Playing at Being

Being and Nothingness may not be the Hamlet-like meditation on suicide that some take it to be, but it is Shakespearean in another respect. It agrees with the bard that all the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely players at being. Sartre would go further to insist that even 'playwright' and 'director' are roles. Roles for him are more than socially-defined, e. g. 'job', 'parent' etc.--even emotions, such as sadness, are only performed activities, not passively born qualities. Because even the latter are freely chosen, behavior is, according to Sartre, 'autonomous', as it has been defined here, no less autonomous than the Kantian choosing to be rational. Furthermore, Sartre occasionally gives inklings of a recognition of Idionomy--chosen roles may be socially-defined, but how they can be played may be idiosyncratic. Though he never carries out his stated intention towards the end of the book to develop a full Existentialist Theory of Ethics, what he has presented already suggests striking contrasts with some significant predecessors. First, what is given is the makings of a character-based Theory, as opposed to Mill's act-based Utilitarianism. Second, while Schopenhauer's Moral Theory, too, is character-based, it has character as being completely pre-determined, and, hence, as opposed to Sartre's, entirely unfree. Which of the two Nietzsche is closer to is open to debate, but Sartre would almost certainly argue that Schopenhauer chooses to be Pessimistic, and that Nietzsche freely chooses to be a yea-sayer long before he announces it in Thus Spake Zarathustra.