Sartre and Ethics

At the end of Being and Nothingness, Sartre previews a prospective Ethical Theory that would be based on the results of that work. He briefly indicates that one main problem to be resolved is whether Freedom or the God of Freedom has a higher value. Appearing in the course of the discussion, his expression 'spirit of seriousness', used to describe the thesis that values are independent of human existence, is a likely allusion to Nietzsche, who sometimes uses the phrase 'spirit of gravity' for a similar purpose. On that analogy, Sartre might be questioning whether Nietzsche's Dionysian can dispense with such hypostasizations as Will to Power, Eternal Recurrence, and even Dionysus himself, some of which Nietzsche seems to ponder at the beginning of The Gay Science. In any case, Sartre's Ethical Theory arguably never appears, because, according to Barnes, as has been previously discussed, such presupposes the realization of the far from achieved goals presented in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. But, granting that Sartre does defer his interest in Ethics, what it might await is something other than that realization. Rather, by subordinating Freedom to Need in the Critique, Sartre not only signals a complete revision of his earlier theory of human nature, but also undermines the fundamental premise, i. e. Freedom, of the projected Ethical Theory. Furthermore, his advocacy of Marxism seems to entail a commitment to an Evolutionary Materialism, that would be constituted by a contiguity between inorganic nature, organic nature, and conscious nature, a theory that Marxism has hitherto failed to produce. Hence, what Sartre's mature Ethical Theory might await, first, and foremost, is the full development of a Marxist theory of human nature, in which it cannot be ruled out either that the nature of Ethics itself would be radically redefined, or even that Ethics would be rendered obsolete, i. e. as an Historically specific problem.