On Subjective And Objective Ethics

Immanuel Kant and Jean-Paul Sartre are both universalizing moral thinkers, but for radically different reasons. For Kant, it was about the ways we act towards others and make choices and how we can apply these actions and choices in the broadest sense possible, for Sartre, the choice itself would act as the choice for all. There is a subjective dimension in Sartre's ethical model which seems wholly absent from Kant. That's because Kant wanted to create a system of thought in which all of his intellect applied to different modes of inquiry, from the metaphysical to the epistemological to the aesthetic, instead of going by a faith in unending freedom, which Sartre condemned all men as a burden. Simply put, Kant didn't believe in freedom in Sartre's sense, to him, freedom was about being rational. Sartre, on the other hand comes from a lineage of thought beginning with Kierkegaard's "Leap Of Faith", a choice one makes in light of the absurd nature of reality. This would be traced down to a long genealogy from him to Nietzsche, who wanted to leap into the abyss instead and negate all meaning (until writers like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy had to yank man back "out" of the abyss later on). He distrusted systemizers like Hegel who claimed to make universal systems to explain the behavior of the natural, spiritual and social worlds. One of Kant’s ideas that's outlasted Kant himself in the political world, has come to be known as "Democratic Peace Theory" which makes the claim that if all nations just follow the same political order, wars will eventually cease to exist.

But existentialism claims to know better, and that the human experience is full of other experiences that totalizing systems cannot explain. James C. Scott, the late political anthropologist makes the claim (allegedly) in "Seeing Like A State" that constructs like nation states attempt to centralize and destroy unique cultural experiences that can exist within a larger geographic framework, and it seems Kant does this in his own theory of a totalizing diplomatic theory. It bears in mind that countries such as Sartre’s own France attempted this in the past in the creation of an official language, shutting out regional linguistic variants such Breton on the Brittany peninsula just south of Cornwall and the English channel, or Basque along the Pyrenees Mountains near Spain (by none other than Charles De Gaulle in Sartre’s own life time no less!) Rival theories, like classical realism, had deeper more ancient roots, grounded in the presumption that every person and culture in history was obsessed with gaining power, and any attempt to create universal laws of humankind was a fool’s errand, Until Christianity came around. Then shortly after, theories like Kant’s own came to be because of the Enlightenment, as we call it. The idea of sovereign citizens is probably as young as John Locke. Or possibly Hugo Grotius, with his toleration of all faiths in equal measure, paving the way for a universal system of human rights.

But lets not get carried away here. This is not a resolute defense of subjectivism. We see how Sartre's ivory tower antics of a misplaced human rights inquiry caused him moral blindness toward the potential victims of his personal crusade against French colonialism. like how Scott sees states imposing political theories onto larger regions in the goal of bureaucratic centralization, Sartre was unable to see his support of Algerian natives and the Maoist guerillas' attempt to reclaim the land from colonial powers - not knowing or just plain uncaring about families who were there because of colonial powers' mere existence. In a sense, he attempted a new social order, some thing that the intellectual descendants of Kant would be all too pleased to notice and would likely approve of. Unfortunately, he was reminded by his former friend Albert Camus that his family, who lived Algeria, had the freedom to act against it. Instead of Sartre conceding, just like Julius Evola pointed out (paraphrasing) that “Sartre was a last man because he burned out his social bonds, so he was consigned to himself”, he stomped his feet and burned another with Camus. Maybe, just maybe its probably more apt to compare Sartre with a degenerate bourgeoisie version of Max Stirner instead, perhaps? Yes, hell is other people. You just happen to be Satan himself, it seems.

-J./Adolf Stalin