIC

The word revolt might enter into a definition of moral sense as I conceive it. People incapable of active revolt may be endowed with a mystical, or esthetic, sense: they are devoid of moral sense. B u t what is morally revolting ? The revolt Camus has in mind is originally a protest against death. But every living being is destined to die: one cannot plan to act against death itself. I n this respect, protesting amounts to pronouncing the word no, making gestures, like an actor in a tragedy: I am reminded of Nietzsche who wanted to say Ja to eternal return. Less theatrically, the protest against death can be lived in a certain atmosphere. However, beyond the gestures and atmosphere to which Le Mythe de Sisyphe confined its interest, L'Homme révolté suggests practical actions directed against at least some types of murder and their socio-religious justifications. These particular goals derive from the ideal of not killing, directly or indirectly. I n my eyes, this ideal is morally misleading. For what is morally revolting is not death in itself, but suffering, more precisely unwanted pain, and the pain of others, since, in so far as we live our moral agency, we do not consider ourselves as recipients of actions. The concentration on the idea of death which appears in Le Mythe de Sisyphe and is maintained in L'Homme révolté does not allow moral sense to liberate itself fully from an estheticism. Moral sensibility is open to the pathetic. I t leaves the tragic to the dramatist, the actor and the spectator. Esthetic sensibility, on the contrary, rejects the pathetic: an artistic exploitation of suffering and compassion is disgusting. Moral sense and esthetic sense thus agree on their respective territories. The line of play which is followed in Le Mythe de Sisyphe results, according to Camus, in recognizing living "as the only necessary good" (E, p. 416). On the strength of this principle, the torturer

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who manages to make his victim last, and would like to make him last indefinitely, is above reproach, while the man who would kill out of pity should be blamed. According to Le Mythe de Sisyphe, which L'Homme révolté does not criticize on this point, "death exalts injustice. I t is the supreme abuse" (E, p. 168). This generalization about death does not take into account the diversity of experiences. From a moral standpoint, death could, on the contrary, be considered as the only equalizing factor in this world. 4 I t comes to everyone and puts a stop to suffering as well as to pleasure. Suppose a life of suffering which would be endless. I must be lacking in Christian charity or Dantesque greatness : I am unable to imagine Hell. Not to kill oneself in order to be able to go on playing tragedy, not to kill so as to bear witness to the honor of the revolted man, are not moral decisions in the strict sense. Neither suicide nor murder, nor the rejection of either, can be generalized as moral principles. Killing the victim (euthanasia), killing the torturer, are means whose moral meaning depends on the circumstances. L'Homme révolté alludes to a dream of Sade: to put an end, at one blow, to life on earth (E, p. 455). Sade does not seem t o have been able to think, except religiously. Let us leave him aside to consider only Camus. According to the principles which he puts forward, this would be, apparently, the morally bad action par excellence. I wish he had discussed the contrary thesis. 5

4 I do not intend to suggest that an ideal of justice is sufficient to orient moral action. To what Camus says about justice (E, p. 691), I would add three remarks: it would be equitable to have everyone suffer as much as the individual who has suffered most; doing some good on one side is not to do any on another; if pain could be universally eliminated tomorrow, how unjust this would be to the dead ! 5 Among the German philosophers of the nineteenth century, Eduard von Hartmann (Philosophie des Unbewussten, 1869), whom Camus does not mention, would have provided him with an opportunity to discuss this thesis. In Hartmann too, moral theory is linked to a philosophy of history. The progress of consciousness goes with an increase in suffering and a progress of conscience: consciousness of life as evil. The mission of mankind is to reach a degree of general awareness high enough to put an end, once and for all, to all forms of life, human or not. Hartmann names Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer as sources of his philosophy. His own influence can be traced in Laforgue and Freud. When I read Hartmann for the first time, his conception of apocalypse appeared to me as fanciful as the others. Shortly afterwards, however, the first atomic bomb was exploded.

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For my own part, I would not uphold this thesis without reservations. For, if moral sense as I conceive it identifies evil with pain, it does not equate pain with life. Besides, a universal, definitive and instantaneous murder would imply a decision in the name of others, some of whom might want to suffer. Still, this action, which may shortly become possible to some individuals, would not be lacking in justification. To the classical question: "Should a child be tortured if the happiness of all other human beings depended on i t ? " I should give a negative answer. Our world is such t h a t the harm inflicted on someone cannot be redeemed by the good bestowed on others, whatever their arithmetical number. To provide a universal and painless murder with some justification, it would be enough t o judge that, if life were not brought to an end, deep evil (say physical torture) would happen again. Abstention would be a choice. The preceding paragraphs might leave the impression that suffering is not mentioned in L'Homme révolté. I must stress on the contrary that, in this essay, the idea of suffering is perhaps as present as t h a t of death. Dealing with the Russian terrorists, Camus regrets the moment "when the spirit of revolt meets with the spirit of compassion for the last time in our history" (E, p. 573). Though in a suspiciously qualified way, another passage praises "proud compassion" (E, p. 700). The most important sentence is the following: " I n his greatest effort, a man can only propose to reduce arithmetically the suffering of the world" (E, p. 706).6 But how can this conclusion be made to tally with the definition of revolt as a protest against death? The situation on earth has always been such that, if you want to reduce suffering, you have to recognize death as an indispensable ally. "Evil and death" are "the problems of those who revolt" (E, p. 444). How is this coordination to be conceived? To my mind, death is morally revolting to the extent that, in some way or other, it involves suffering: fear of death; grief when someone who was cherished dies ; suffering which often accompanies the last moments. But these examples make it clear that one cannot generalize about death as a cause of suffering. 6

At the end of his Réflexions sur la guillotine, Camus proposes the following compromise: "An anesthetic which would kill the sentenced man in his sleep, which would remain at his disposal one day at least for him to use it freely, and which would be administered, in some other way, if he did not avail himself of this possibility" (E, p. 1064).

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L'Homme révolté does not adopt the perspective I have just suggested. As a middle game, it inherits the position bequeathed by the opening: death is the original evil. How does one proceed from the protest against death to the reduction of suffering as a basic goal ? The essay provides no clear answer. All I can say is t h a t certain passages (see in particular E, p. 509) intimate t h a t suffering is revolting because death denies an explanation and a justification to life (hence to suffering). I n other words, the pathetic counts only to the extent t h a t it derives from the tragic. The association which I have noted between pride and compassion could also be explained in this way: compassion is worthy of the revolted man only if it is transfigured by the proud stance of the tragic actor. As far as I am concerned, this line of play will not do. I n practice, you will be compelled to accept death as an ally if you want to fight against "the suffering of the world". And, on the theoretical level, the tragic, as Camus conceives it, concerns every human life, whether it is happy or unhappy. I t is even said in Le Mythe de Sisyphe that "the tragic work might be the description of a happy man, once hope has been exiled" (E, p. 210). If evil and the pathetic are thus to be taken into account only in the perspective of death and the tragic, then a mortal's suffering is no more of an evil than his well-being. Let me sum up this part of the discussion. Against what he interprets as perversions of the spirit of revolt, the author of L'Homme révolté recalls this spirit to its origins, namely the protest against death. But he cannot quite turn his back on the fact that suicide is the only alternative to a strict rejection of murder (direct or indirect). Hence compromises. 7 But these compromises cannot pass for a foundation of the second conclusion which has been noted: reduce "the suffering of the world". From the attitude of the tragic actor, one cannot draw a morals of active compassion, "proud" or not. The comments on Le Mythe de Sisyphe which are included in L'Homme révolté are, in this respect, insufficiently critical. In a confused way, the last pages of this second major essay seem to betray an awareness of this inadequacy. 7

However, the compromises m a d e in L'Homme révolté do not go as far as t h e following note: "At the end, restore some value t o murder, as opposed t o anonymous, cold and abstract destruction. The apology of man-to-man murder is one of the stages on the road of revolt" (Carnets, I I ; Paris: Gallimard, 1964; p. 275).

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These pages appear to be looking for a shift in the line of play, for an end-game which was not to be written. 8 THE BISHOP AND THE

DOG

Camus distrusted t h e word humanism and he would have preferred not to be burdened with this cultural medal. As a matter of fact, the word has too often served as a smoke-screen; a n d not too long ago, some intellectuals still congratulated themselves for being humanists, as others used to take pride in their Christianity. I t must be confessed, however, t h a t Le Mythe de Sisyphe and L'Homme révolté do lend themselves to t h e humanistic label. Remember, for instance, t h e definition of revolt to which Camus gives his approval: " t h e movement which makes t h e individual stand up for the defense of a dignity common to all men." F r o m my standpoint, t h e kind of humanism which is manifested in these two essays calls for reservations, the basis for judgment being t h e same as in the comments on Sartre's ideas. We have to be wary lest the legitimate privilege, or curse, granted to h u m a n beings as possible moral agents should degenerate into a h u m a n racism as concerns t h e objectives of moral action. My comments on t h e tragic and t h e pathetic already show where criticism may come in. T h e synecdoche of t h e death sentence can be applied to every living creature. B u t human beings alone are presumed to know t h a t they will die. I t is on this knowledge t h a t t h e author bases t h e feeling of t h e absurd and what he calls a "divorce between man a n d his life": "Were I a tree among trees, a cat among animals, this life would have a meaning or rather this problem would have none, for I would be p a r t of this world. I would be this world to which I am now opposed with my whole consciousness a n d my demand for familiarity" (E, p. 136). This passage illustrates the very dichotomy between h u m a n and non-human which L'Etre et le néant develops under t h e names of

8 W e c a n picture t h e outline o f t h i s e n d - g a m e o n t h e basis of a n o t e in t h e Garnets: " T h e e n d of t h e absurd m o v e m e n t , of revolt, etc., h e n c e t h e e n d o f t h e c o n t e m p o r a r y world, is c o m p a s s i o n in t h e original sense, t h a t is t o s a y a t b o t t o m l o v e a n d p o e t r y " (Ibid., p . 200). I m u s t say, h o w e v e r , t h a t I a m n o t w i t h o u t m i s g i v i n g s regarding t h e h o l y alliance of l o v e a n d p o e t r y .

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for-itself and in-itself. Against this, I should say t h a t any life is a conflict between interiority and exteriority and that, in this respect, a tree is no more "this world" than a cat, a monkey or a man would be. Furthermore, if we agree that some animal species at least are subject to pain, we recognize thereby the possibility of a "divorce" between the animal and its life: the animal may apprehend the world as an overwhelming anti-self. On t h e other hand, it appears reasonable to suppose t h a t nonhuman animals cannot picture their own condition, nor reflect on their mortal destiny. This is the type of awareness which interests the author of Le Mythe de Sisyphe, a type of awareness which may accompany a state of physical well-being as well as the experience of pain. This is what allows human destiny to be revealed as tragic. Human beings alone can adopt tragic poses, with the lucidity and greatness that Le Mythe de Sisyphe rhetorically celebrates. L'Homme révolté transforms tragic similarity into a theoretical solidarity. The man who revolts authentically endeavors to behave in such a way t h a t a dignity common to all men, namely the capacity to revolt authentically, be effectively recognized. I n so far as the spirit of revolt is part of a sense of responsibility, the solidarity it inspires is justified: what the revolted man attempts to uphold concerning others as well as himself is essential to their human integrity, to their well-being if you like, provided this term is not taken in a hedonistic sense. But, to my mind, this is not what the moral ideal presents as fundamental. If I recognize as my neighbor whoever is capable of revolt, instead of whoever is subject to suffering, I leave aside non-human animals and also such human animals as lunatics and idiots who cannot reasonably be expected to be able to assume the honor of the revolted man, let alone the greatness of the tragic actor. Toward the end of the essay, the author of UHomme révolté lays down as basic the task of "reducing the suffering of the world". But the context shows that he is thinking only of "human suffering" (E, p. 701). He invites us to see in the bourreaux philosophes and in concentration camps the most striking originality of our time in the matter of immorality. I should be more inclined to give this award to scientific torturers. 9 True, cruelty has not been invented in the 9

See, for instance, Mel Morse, Ordeal of the Animals Hall, 1968).

( N e w Y o r k : Prentice-

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last hundred years and this very humanistic inquisition, like the old one, claims to be after the truth. But, through statistics, we have devised a means of extracting the t r u t h (the t r u t h until the next experiment) from the animals which do not have language. The Camusian privilege of those who are capable of revolt is faithful to a Western tradition: it recalls the privilege of creatures equipped with a soul. My neighbor is to be found in the master race: only the fate of those who can revolt can be morally revolting. From a lecture which Camus gave in 1946 to a group of Dominicans I extract the following passage (E, p. 373): When a Spanish bishop blesses political executions, he is no longer a bishop, nor a Christian, not even a man, he is a dog, just like the one who, in the name of an ideology, orders this execution without doing the work himself. We are waiting and I am waiting for a coming together of all those who do not want to be dogs and who are determined to pay the price which must be paid in order that men may be something more than dogs. I have no objection to the use of the word dog in the second sentence: to wish t h a t men should be something more than dogs is to wish, as the context shows, that they should assume the dignity, or burden, of the moral agent. And that cannot be asked of a dog, even if it happens to be sanctified with the name of Saint Bernard. But I find it improper, to say the least, to call, not a bishop, nor a Christian, not even a man, but a dog, the individual who blesses a political execution. For, after all, who has ever heard of a dog blessing or ordering an execution? Religions, ideologies, blessings and executions are properly human, not canine, inventions. I know, Camus was addressing Dominicans: it might be alleged that he would have spoken differently, if he had addressed Franciscans, assuming that Franciscans are more likely to remember Saint Francis, which I doubt. 1 0 And I know also t h a t the human racism which emerges from this passage is rooted in common linguistic usages. Thus, the epithet inhuman is given to acts of cruelty which can be committed only by human beings. I n this passage, however, the word for clog (chien) is not simply used in passing, as a North African insult: it is emphasized. Besides, it is the d u t y of a 10 Besides, it should be noted that the universal solidarity celebrated by Saint Francis is mystical and poetic, rather than moral. It does not distinguish between what is subject to suffering and what is not.

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responsible writer to attack, and not to confirm, the pieces of injustice which are consecrated in common usage. Finally, it would also be an explanation, not a justification, to say that, after all, an essay can be read, and a lecture attended, by bishops, not by dogs.

CONCLUSION

From the standpoint of the theory of moral sense, I have not been able to agree completely with either Sartre or Camus. My interest in the texts selected for comment was mainly that they provided a convenient basis of reflection and discussion. Taken together, they allow one to approach essential questions concerning agent and action, goal and ideal, against a background which is still contemporary. On the most specifically philosophical plane, t h a t of ontology, L'Etre et le néant invites the reader to reflect on human action and human agent. This question is linked to those of Time and freedom. Sartre's essay suggests how action, as experienced, is to be distinguished from objectified process. The way L'Etre et le néant deals with temporality illustrates the strategy which consists in underestimating basic temporal logic (ordering of moments according to the before-and-after relation), in order to assimilate future to possibility and past to necessity. The advantage of this strategy is to break the spell which the idea of a necessity bearing equally on every moment of the historical process exerted on the classical sage, who could find no place for his sense of freedom except in t h e attitude of the disengaged spectator. Philosophically, however, I cannot countenance this procedure: rather than cutting the Gordian knot of Time, I should prefer to t r y and unravel it. But the temporal form was not my main concern: I had to be content with a few hints. L'Homme révolté brings to the fore the question of basic moral goals. But it crops up also if we try to determine what Sartrean authenticity can mean in practice. Though Le Mythe de Sisyphe does not deal openly with the ontological question of freedom and agency, the notions of action and process helped me analyze the feeling of the absurd. And I have found the distinction between agent and actor useful throughout my essay.

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Between the texts of Sartre and those of Camus, there is something common in subject-matter, and also a certain amount of agreement. The experience of the absurd and existential psychoanalysis both attack a mythical bent in ethical matters. Born from a "divorce between man and his life", revolt in the sense of Camus can furthermore be likened to a Sartrean authenticity based on a "lack of nature". Unlike Camusian revolt, however, this authenticity does not specialize in a "protest against death". For Camus, the idea of alienation is essentially tied to that of death; for Sartre, to the experience of the other; for me, to that of suffering. However, both in L'Homme révolté and in Critique de la raison dialectique, I found passages which adopt a point of view close to mine. I summed up the coincidences between the two writers with the word humanism in the title of my essay. The derogatory label human racism suggests how the humanism which is common to the t w o series of texts calls for reservations from a moral point of view. This kind of racism is, of course, far from uncommon: it is snugly ensconced in the works of most Western moralists. Camus and Sartre, the latter with greater sharpness, disengage ethics from the socio-religious perversions with which, even today, it is often confused. They share this trait also with most moralists. For reflections on a general question, moral or not, tend to break the spell. But, at the same time, theoretical contemplation threatens to t u r n moral into esthetic values and ethical theory into a purely verbal ethics. This perversion can also be found in practice. The incoherence of socio-religious models and imperatives (thus regarding killing, love, helping and harming) prevents us from mistaking ourselves for the roles we play, even though we may deem it useful to pretend we make no distinction. But fear, weariness, the feeling of helplessness, the dull, unrewarding, uncertain, nerve-wracking aspects of most moral tasks, t h e ludicrousness of many results, impel us to abandon the behavior of a responsible agent and take refuge in a psychological maze of mirrors where we can be comedian and spectator. We judge something revolting in order not to revolt. We generalize the attitude of the spectators of tragedies to whom allusion is made in Plato andLucian: we purge ourselves esthetically of our bothersome moral impulses. To stress the originality of ethics compared to esthetics, I have

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isolated, within ethics, what I called moral goals a n d ideal, somewhat as one might isolate, under the name of poetry, what is most original in the esthetic use of language compared to cognitive and practical functions. At bottom, it appears possible to gather the various types of value into one, and I should be inclined to mark this junction with the word cosmos. Esthetic works can best reveal this common ideal. But each of them has to do it on its own and leave us outside, in our practical interworld, with a body that words do not create. The sciences attempt to constitute as world the field of phenomena, b u t they have to leave subjectivity aside: what is to be felt is to be felt, and as such not to be known. Besides, they only formulate the rules of the game of nature and the application of these rules to what happened, is happening, or will happen in the single global historical process remains inevitably incomplete and uncertain. Moral action as I understand it takes as its ideal the elimination of suffering, t h a t is to say, the conversion of the historical and practical field into an esthetic world lived under pure conditions of play by each incarnated pubjectivity. This formulation, in its very contradictoriness, shows that this ideal, though it can orient, cannot be turned into a practical goal. The primacy of moral goals inside the ethical domain rests on the recognition of the historical and practical field as an interworld between incarnated subjectivities and on a concern with what is fundamentally evil. But moral goals do not cover the whole active experience: there are activities of play. For certain temperaments, it may be that there can be no ethos outside moral activities. But this possibility cannot be generalized: indeed, someone who would give free rein to such a saintly temperament would be quickly liquidated. I should rather be inclined to view moral activities in the narrow sense as a lien on the ethical estate. Outside moral goals, what could be said about ethics? This was not my topic. But the examination of the chosen texts showed at least the danger of esthetic perversions. A life to be lived is not a biography to novelize and rationalize. Only certain experiences, here and there, may have a good form. L'Etre et le néant orients us toward active, rather t h a n contemplative, experiences: the experience of the responsible agent offers an ideal of integrity. In this respect, it is appropriate t h a t the Sartrean definition of the ideal coincides with t h a t of the agent:

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authenticity is the integrity of human agency. Outside properly moral goals, one cannot, philosophically, impose a goal on activities, except to find their goal in themselves, that is to say, to be activities of play. On the other hand, I consider it an esthetic perversion to view the various human actions as capable of totalization. An action may assume the results of past activities as its material. But it cannot include these past activities themselves as they were lived. Spiritually too, death is our alma mater. A biographer, a historian, may attempt to rationalize his subject-matter, for instance by the use of a dialectical composition. Suppose t h a t he manages to impose a good form: it will be the good form of an esthetic work, at best the good form of his writing activity. To an obsession with totality in Sartre corresponds the nostalgia of unity in Camus. I n Le Mythe de Sisyphe, he appears to be thinking of making a "style of life" compensate for the "divorce between man and his life". But the model is the actor, who has to double as a spectator. I n UHomme révolté, Camus sums up himself what the actor-spectator duality would mean from the standpoint of ethical integrity: it would make us live in front of a mirror. The only kind of unity which he tries to maintain in this second essay is what he calls solidarity. But it is a solidarity in principle only. I t goes with solitude. The author does not fall into a naive unanimism. He does not contemplate the creation of a choir of the revolted. The humanism of Sartre and Camus is not rosy: they are under no illusions as to its applicability. Critique de la raison dialectique emphasizes a group manicheism which scarcity makes inevitable. Socially, moral activities have to deal with an impossible situation. Camus starts from a protest against death and is confronted by the fact that a decision to go on living is a decision to be a murderer or an accomplice. From my own standpoint, the moral agent is not the liege of our Lord Man. B u t the extension of my neighbor to every creature subject to pain, rather than its limitation to whoever can participate in human praxis or revolt, hardly makes things easier. Moral activities are compelled to steal their way through the chinks of group manicheism and take advantage of the incoherences of socioreligious superegos: if they attack frontally, it will soon be proved t h a t their kingdom is not of this world, or unworld. I n any case, as

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long as human and non-human overpopulation remains the rule, not to mention the carnivorous habits of some species, it will be necessary to recognize death as a daily ally. If we decide to go on living, we shall have to ask ourselves, not if we should agree to kill, but who should be killed, and how. The moral state of affairs on earth has not changed appreciably since Camus and Sartre published their essays. Yet, we may be entering a moral age. By this, I do not mean that the earth is going to turn into a garden of Eden, but rather that, on the collective plane at least, cruelty and indifference, hypocrisy and self-hypocrisy, may have reached the stage of diminishing returns and gradually cease to be profitable investments for survival. Overpopulation, depletion of resources, acceleration and multiplication of communications, the planetary range of weapons, unify the manned planet by force. We try to repair the traditional refuge of myths with fast-changing slogans. For how long ? Life on this planet will come to an end. This end is entering the range of the possibilities of human action: the end in the sense of ending will have to be considered as an end in the sense of goal to be decided upon. When should life, or humanity at least, end, and how ? This question sums up the moral mission, and burden, of humanity at large. A morally acceptable state of affairs on earth would need a planetary planning of production and consumption (which means, first of all, a drastic reduction of population). This is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition. Besides, consider that a first world-war was needed to put up a short-lived and powerless League of Nations, and a second world-war to establish an international organization which is kept busy clinging to its own survival. What would be needed to have human beings as we know them set up the means of regulating and distributing production and population on a planetary scale? It appears at this time that the revolution which is needed will be biological or will not be. Summer 1970

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brée, G e r m a i n e , Camus (New Y o r k : H a r c o u r t - B r a c e , 1964). C a m u s , A l b e r t , Carnets, I I ( P a r i s : Gallimard, 1964). —, Essais ( P a r i s : B i b l i o t h è q u e d e l a Pléiade, 1965). C h a m p i g n y , R o b e r t , Le Genre dramatique (Monaco: R e g a i n . 1966). C r u i e k s h a n k , J o h n , Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt (New Y o r k : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1960). Deshaies, Gabriel, Psychologie du suicide ( P a r i s : P U F , 1947). Dröscher, V i t u s B., Die freundliche Bestie ( O l d e n b u r g : G e r h a r d Stalling, 1968). Galluce, G., " S a r t r e , D e s c a r t e s e t le p r o b l è m e d e la l i b e r t é " , Revue de l'Université Laval, X X I (October, 1966). Grenier, J o h n , l'Existence malheureuse (Paris: Gallimard, 1957). H a r t m a n n , E d u a r d von, Philosophie des Unbewussten (1869). Heidegger, M a r t i n , Lettre sur l'humanisme ( P a r i s : A u b i e r , 1957). J e a n s o n , F r a n c i s , Le problème moral et la pensée de Sartre ( P a r i s : L e M y r t e , 1947). M a n s e r , A n t h o n y , " E x i s t e n c e a n d E t h i c s , I " , The Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume, X X X V I I (1963). Morse, Mel, Ordeal of the Animals (New Y o r k : P r e n t i c e - H a l l , 1968). R u y e r , R a y m o n d , Néo-Finalisme ( P a r i s : P U F , 1952). S a r t r e , J e a n - P a u l , La Nausée (Paris: Gallimard, 1938). —, l'Etre et le néant ( P a r i s : G a l l i m a r d , 1943). est un humanisme (Paris: Nagel, 1946). —, l'Existentialisme —, Réflexions sur la question juive (Paris: Morihien, 1946). —, Une idée fondamentale de la phénoménologie de Husserl: I'intentionalité, Situations, I ( P a r i s : G a l l i m a r d , 1947). I I ( P a r i s : G a l l i m a r d , 1948). — , Qu'est-ce que la littérature? Situations, —, Saint Genet comédien et martyr (Paris: G a l l i m a r d , 1952). —, Critique de la raison dialectique, I (Paris: G a l l i m a r d , 1960). —, i n t e r v i e w in Le Nouvel Observateur ( J a n u a r y 26, 1970). T h o d y , Philip, Jean-Paul Sartre, a Literary and Political Study (New Y o r k : Macmillan, 1960). V a r e t , Gilbert, L'Ontologie de Sartre (Paris: P U F , 1948). W i t t g e n s t e i n , L u d w i g , Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Routledge, 1922).

INDEX

Beauvoir, 12 Brée, 60 Camus, 9, 54—82 Celine, 52 Cruickshank, 62 Delacroix, 44 Deshaines, 55 Dröscher, 49 Francis (Saint), 76 F r e u d , 71 Galluce, 15 Genet, 27, 40, 41 Grenier, 61 H a r t m a n n , 71 Hegel, 14, 58 Heidegger, 14, 51, 56, 57 Husserl, 57 Jaspers, 57 Jeanson, 11, 12

Kierkegaard, 57 Laforgue, 71 Lucian, 79 Manser, 47 Montaigne, 63 Morse, 75 Nietzsche, 52, 70 Pascal, 64 Plato, 20, 58, 79 Ruyer, 19 Sade, 71 Sartre, 9, 11—54, 56, 62, 67, 08, 78—82 Scheler, 52 Shestov, 57 Teilhard, 58, 59 Thody, 40 Varet, 24, 25 Wittgenstein, 20